Windfall

by Tempe O'Kun

  The old photograph of the Windfall Cataclysm fluttered to her mind. Cold panic raced through her. “You’re lying.”

  “Oh, I’m not.” The handyman tweaked a tiny dial with long talons. “And you shouldn’t risk that I am.”

  “Whatever!” Kylie stood and brandished her flashlight. “It’s a machine—just turn it off.”

  “Afraid I can’t do that, miss.” The angular, obsidian form hunched, tweaking finger-bone levers. “And if you knew enough to find me, you know it’s too late to stop me. You should leave; this lab’s going with me. The last thing I need’s a Bevy following me home.”

  The otter’s eyes flicked to her canine companion. “He’s bluffing.”

  Max lifted an eyebrow at her.

  She lashed her thick tail. “He’s probably bluffing.” Her flashlight beam cut the darkness, catching on the twisted and torn beaver disguise. “Are there more of you? Is this an invasion?”

  “Afraid it’s just the opposite: I’m never coming back.” Joe’s arm cracked a few joints longer to reach a dial. Yellow ichor shone on his sleeve. “Who in their right mind would invade this backwater world?”

  Kylie swallowed fear and revulsion. “Again, we’re just supposed to believe you?”

  Max found the larger disk they’d stolen the first time and lifted it from its cartilage socket. The machinery hummed and pulsed, unabated.

  “A bit late for that, kids.” Bending his head the wrong direction, looking straight at the husky through a jumble of bone apparatuses, Joe chuckled. “Hundreds of years of calculations I could have done in five minutes on any civilized world.”

  The husky furrowed his brow.

  A soft click of shadowy mandibles echoed from Joe’s mouth. “You’ll get pulled through if you stay here. Trust me, being trapped on an alien world gets old, and with your lifespans I wouldn’t like your chances of getting home.”

  The dog’s expression darkened. He slipped the disk into his pocket and gripped his bat. “How do we know we won’t end up with another Windfall Cataclysm?”

  “Ah yes. That was a mistake, ya see.” The creature watched them from his bone platform, his many limbs working levers and bladders. “Got impatient after I finally found a suitable spot for the portal. Didn’t double-check my work. Wrecked what little equipment I had and cost myself another two centuries trying to replace it. Never expected the locals to build a town in a mysterious crater. It’s a wonder life survived on this planet.”

  Max shrugged at his girlfriend. “That does make a certain amount of sense.”

  The lutrine spun to face her companion, arms spread. “You’re agreeing with the giant murder-monster?”

  “Now hang on there, missy, I’ve only been eating the wildlife.” The creature’s voice, polite as always, blended with the strange hum of energy. “Two hundred years of blending in, and I haven’t killed anybody yet. If not for your family, nobody would even know I wasn’t a beaver.”

  A sputter of disdain rose from deep in the otter. “I’m supposed to believe my great uncle just ran off?”

  That frozen smile taunted her. “I always expected him to come back, possibly with friends. Some folks wouldn’t take kindly to my presence here.” He turned back to the dog and repeated: “She’s going to be pulled through if you stay here.”

  Max raised the bat.

  “Buddy, we’re beyond that.” A joint popped in the chitin of his neck. Without breaking eye contact, he continued working the gnarled controls. “The ley lines have converged. The array is already active. Even if you took me down, you only have a few minutes until it reaches critical mass. So unless you know how to shut this all down properly, you could blow the whole valley off the map.” One limb lifted to clack long claws in some arcane gesture. “Again.”

  The husky padded closer, down an aisle of strange apparatuses. “How do we know we can believe you?”

  “I guess you don’t.” The three-sided face craned backwards to eye the pair. Within the depths of his gaze, alien emotions roiled.

  “You tried to kill us!” The otter’s ears pinned back. “And now we’re just supposed to let you go?”

  “I just want to leave.” That trio of golden eyes tightened on Kylie. On the floor, the beaver suit gave a half-hearted flop of disgust. “Scaring you struck me as the sure-fire way to get my equipment back.”

  Max growled, but paused his advance on the alien. A careful toe pushed the discarded costume off a ledge, but it caught on a spire of bone, contorting even further.

  The alien’s genial voice became endearing. Dangling and boneless, the beaver face twitched to a sweet smile. “Say now, what would you have done?”

  “What is your equipment anyway?” Kylie popped up from behind a spindle of webbed bone. “We might as well know.”

  “The spur is a power supply. It’s some fine work, if I do say so myself, considering the lack of proper tools on this planet.” The creature jabbed a claw at the pillar, which glowed bright on a sloped platform. “The disk stores calculations I need to travel home. Like one of your floppy disks, or whatever you kids have these days, but ten-thousand times more powerful.”

  The husky stepped back, shuffling through the tangled web of struts toward Kylie. “How do we know you won’t come back for revenge?”

  “And risk getting stuck here again? So I can get beaten to death by a minor cable TV stars?” Claws lashed out from his tail-leg, seized a ledge, and catapulted him to a higher platform. He prowled forward on three legs. “No offense.”

  Watching him carefully, the big husky offered a slight shrug. “Eh.”

  The otter raised her phone and snapped a picture.

  A jet-black claw flashed toward Kylie. Before the otter could even jump back, it sliced with metallic ring and sent half her phone clattering away. He clacked his mandibles at her. “Not that I’m above a little petty vengeance, mind you.”

  She squeaked in shock, then chattered angrily. “My phone!”

  At her reaction, the three-meter long creature wriggled with what could have been delight. “Maybe I’ve been a little hard on you kids, though you have caused me every kind of headache.” He tapped a vicious claw against the side of his skull, and the dangling, lifeless beaver face gave her a ghastly wink. “Getting that disk back saved me decades of calculations. So here’s some free advice: pick your fights a little more carefully. There’s a lot of nasty critters out there, and you’ll find there are things besides your boyfriend that might like the taste of otter.”

  Outraged beyond words, Kylie shoved the broken halves of her mobile into a vest pocket.

  “Well, I’d better get a move on.” With shining talons, he clacked across the uneven floor. His obsidian carapace stretched, towering over the equipment and the couple. His polite tone never wavered. “Remember to leave once I do. Don’t want you kids tagging along, and I doubt you’re interested in being crushed in a cave-in.” He swept a talon at the controls.

  The portal flashed, leaving a purple afterimage in the otter’s eyes. A sudden decompression popped her ears. A wave of distortion rippled from the archway. Wind whipped through the chamber, flinging loose objects into the portal. She dodged through the tangle of white surfaces to Max’s side.

  Alien bones and lightweight power tools tumbled around them, bouncing into the twist in reality. Each stretched and spiraled into the strange abyss. One by one, they vanished, swallowed by an unending throat of shimmering energy.

  Eyes on them, Joe stepped back into the gateway. His battered carapace shone in the yellow light. He tumbled backward and spiraled in on himself as the twist gulped him down. His upper body stretched and bent in unthinkable ways, as the portal stretched him like taffy to fit into more dimensions.

  Another pulse of decompression yanked the breath from the otter’s lungs. Wind whipped down the throat of the cave, shoving at her back. With a squeak, she tripped forward, then stopped short. A glance back revealed Max gripping the back of her vest with one paw and a heavy column w
ith the other. With floor under her feet again, the lutrine tried to watch the crumpling gateway, even as it strained her vision. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes as the shadow that’d haunted her family for generations slipped forever away.

  Joe plummeted into the eerie depths of the portal.

  As if pleased with the taste, the twist in reality grew wider, the pillar of bone glowing with blinding glyphs and veins, brighter and brighter. The spire stretched sideways, the white floor under it rippling to pump it along. The snarl in space devoured the shining sliver of technology. Its subtle patterns smeared across misshapen new dimensions. Its light spilled over countless landscapes of alien geometry.

  Kylie watched in wonder.

  Max picked her up and ran.

  Wide-eyed, She stared over his shoulder at the room’s disintegration. Around them, the chamber snagged in jagged angles. Instead of melding in upon itself, it jolted and spiked around them, impaling consoles and flinging equipment. As the cave-in reached the archway, it snapped the bone frame in after it, shredding the room into the twist. Joe’s discarded flesh-costume flopped and fluttered into the breach.

  The husky loped back up the passage’s throat as the floor receded under his paws. Up, up, up the ramp he sprinted.

  All around the cavern, collapsing walls tumbled into the twist. Only concrete, dirt, and a hole in the floor above remained.

  The otter gripped her boyfriend close, heart racing against his. With a running start, he dashed up the steep and lumpy incline to the basement.

  The last of the shattered bone fell away into the portal. Rough stones and clods of dirt tumbled after, followed by hunks of concrete and a floor lamp. Max spotted the staircase and sprinted toward it. Kylie wondered where they could go if the portal kept going and swallowed up the world after them.

  Just before it passed out of sight, she caught a final glimpse of the portal. Sated, the twist undid itself with a fizzle and a pop.

  They paused at the foot of the stairs. He set the otter down. The cave, dark now, stood in silence. She groped for her flashlight, a blade of illumination in the inky gloom. She swept its beam along the rocky walls. “Is that it?”

  Broken boards fell from the ceiling. The house groaned. A crack whipped up the foundation like lightning.

  “We’d better go.” He hurried her from the concrete basement floor.

  They dashed upstairs, finding every light in the neighborhood on. She placed a paw on the husky’s chest. “We’d better take the back door.”

  The house creaked again. Somewhere, wood splintered like a gunshot. Decoy photographs fell from the walls.

  Together they hurried out of the monster’s lair, through the handyman’s backyard, and into the welcome embrace of night. Kylie’s body buzzed from danger and elation. Only Max’s hand on her shoulder kept her grounded. On the streets, small groups wandered and gossiped, speculating on everything from gas mains to earthquakes.

  An Afghan hound in a silk dressing gown swooned down the road. “I can feel it! An incredible psychic convergence!”

  “Oh calm down, Martha.” An elder rabbit fluffed his poof of a tail at her theatrics, arms crossed in a stance that seemed rather familiar. “Some kinda sinkhole opened up down the block. Looks like an old mine collapsed.”

  “The alignments have shifted!” The hound howled in melodrama. “Two trackways have touched!”

  The potbellied bunny grumbled, straightened his Crystal Caverns t-shirt, and left her standing in the street. He padded back into his house, past Shane and Sarah, who watched, muzzles agape.

  Max and Kylie shared a secret smile and, together, walked back to her fine aquatic automobile.

  — Chapter 19 —

  Renewal

  As they arrived home, light had begun to reclaim the town and forest. Bourn Manor still slouched against the hillside, but at least with indifference instead of menace.

  The car puttered to a stop. Kylie found herself jubilant, breathless, and numb from the shock of it all. They’d gone up against a predator from another planet and survived.

  She mulled that over for a moment, before it bubbled up a squawk of sudden anxiety. “We need to tell people about all this!”

  The dog sighed. “I still don’t think people will believe us if we say the TV show was real.”

  “Maybe that’s the answer.” She double-checked that the safety was on over the pepper spray can’s trigger button.

  “Are you signing the ‘bring back Strangeville’ petition?” He cocked an ear. “Because you could just ask your mom.”

  “This has to all come out sometime, right? Like, it can’t be a secret forever. So we warm people to the idea of all this with more Strangeville.”

  He nodded. “A nice idea, but the show’s over.”

  “Not for an aspiring young writer…” She danced around him, chittering. “…who happens to be dating the creator’s daughter.”

  His ears dipped. “You’re joking.”

  The otter grinned. “I’m trying a new way of dealing with my crazy.”

  Kylie woke late the next morning feeling clearheaded and refreshed, which was nice. She also woke up snuggled next to Max, which was even better. The sound of the front door opening caused her to tense for a moment at the memory of who’d dropped in to visit last night. Then she heard her mother babbling on her phone and setting down luggage. Within a minute or so, the coffee maker puffed, boiled, and sizzled. Eventually, the activity faded to another part of the house.

  After drifting in and out of sleep a few more times, Kylie rose and peeked out from Max’s room. No sign of Mom. After checking her panties and t-shirt hadn’t bunched up in obscene ways overnight, she padded upstairs and grabbed her housecoat, then ambled around the house looking for her mom. It became necessary to raid the coffee pot as she passed through the kitchen. Upon hearing typing inside, she sidled into the sun parlor. Lush plants lined the glass walls, sunlight streaming in over the well-swept floor. At the south end, near the reflecting pool, her mother sat in a partly-reclined lawn chair, typing at her newest script, a flutter of notes on the floor around her.

  The elder otter glanced up. “Hey squirt.”

  “Hey Mom. Heard you come in.” She stretched, muscles still sore from the previous night’s battle and chase. “Writing already?”

  “Had some ideas on the drive.” The tapped out a few more notes. “Wanted to get them down before they get away.”

  Kylie’s paws traced over the leafy greenery. “How was the con?”

  “Good.” The wilt in her whiskers implied it’d been a long flight back, even with an extra day at the hotel to recover. “It’s nice, sometimes, to receive shameless praise from someone who isn’t dating my daughter.”

  “Max’s liked your work a lot longer than that.”

  “True.” She crossed her ankles. “At least the kid knows a good thing when he sees it.”

  The younger otter plopped down at the other side of the pool and cleared her throat. “So, I have this friend…”

  Her mother glanced up from the laptop on her stomach. “Ah yes, how is Cliché?”

  The slender lutrine deflated backward to the floor. “Fine, it’s me, okay?”

  The elder otter took a swig from her cup of cold coffee. “Go on.”

  “Things are good with Max.” Kylie held up her paws, studying the light as it played through her webbing. “Maybe even great.”

  Her whiskers twitched to a smile. “Great.”

  “Amazing even. He makes me feel…” She grasped for the word.

  Laura smirked. “Sane?”

  “Yeah.” The younger otter’s thoughts drifted back to the front entryway, where she and Max had cleaned up the damage from the fight with Joe . They figured a bunch of scuffed wallpaper and dirty flooring wouldn’t go far to proving the existence of aliens.

  “That’s lovely, dear.” A thought struck Laura and she typed it up.

  Rolling to her stomach, Kylie angled around and batted at the
sun-warmed water. “But…”

  Her mother stopped typing. “But?”

  “I’ve been thinking about asking Max to stay a little longer than the summer.”

  “How much longer?”

  The tip of her tail dipped in the reflecting pool. “Not that long, on a cosmic timescale.”

  “So, forever, as far as the grocery shopping is concerned.” She pushed up her reading glasses. “Kiddo, of all the things to come out of Strangeville, you two hooking up is one of the coolest. I’m not about to split you up.” Her hand rose in a shrug. “Besides, with you two sneaking into each other’s rooms the last few weeks, I’m guessing it’s a little late to be protective of your innocence.”

  “Mom!” Heat flushed under her cheek ruffs.

  “Oh sweetie, did you really think I had that many real reasons to leave town for a few days at a time?” Her thick tail swished along the foot rest of the chair in amusement. “Maybe you are still a bit innocent after all.”

  “Anyway!” The younger otter waved the topic off. “I’m worried he might go home.” Kylie sat up, dipping her feet in the pool. “He comes from a close family. Can I really ask him to stay?”

  “Sure you can.”

  Tension squeezed her shoulders together as she glanced up at her mother. “I’m afraid to.”

  “That’s normal, dear, but being afraid won’t get you an answer.” Her fingers drummed along the side of her laptop. “And do you think he’s going to drop you like an old tennis ball at this point? By the way, does he like tennis balls? I keep wondering if I should pick some up.”

  “Worth a shot; I know he liked them as a pup. And I guess you have a point…” Kylie poked one of the water lilies with her toe.

  “Are you thinking it’s too good to be true?”

  “Maybe I’m cynical.”

  “I haven’t seen Max this happy since he joined the show.” She wiped a coffee ring from the hand-rest of her laptop. “I think it’s safe to say he likes you. And you either trust in that or you don’t.”