90_Minutes_to_Live

by JournalStone

  “That sounds good, Mack,” Stretch said. “But how are we going to get out of here, first?”

  “I got that covered,” Mack answered. “I’m small enough to fit through that grating. I’ll get the cover off of it and then I’ll swing down and hang onto the edge with one hand. The other one I give to you and then we just start tugging until we get loose and fall down to the floor.”

  “You sure it’s going to work?” Stretch asked.

  “And I suppose you have a better idea?” Mack challenged. Silence was the response. “I thought so,” said Mack.

  She went to the edge of the vent and began pulling at the handles and locks holding the grate in place over the gap in the pipe. Had the material been sturdier, Mack would not have been able to get it as open as quickly as she did, with a speed that impressed Stretch. Once the panel was removed, Mack quickly got her body down into the gap. With one hand, she held onto the edge, with the other she gestured to Stretch.

  “Now!” Mack commanded. “Give me your hand!”

  “I…can’t, Mack! I’m stuck here!”

  “Well, I can’t hold on like this all day you know. Never mind. I’ll come over and….”

  “NO!” Stretch suddenly screamed.

  Mack suddenly let go of the edge with her other hand while she spoke. Now it appeared she would be doomed to fall to the ground!

  Fortunately Stretch, with her athletic timing, asserted herself enough to send her right hand zooming out and catch Mack’s hair just before she disappeared through the hole. Stretch tried to pull Mack back in but she didn’t have enough of a grip to make her strength count. Her assertions of strength were enough however, to make the tunnel shake in response. Soon a gaping hole emerged beneath where Stretch was writhing and, before either she or Mack could do anything about it, they were falling…!

  IX.

  Mack and Stretch plummeted down to the ground, screaming as they fell, for they knew full well what waited for them below. Injury certainly, perhaps even death, if the injuries were severe enough. However, they were fortunate enough to hit two objects before they reached the floor. It was unfortunate for the two Prosperian soldiers who broke their fall—they were knocked out cold, as were the girls.

  Stretch was the first to regain consciousness and when she did, she screamed loud enough to wake Mack—and everyone else on the ship that was asleep, seeing how far her voice could carry itself.

  “What the hell…?” Mack said, as she revived herself and got up off the soldier who broke her fall. “What are you panicking about Stretch?”

  “They’re dead!” Stretch moaned. “We killed them! And when they find out about it, they’ll kill us!”

  Mack could not reach Stretch’s face to slap her, which would have been the customary procedure to cure this oh-so-obvious case of hysterics on Stretch’s part. So Mack did what she could do—she stomped hard on Stretch’s foot.

  “Ow!” Stretch shouted as she grabbed her injured foot. “Cut that out Mack! My feet are my fortune!”

  “Shut up and stay calm!” Mack barked and when Stretch had acquiesced and restored the traditional stoic impression on her visage, Mack continued.

  “We didn’t kill these guys—we knocked them out is all. It’d take somebody even bigger than you to kill a guy if they fell on him. They’re just out cold and they’re in the perfect position for us to strip them and take what’s theirs!”

  “Mack!” Stretch was appalled. “We’re virgins, remember? And I don’t know how experienced they are but, with us being only thirteen, I think that would constitute rape, wouldn’t it?”

  “Their uniforms dummy!” Mack snapped. “We take their uniforms, pretend to be part of the team for a bit and then we find a vessel to get us back home. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “Yeah,” Stretch apologized. “Sorry, Mack. But you know how I feel about that kind of stuff….”

  “You and your purity pledge!” said Mack affectionately. “I know. Come on. Let’s get ourselves ready.”

  X.

  Soon afterwards, two new Prosperian soldiers were unexpectedly added to the rolls. One was only slightly bigger than the average Prosperian. The older incredibly more so. Still, in the regulation helmet, gloves, boots, sunglasses, flak jackets and pants, they looked like they belonged. So, if anyone was initially suspicious of them, they eased their minds by chalking the appearance of the two new men up to the genetic abnormalities that occasionally occurred on Prospero, through the breeding of the native race with alien organisms.

  As it turned out, these two new soldiers had joined at an opportune time. For, as soon as they exited the laundry room, a commandment was issued on the loudspeaker requesting (read: demanding) the presence of all available soldiers to present themselves in the presence of Commander Hamlet in the his chambers or instantly face charges of insubordination and therefore a speedy death. Thus, these two new entries in the Prosperian soldier sweepstakes were carried along a tide of troops to the chambers of Commander Hamlet. It was exactly where they wanted to be.

  Hamlet was waiting for them. And he spoke to them nonstop for nearly three hours. About anything and everything they would need to know about the people and terrain of Earth, the planet they were about to invade. Everyone paid close attention as always, for they knew Hamlet disliked the idea that his speeches could be remotely considered a substitute for NyQuil—even if sometimes that actually was the case. The chief exceptions were the two larger-than-normal recruits plunked against the chamber walls. Those two had to be hissed at or violently coaxed into restoring their attention and senses when they began violently snoring in the midst of the oratory.

  At the conclusion of the speech making, Hamlet and everyone else left the chamber. Save for those two.

  “Boy!” Mack said as soon as they were gone and she had removed the helmet and glasses from her disguise. “What a windbag that Hamlet is, huh, Stretch? Stretch?”

  Her companion was sound asleep; having been driven to that condition some time ago by Hamlet’s wandering words. Mack was forced to clout her on the head to get her to wake up, which immediately did the trick.

  “You sure hit hard Mack!” Stretch observed, removing her helmet and glasses and rubbing a pained spot on her head. “Even with the helmet on I felt it!”

  “Who do you think I learned how to do it from?” Mack asked rhetorically. “Look! There’s the thing with our magic in it!”

  She had indeed spotted the sugar bowl-like container where Hamlet had contained the magical powers. The powers they had earned from long practice and skill development as witches, only to have him drain those powers from them and leave them helpless. But not for long.

  Mack took the lid off the device and shined it in the direction of herself and Stretch, just as Hamlet had done earlier. Immediately their magical abilities—the skills that had made them qualified witches—were absorbed back into their bodies. As they did, Mack and Stretch found a renewed sense of vigor build inside of them.

  “Have we got them back now?” Stretch asked.

  “Only one way to find out. Let’s do the fire spell and see if it works.”

  “Right,” said Stretch.

  They each said a low oath and sent an arm in the direction of the area they wanted fire to be created. In an instant the room was ablaze and filling with smoke.

  “We got it back all right!” Mack coughed. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “I’m with you!” Stretch agreed. Hastily putting their helmets and glasses on again, they left.

  XI.

  They were cornered immediately by a superior officer. Fortunately, there was no time for questioning anyone about tardiness or where they had been, for the invasion had begun! Mack and Stretch were simply hustled—bodily—to a two-person spaceport in a shuttle bay. They were told to report immediately as soon as they arrived at the intended destination—Grand Forks, North Dakota— within ninety minutes. Or else they risked disciplinary actions—such as death. What the
y were not told, was how to operate said spaceport, so they were left looking at it for a minute and wondering what to do. At least Stretch was.

  “Mack!” she whimpered finally. “What are we gonna do? They’re gonna destroy our hometown and we’re letting them get away with it!”

  “No we’re not!” Mack growled in response. “Stop being a whiny little kid about this Stretch! We’re going to get out of here and stop them, and that’s that!”

  “But how?” Stretch questioned. “We don’t know how to fly this thing…or drive anything else for that matter!”

  “We don’t need to!” Mack said. “Get on!”

  Once they were safely on board, Mack took the glove off of her right hand and waved it. A flash of light was directed at the spaceport’s instrument panel, a short explosion occurred. A mechanical voice asked what was required, “Sir?”

  “FLY!” Mack commanded. “To Grand Forks, North Dakota damn it and fast! And if you so much as try to drop us at Grand Forks, British Columbia, Stretch and I will take you apart and sell you for a considerable fortune in scrap metal! Got it?”

  The message was received and understood. “Sir”. And abruptly, the pair found themselves hurtling through space….

  XII.

  The trip was fast and speedy and it was only through some of Mack’s additional spells that they managed to hold on to the device for the descent downwards to Earth and Grand Forks. However, they got there as soon as possible and without a scratch on them. Such would not be the case for the following assault on the Prosperians but, by this time, Mack and Stretch no longer cared. Newly re-empowered with their magical skills—which served the purpose of compensating their physical abilities—they were determined to rid themselves of the alien menace to Earth, once and for all.

  Mack ordered the machine to stop flying after she spotted the Prosperian troops massing alongside the Red River, in Riverside Park. It dropped down behind one of the stone walls the city had erected to keep the river at bay following the Flood of 1997. The young sorceresses shed their outer disguises and made their way down to where Commander Hamlet was addressing the troops, as he had before. He did not notice them, until he turned around and spotted them standing right behind him, (although most of the soldiers had already seen them and started quaking in fear in response).

  “You!” he shouted angrily.

  “Yeah!” Mack answered. “Us!”

  “How did you escape…?” he began to demand, before Stretch cut him off by cuffing her hand around his neck.

  “Shut up and listen!” Stretch growled. “We want you out of here…and not even in your precious ninety minutes either! We mean now!”

  “You don’t even want to know what we’ll do to you if you don’t!” added Mack. She tossed a beam of light on the ground to get their attention while Stretch, harshly and in a most undignified manner, threw Hamlet on the ground. He convulsed with rage in response.

  “Macbeth!” he demanded of his subordinate. “You were supposed to have restrained them, remember?”

  “Yes sir,” said MacBeth. “But they escaped….”

  “Escaped? How?”

  “Like this!” said Stretch. She picked him up, punched him hard, and sent him flying into the nearest bush. He emerged even more disheveled than before and even more enraged.

  “We were prepared to negotiate peacefully with your race, had you admitted the inadequacy of your firepower against ours,” screamed Hamlet. “But now, to hell with that! ATTACK THEM! And KILL THEM!”

  “Just try it!” Mack and Stretch snarled in unison.

  Immediately, they were surrounded by the grey bodied, red-eyed Prosperians, who outnumbered them five to one. The pair were, however, up for the challenge. Just as before, they punched, kicked, wrestled, tackled and mercilessly beat up any Prosperian in their path. And, for extra emphasis, they made them magically disappear once they had defeated them, which reduced the size of the force they were fighting almost immediately and made the edge increasingly within their grasp. Yet it was at that moment the tide began turning.

  One alien soldier remembered how Stretch had been humbled by the chains of Prospero earlier. Sensing how to control her, he taunted her as she fought off several of his fellows at once. His taunts enraged her enough to get her to chase him and then tricked her into sticking her hands out so he could stick the chains on her arms. He tightened them and she was weak once again. As she struggled in vain to free herself, a fresh corps of recently landed Prosperian soldiers arrived and forcefully pushed her to the ground and began attacking her.

  “MACK!” Stretch bellowed at this point. “HELP ME! They got the chains on me again!”

  Mack, in the midst of fighting off a larger than average size Prosperian as big as her, turned in the direction of Stretch once she heard her companion’s cry. She ran to aid Stretch but her opponent, disregarding any rules of honor, on his or any other planet, literally stabbed her in the back!

  “STRETCH!” Mack called out to her friend. “I’ve been HIT! I haven’t got long!”

  “NO!” Stretch shouted. She tried to rise but too many Prosperians held her in check.

  “Don’t worry!” Mack said. “I know what to do—the time reversal spell!”

  “Are you sure?” asked Stretch. “That’s kind of dangerous…”

  “WE DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!” said Mack.

  With her last remaining breaths, Mack uttered a series of archaic Latin words as loudly as she could. Then the entire park was surrounded by a dense, inky-black fog….

  XIII.

  “So that’s it so far,” Mack said. “What do you think?”

  They were in Mack’s room at home. She was seated at her desk as she read aloud the manuscript of her recently completed story to Stretch, who bent down by Mack’s shoulder as she read.

  “It’s fine, by my standards anyway,” the taller girl admitted as she stood to her full height. “But what do I know about writing? You said in there that I was just a dumb jock!”

  “I had to exaggerate a bit Stretch,” Mack admitted as she turned her chair around to face Stretch. “Our lives are boring. Publishers need things jazzed up if they’re gonna read it, let alone publish it!”

  “Yeah, but I’m not that dumb!” said Stretch. “You know that. And plus, I’m not that strong either.”

  “You can bench-press twice my weight! I saw you do that today!”

  “Sure, but I can’t punch my way through a wall. And you have me punching through a metal one, yet!”

  “Like I said—exaggeration! That’s what sells stories Stretch. You just don’t understand the way the writing game works.”

  “Well, you got some things right. Our appearances, my height, our friendship. Except that bit about us fighting each other—we’d never really do that, right?”

  “Sure we wouldn’t. But the story needed conflict…”

  “Never mind the writer jargon Mack—it only confuses me. I’m used to normal stories and magic and aliens and unbreakable chains and all that stuff you have us go through just isn’t normal.”

  “Writers write what they know Stretch,” Mack insisted. “I know you and me and what we do. All I did was put us into a fairly fantastic setting and let us loose. No harm in that, right?”

  “No,” Stretch admitted. “But just don’t push the fantasy bit too far. Or share this piece of whimsy with anybody who could use it against me. If I hear anybody start calling me “Stretch The Giant Killer,” I’ll come down here and beat you up so hard…”

  “Okay Stretch!” Mack answered. “I’ll lay off on it for a bit. But it takes the stress off me, you know? Just like you on the court.”

  “Yeah,” said Stretch. “Never thought of it like that,” she flexed one muscled arm for them both to see. “But still, my guns may be big but nobody is the kind of strong you made me in your little fairy tale. If I didn’t actually have a brain in my head, I might really believe that and I’d get myself into trouble.”

  “That’
s the last thing I wanted buddy,” Mack said as she and Stretch firmly embraced.

  “Well, I gotta go,” Stretch said as she broke their clinch. “See you later Mack. And be careful about what you write about!”

  “I will. So long Stretch.”

  When her friend had left the room, Mack thoughtfully considered the manuscript she had written for a moment. Then she dropped it on the floor and waved her hands above it and toward her desk. In moments, the bottom drawer of the desk opened, the manuscript floated into it and then the drawer closed.

  THE END

  In the Shadow

  of the Banyan Tree

  (Honorable Mention)

  By

  Jennifer Phillips

  Concentrating on an itch that cannot be scratched is a certain path to insanity.

  Although my muscles are paralyzed, I can still feel everything. Some assume that the paralysis extends to my nerves but this is not the case. I can feel everything—every bedsore, every fly that walks upon my arm, every piercing jab of a mosquito and every tingle that becomes an itch. I feel it all; I just cannot do anything about it. The fly has free reign to march up and down my torso until he becomes bored and leaves. The mosquito feeds on me until sated, flying away heavy and full of my blood. The itching develops and builds. Like an orchestra settling into a movement, it starts and swells; it expands and reaches a crescendo before it finally passes. I say it again: Concentrating on an itch that cannot be scratched is a certain path to insanity.

  Indonesia has been my home for many years but I have been in Denpasar for only three of those years. More precisely, three years, six months and four days, which means I have called this place—the Denpasar Nursing and Aging Care Facility—home for three years, six months and one day. It took three days for doctors to determine that although I was alive, no one was coming to claim me. I was far from my home and the company, scouting for locations. No one missed me and no one would ask for me. Others had been lost at sea with little notice; anonymity has its price.