100 Worlds: Lightning-Quick SF and Fantasy Tales
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100 WORLDS
A Dreamscape Press Anthology
Edited by
David Nell
This Version Produced For Kindle
All Rights Reserved
This edition published in 2013 by
Dreamscape Press - United States of America
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, store in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Publisher’s Note
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Printed 2013
ISBN: 149355056X
ISBN-13: 978-1493550562
Copyrights: Assigned to Individual Authors
Edited by: David Nell
Website: dreamscapepress.wordpress.com
Twitter: twitter.com/dreamscapepress
Contents
Naptime by Milo James Folwer
Missing Laughter by Jennifer Courtney
Marshal Meets An Alien by Solon Ben Earl
Home Again by Jake Ristic-Petrovic
Coming Of Age by William Van Winkle
Lower Half by Jason Osmond
The Diagnosis by Nicole DeGennaro
White by David Revilla
The Unfortunate Incident at El Sombrero Galactico Resort & Conference Centre by Mark Helwig Ostler
Harmonia Axyridis by K.W. Taylor
South of the Sun by Matthew Wilson
Upward, Ever Upward by Chris White
Leidenfrost’s Portal by Lance Manion
Shattered Dreams by Schevus Osborne
Red Moons by Joel Blumenau
Barbarian At The Gate by Chuck Von Nordheim
Reset by Jessica Alden
Judgment Day by Nick Johns
Library Day by Cheryl A. Warner
Twinkles by John Rathbone Taylor
Jury Rig by David Elsensohn
The Quiet Moments by Robert Lowell Russell
The Baggage Handler by Andrew Patch
The Umbran City by D.L. Smith-Lee
Preferences by Caitlin Sinead Jennings
Sleeping Beauty by Berti Walker
Enclosure by Theodore Kanbe
Envy by Regan W.H. Macaulay
PWNED by Christina Scholz
Found In Space by Robin de Voh
Gingerbread by Lindsey McLeod
Accretion by David W. Blackstone
Judy and the Dream of Horses by Mike Stasko
Countdown by Frederic Himebaugh
The Statue by Steve Newton
When I Get You Alone by Lena Smoot
The Thought Process by Mary Berman
A Star Isn’t Born by Carly Berg
So by John Harrower
Object Lesson by Jennifer Wardell
The Replacements by Mike Epifani
The Franchise by Ross Baxter
Before You Squash That Fly, Consider The Following by Herman Sanchez
Look, Look! by Timmy Jones
Taking Control by Elizabeth Archer
Homecoming by E. Thomas Petrie
To The Victor, History by Ray Yanek
Baking A Storm by Rachel Green
Portal by Erik R. Van Asch
The New Book of Revelations | i-iii by George Sandison
The Power of Imagination by Alisia Faust
Survival by Iulian Ionescu
She Was Beautiful by Thabo Mandisa
After They Came by Shibon Clingman
Cryptic Giant-Speak? by Claire Jones
The Puppet by Erin Eveland
The Kindness of Robots by E.A. Fow
A Sweet Cup of Water by Jacob C. Denton
Upgrade by Terence Kuch
The Infinite Mouse by Kaitlyn Kochany
The Birthday Present by Chris Redfern
Miracle Ears by Marian Brooks
Leap of Faith by Charity Tahmaseb
Moss On Mars by Mathias Jansson
Payback by Jane Percival
How The End of the World Really Happened…The Second Time by David Nell
Keep Running From The Aliens, Man! by Antonio Honda
It’s All In The Lure by Jason Lairamore
Soul by Cat Jacobs
Deny Everything by H.A. Farr
Kids by Amanda Simon
Artificial Intransigence by Mike Scott Thomson
Why Crows Steal Shiny Things by David J. West
Touchstone by Ashley Reynolds
The Compulsion of Pestilence by Eric R. Schiller
Attached by Adam Davidson
They Came In The Night by Conor Harpham
Not Quite Black by Yosh Haggerty
The Sword of Power by Simon Kewin
Friends by Stephen Sottong
The Smoking Tree by Von Rupert
Bay the Wendigo by Danielle Davis
Valhalla by Allison Runham
Recipe For Man by Brenda Bishop Blakey
Last Stop For Gas by Stevehen Warren
Closer by Dee Harrison
To The Flame by Trak E. Sumisu
Cat Food by Stephanie L. Weippert
Rebirth by Ari Ryan Ailin
The Tricyclic Bridge by Shimon Starfury
Letter For Jurise by Chris Fradkin
The Significant Event by R.A. Andrade
Deal by Brenda Anderson
Rift by Matt Scott
The Battle’s End by Stephanie Rose
Desert Snow by Chris Mikesell
Spincast by Rocky Hutson
On The Run by Andira Dodge
Citizen/…Offline by Redford Stephenson
Bit-ing Back by Leo Norman
Naptime
Milo James Fowler
The odorless gaseous intruder had managed to knock out everyone else on board the Effervescent Magnitude, even Hank the hairy Carpethrian. Only Captain Bartholomew Quasar remained immune to its debilitating effects. He’d felt a bit excluded at first but soon realized it was up to him to save the day.
“Right.” He nodded in his deluxe-model captain’s chair while his crew slept on the floor. “So…”
He drummed his fingers on the armrests and glanced around. Everybody looked so peaceful, some smiling, others snoring.
“Oh what the heck,” he yawned.
The day could still be saved after a few winks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. His work has appeared in AE Science Fiction, Cosmos, and Shimmer. www.milojamesfowler.com.
Missing Laughter
Jennifer Courtney
Broken building and an empty planet. Water trickles in from a fracture. It slimes the floor. He squints at a rotting book. Ignores mold and sticky pages, ferreting a
glimmer of life from these ghosts. There are reports to file, can’t leave without data.
Sunlight filters in.
Faded text. A page with exaggerated genitalia scrawled by a child’s hand. A penis, breasts. Darryl is printed on the decaying cover, the L written backwards. For a timeless space he stands in the old classroom. Smelling rot, looking through a dead kid’s book.
Alone.
Sharing the silence with the corpses of silverfish.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Courtney is an aging mother of two toddlers, and currently in her last year as an undergraduate in English Literature at the University of Maryland University College. She intends to pursue a MA in Creative Writing at some point in the near future.
Marshal Meets An Alien
Solon Ben Earl
Marshall knew right away that he was in trouble. The alien was as big as a house and was bearing right down on him. Marshall tried to run away, he zigged and he zagged, but the alien was moving much too fast, and Marshall couldn’t get out of its way. Marshall said a prayer to be accepted into the afterlife and waited for the inevitable. One giant foot-like appendage came down, and Marshall was no more.
The captain let out a deafening yell: “This ridiculous place is really impossible – some doggone bug just squished all over my spacesuit.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Solon Ben Earl is a retired IT Consultant and mathematician, with a degree from UCLA, who has been an avid Science Fiction reader for 60 years. Solon lives in the Las Vegas area, which gives rise to many fantasies.
Home Again
Jake Ristic-Petrovic
Hyperspace sloughed off the nose of Heracles in wispy strands of warped spacetime, observable only on Artemis’ instruments. The jewel that had been an apparition, the great planet of Pomona, glowed in the lower right corner of his sensor monitor. He angled for the little white, green, and blue bulb—a reflection of mankind’s origin—and fired the fusion reactor for a time. Artemis, the warrior who had seen what had become of Pomona’s sister around Sol, was weary from his travels. But the time for the truth had come.
“Hello again. Earth no longer inhabited; we must carry on alone.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jake Ristic-Petrovic is a young writer from Alberta, Canada.
Coming Of Age
William Van Winkle
Joey’s dad became a cyborg when Joey was fifteen.
“I have to. My colleagues have implants. This is the only way I can compete.”
Days afterward, Joey’s dad left to merge with a hive in Minneapolis. Forever. He sent money monthly.
Joey’s mom left to join her husband two years later.
“You’re almost eighteen. You’ll be fine. I love you.”
On Joey’s birthday, he stood among the trees outside the conversion clinic, studying the leaves, deciding. One fell into his hand.
“Now you’re free,” Joey said. But the leaf was brown, dead.
Eventually, Joey carried it inside.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William has been a full-time technology journalist since 1998 and has been fortunate enough to interview futurist/inventor Ray Kurzweil and the world’s first cyborg, Prof. Kevin Warwick. Both men left him fascinated with the idea of self-engineered human evolution and the possible “singularity” transition awaiting humanity, a theme that flows through many of his speculative stories now — including this one.
Lower Half
Jason Osmond
When that creature with the big, black eyes cut my body in half, I hardly felt a thing. It told me that they needed my legs for an experiment, and that it was for a good cause. What good cause? I wanted to know, but it wouldn’t say. When the light turned on, and they beamed me back down into my bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. The next morning, my daughter ran into my room. She had my lower half, my legs, and hips. She hurried over, and thanked me. She said she wasn’t going to need her wheelchair anymore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: During the day, Jason Osmond writes content for a travel magazine, and a column about fatherhood on LAfamily.com. His other work has been published in Shlock Magazine. He is the member of the world-renowned Osmond family, and was the assistant editor, and ghostwriter, for “Stages”, his father’s autobiography. He is currently working on his debut novel.
The Diagnosis
Nicole DeGennaro
“D’ven, you need—”
“—I know! But I can’t sit still.” D’ven paused. “Everything is shifting. Me, too.”
Radindra frowned. “How did you know—”
“—I can see the words.” He motioned to her with frantic fingers. “There on your tongue, in your head. Please stop bothering Aaron about it—no, that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve skipped ahead. You don’t know.” Then he spoke in a wispy language Radindra’s implant could not translate.
He pointed at the diagnostic digiboard in Radindra’s lap. “Now you know,” he said, the words almost a sob. The board beeped; Radindra shivered as she read the result.
Changer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nicole DeGennaro currently works as a copy editor for a science publisher in New York City. You can learn more about her and find more of her writing at http://nicoledegennaro.wordpress.com/.
White
David Revilla
Survivor. The word meant little to him now. His ship destroyed, his crew gone, the lone astronaut floated on the invisible currents of space.
Alone.
That word took on infinite dimension in the void. It was all-encompassing, everywhere and yet nothing at all.
Adrift in a sea of stars, the survivor caught the glint of white radiance. Oxygen depleted, his eyes opened. Blinding!
A…star?
No. Not a star, yet equally radiant. His arm, more a weight than an appendage, reached out to grab it. Like holding the sun in his hand.
His world….
…the locket…his wife and daughter.
Peace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Revilla is a freelance writer with degrees in both English and Publishing. His first short story was published in Sirens’ Call Online Magazine called “Little Girl Lost” and he has completed his first novel “The River Styx” which can be found on his website http://www.darev.weebly.com/. “White” is his first drabble.
The Unfortunate Incident at El Sombrero Galactico Resort & Conference Centre
Mark Helwig Ostler
“That guy. That. Flarking. GUY,” Mriskil raged. His nostrils quivered in front of his mouth.
“Hey, man. Cool your shix. I don’t want to get kicked out of the conference again,” Erg cautioned. His carapace rumbled nervously.
They were standing in front of the floating marquee, which read: Extraterrestrial Taxidermy: Theory and Practice, presented by the galaxy’s only Extraterrestrial Taxidermist, Declan Murphy.
The Annual Pan-Galactic Taxidermist Conference security officials escorted Mriskil out of the conference centre, his tentacles manacled together. The paramedic stretcher floated behind him, the preserved and stuffed corpse of Declan Murphy covered in a white sheet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mark Helwig Ostler is a former reporter. He writes all varieties of speculative fiction. As he takes his readers to other worlds, he imbues his science-fiction and fantasy work with a strong sense of the present, real world. He is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Harmonia Axyridis
K.W. Taylor
Ladybugs swarmed the flagstone. “They’re good luck.” Violet looked at Ben, who stared at another patch of bugs.
Ben shook his head. “There’s no luck here.” He chuckled. “Running from rogue time travelers sucks.”
“I’m here to protect you. Don’t worry.” Violet patted Ben on the arm.
“What are we supposed to do, then, if I’m so protected?” Ben nodded at the ladybugs. “Call the exterminator?”
Before Violet could answer, Ben’s frown deepened.
The ladybugs converged into one pile, slowly turning into a slender man with dark spectacles.
A grin spread across his face as he raised a gun. “Gotcha.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: K.W. Taylor just released a short story collection entitled Grinning Cracks. Taylor’s short fiction has also been featured in the anthologies Touched by Darkness (Etopia Press), Sidekicks! (Alliteration Ink), and Once Bitten, Never Die (Wicked East Press). Taylor’s first novel, The Red Eye, will be released by Alliteration Ink later this year. Taylor teaches college English in Ohio and is a student in the Writing Popular Fiction M.F.A. program at Seton Hill University. Website: http://www.kwtaylorwriter.com. Twitter: @kwtaylorwriter.
South Of The Sun
Matthew Wilson
I don’t like Venus. Men who came before thought it jungle, but the first mission that didn’t crash was eaten by sulphur. Technology’s advanced, and though we survive in suits, the landscape leaves much to dislike.
I miss home, to swim seas that won’t dissolve flesh. Remove my helmet and feel the breeze. This yellow mist would eat my eyes. I wish I was home but mom says the invasion of Earth will begin, and we must stay ready.
Alpha Centauri is a long way. We have to collect our forces on Venus.
Even if I don’t like it here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Matthew Wilson, 30, is a UK resident who has been writing since small. Recently these stories have appeared in Horror Zine, Starline Poets Association and Sorcerers Signal. He is currently editing his first novel and can be contacted on twitter @matthew94544267.
Upward, Ever Upward
Chris White
Upward, ever upward.
Bright, blinding light. Heaven’s wrath, pouring down.
Upward, ever upward.
Shoes scuffle against endless marble, erratic, stumbling.
Upward, ever upward.
My companion falls.
I leave her.
Footsteps echo in metronomic perfection, looming.
He is coming.
Ever upward.
Ragged and torn, the stifling heat, each breath suffocating.
He is coming, upward, ever upward.
Stone-edged hooves - a deal was struck.
Upward, ever upward.
Flames lick at my heels; the taste of brimstone fills the air.