RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.3 USE THE LADDER

OPTION B - WHAT YOU DIDN'T CHOOSE - USE THE LADDER TO THE SERVICE HATCH

By Tomara Armstrong

As an accountant for NOSSA, you aren’t the sharpest with a firearm, but you have watched plenty of television. You know you must first flip the safety on before shoving the barrel into your pants. You shove a little farther than is comfortable, to ensure zero slippage while scaling the ladder up to the service hatch.

The rungs are a bit sticky, sending a wave of nausea over you. You can’t help but notice the air is thicker above the lake of waste, and attempt to hold your breath as you continue to ascend.

At the top of the ladder, you wiggle the latch and slowly push the door open a crack. The room above is fairly large, and appears to be empty. Feeling safe to proceed, you flip the door open and climb through the hatch.

You carefully lower the hatch door and lock it. When you turn around, you’re surprised to see two small children dressed in school uniforms standing side by side. They are studying you, tilting their heads. “I see you,” they say in unison.

You back away slowly, trying not to trip over your feet. There is something strange about these kids, but you just can’t put your finger on it.

“Do you want to play with me?”

As they move closer to you, their faces ripple and pulse; their eyes flicker. You continue to step backwards as they move toward you. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Do you not like me?”

“Um… “ You scan the room looking for a quick out. “I’m sure you’re great kids and all, but I really must be going.”

“I’m not a kid.”

You watch as the children meld together into a revolting blob and quickly ooze into the form of your naked friend, Captain Harper Malloy.

“Crap!” You should have known it was a shape shifter. All those weeks of taking Possible Threats and Extermination in Academy could have really paid off… if you hadn’t slept through the class. Way to go, you.

Though you are disgusted, you are also surprised at how the shape shifter mimics Malloy’s dangling bits with complete accuracy.

“Is this better?” he asks.

“Not at all.” You frown.

Irritation sweeps over the face in front of you, and the shape shifter quickly changes into a topless cheerleader holding pom-poms. “Better?”

“Not really.” You shrug, eyeing her breasts. “Obviously not real… they could be bigger.”

Her head begins to smoke, and the shape shifter begins to flip through different objects trying to impress you; man, beast, and monster.

You remember the gun delicately wedged between your butt cheeks, and attempt to dig it out without drawing attention.

“Surely you are impressed now,” the shape shifter asks as it takes on the shape of a towering dragon with flashing orange and blue scales. Its gaze is drawn to the pistol you are holding out in front of you.

You shake your head, irritated, and unlock the safety. “Why are you even here?”

“Silly human,“ it says, laughing at you.

The laughing strikes a nerve and you fire a blast from your pistol. It clips the wing of the shape shifter’s current form.

“I AM THE SECRET WEAPON!” he booms.

You are so impressed, you wet your pants. Your hands are shaking and the pistol is growing heavier; it falls to the floor and fires again, ricocheting off the metal in the room and braising your ear.

You clutch your misshapen head and fall to the floor. Tears and snot slide down your face as the dragon hovers over you, his steamy breath pushing your hair into and out of your face.

He waits for you to stop crying, to look him in the eye, but you don’t allow him that. You sit and cry in the puddle you’ve created.

As he descends upon you, you will your body to be tough and gristly. You vow, as the dragon wraps his slick lips around you and swallows you whole, to be the greatest cause of indigestion this shape shifter has ever experienced.

*Burrrpp*

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 3

RED PLANET STOWAWAY - CH.2 TAKE THE LADDER TO NOWHERE

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.2 - TAKE THE LADDER TO NOWHERE

By R.A. HUNTER

Malloy’s voice booms from behind you, you can’t understand what he’s saying but that really isn’t your concern now. You consider the door to your right. With all of that noise there might be something heavy in there that you could use for a weapon but there are almost certainly grinding gears into which Malloy could easily chuck you if he so desired. You don’t even want to think about the room to your left.

You choose the ladder.

You close the distance in seconds jumping up onto the third rung of the ladder and not pausing to think before you begin your climb. You look up at the circular opening five rungs above you. You still can’t make out where it leads; all you can see is a sea of white.

You pop your head through the opening but don’t stop until the rest of you is through as well. At last you step off of the ladder and turn to look around. You discover you are in a large, round room painted a sterile white, unblemished saved for several cans strewn about the floor and surrounded by dots.

You walk carefully over to one of the dots and crouch to examine it. It appears to be a bean. Timidly, you reach out and pluck the dot from the floor. Indeed it is a bean and it is cool to the touch. It is a cool bean. You are surrounded by hundreds of cool beans.

Actually, you’d go as far as to say that they are cold beans. Very cold.

Well, you think to yourself, I suppose this goes a long way toward explaining the stench downstairs, but what’s the deal with all of these beans?

You step over to a can. No surprise, it once contained beans. You pick it up but drop it immediately when it is so cold that it burns you. It shatters to the floor.

“There you are,” Malloy’s voice growls from behind you.

You turn and see his head poking up through the opening. You can tell by his bare shoulders that he hasn’t bothered with a shirt and you wonder for a moment what the view is like from below.

“What’s up with the beans, Malloy?” you ask, forgetting for a moment that you are running for your life from this man.

“You didn’t expect us to just sit up here unprotected because the president wants to make nice with the grays, did ya?”

“So you froze a bunch of beans for protection?”

Malloy sneers. Good God, that must be what he looks like when he’s happy.

“The beans were just target practice,” he says. “But now we’ve got something much better.” Malloy offers one last sneer before turning and climbing back down the ladder.

For a long moment you are alone in the room. Suddenly, there is a whine of a hidden motor and a dozen doors open in the wall. Twelve men step into the room. They’re wearing helmets and goggles, which hide their identities, and are carrying white, bulbous rifles with blue streaks swirled on them.

The first man sneers so much like Malloy he could be his son. The thought of that man reproducing sends a chill down your spine.

“Do us a favor,” the sneering man says. “We’ve had nothing to shoot but bean cans. Run around a little, make it interesting.”

You stand dumbly. Your brain can’t process what your ears are hearing.

“Suit yourself,” he says with a shrug. He nods at the guy next to him who hoist his rifle to his shoulder and fires.

A beam -- the same color blue as the swipe on the rifle -- flies out of the barrel and hits you in the left arm. You scream as cold fire swallows up you left side. The force of the blast pushes you against the back wall. Colliding against it, the appendage you once used to write with and, on certain nights, used to relieve a little tension, shatters.

You gape at the cavity which was once your shoulder. Since the initial burning faded to numbness, there is no feeling. No physical feeling anyway. Inside you feel violated and betrayed -- but a surprisingly large part of you wants to yell, “That was awesome!”

Before you can do anything, though, another blasts freezes your leg. It shatters under your own weight, sending you careening through the ladder opening and crashing in a heap on the floor below.

“Good, I was hoping to get at least one in,” Mallow growls from somewhere to your right.

You turn your head and immediately wish you hadn’t when you discover the shirt isn’t the only piece of clothing Malloy decided not to bother with.

Your last thought as Malloy raises his own rifle is, Why does his junk have to be the last thing I ever see?

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 2