Category: short story

This is a science fiction short story, still in progress.

 

On March 11, at 1:18 pm EST, ghostly apparitions of humans appeared at power plants, transformer stations, and random substations all over the planet. CNN was the first major news outlet to report the occurrences, although people took to Facebook, twitter, Friendster, Orkut, and Renren to report the sightings about thirteen minutes earlier than CNN.

People quickly discovered that photos didn’t capture the spectral bodies, so Instagram was largely useless in spreading the news.

Monica was sitting in her home office in Boston, fighting with a new WordPress template for a client’s blog when her cell phone buzzed. Caller ID indicated it was ex-boyfriend-turned-best-friend, Li Qiang, who preferred to go by the name “Lee.” They’d met in Boston five years ago when she was at Emerson studying journalism and he MIT. He’d moved to California about two years ago, but they remained close.

“Monica! Did you hear? Isn’t this amazing? Me and the guys, er—and gals, are having quite a party here, trying to figure out what’s going on. Wanna watch? Open a page to our webcam.”

“Of course I know! You know me… always connected to the Internet.” Monica struggled to keep her phone from slipping out between her head and shoulder. Why hadn’t she just put Lee on speakerphone? Her fingers danced across her keyboard as she retweeted several tweets, then opened up yet another browser window and clicked the bookmarked URL to Lee’s webcam at Caltech, where he worked in the Physics department as an experimental physicist. “Gottcha,” she said as the page opened and she picked up the live view of one of Lee’s colleagues talking about the multiverse.

“So, what’s the ‘net saying?” Lee asked. We’re pretty focused on a scientific explanation here.”

“So far we have astral projection, ghosts, and aliens.”

“The expected fare… well listen, I have to run, but you know I’ll keep you posted.”

“And me you,” Monica said as a tweet caught her attention, “talk to you soon.”

 

 

Vegetables (working title)

This is a horror/scifi novel novel in progress. The content below is cut from a previous version, when it was going to be novelette length.

Christa pinches the blanket more tightly at her throat and shivers against the cold March wind, silently cursing the Lieutenant and the NuNature agribusiness representative atop the Barrier. The NuNature rep is particularly harsh, staring down at her with calculating, unsympathetic eyes. 

“It is imperative that you all remain isolated, Christa,” she says. “We’re working in concert with other leading agribusiness companies to find a cure. Until then, we can’t be certain all of you won’t infect the rest of us.”

What bullshit! Christa thinks.

The Lieutenant follows up. “I’m afraid that your request for additional provisions has been denied. You can come back in two weeks, for your regular monthly allocation.” He shrugs and looks away, and a flicker of remorse may have crossed his face.

“But, our numbers are growing!”

“The Federal Government decided several weeks ago to shift resources, devote more to finding a cure. I’d think you would have heard that.” The NuNature Rep again, condescension dripping from her words and cutting Christa like small knives.

 “Uh huh.” Christa says. “Let me guess—this decision came about during a cozy meeting between the Feds and the Agribusiness reps in the swank NuNature headquarters. Or, maybe you flew everyone to Hawaii for a nice retreat?”

The NuNature Rep smiles down at Christa, showing her perfect white teeth. She wears an impeccably tailored dark blue trench coat  lined with fur. Christa could feed her encampment for the month with what that coat cost.

“Your attitude does not help your case any,” the Lieutenant says with a voice somewhat softer than usual. He glances at the Rep, then down at his highly polished black combat boots. Christa’s telepathy senses something like regret coming from him, but he is a bit too far away for her to be certain.