The Garden at the End

~ Chris B.

The following is another short story that I wrote recently as part of an ongoing writing prompt exercise with a fellow writer. The purpose of the exercise is to give us both a chance to practise writing prompts and stories. The original prompt phrase or sentence is highlighted in bold.

This week we join three travellers lost in a strange land. 

***

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Photo by Gustav Gullstrand on Unsplash

Lorlea pointed the camera of her data pad at the sky, carefully aiming for the swathe of stars above the clearing. The app gave a down-beat chime. She tried again, stretching her arms, holding it up as high as she could, as though she was trying to patch the gap in the trees above her head. The bad chime sounded again, and a glaring red question mark flashed over the image the camera had captured.

Star Match: Not found

Wifi: No networks in range

GPS: No signal

Radioisotope Dating: Insufficient background levels

Where were they? Lorlea wondered again. Actually, scratch that, she knew exactly where they were. It was when they were that was the real question.

It was supposed to be a routine mission for Lorlea and her fellow chrononauts. A little hop into the future in the time capsule, a spot of data mining, a pardon-my-paradox and then back to the present day. But when they had recovered from the incapacitating effects of the chrono-displacement…well, the refueling station was nowhere to be seen. Just these endless trees.

It was clear that they had gone too far in one temporal direction or the other. Jaecob had argued that they’d accidentally traveled into the past, based on the lack of any wifi connection. It was hard to picture any point in the future without wifi. But Lorlea didn’t think the radioisotope readings bore that out. The Earth would have been hotter in the past, not so cool that she couldn’t get a radioactive decay measurement. She was convinced they’d gone further into the future. Way into the future. It wasn’t a debate she had to revisit any time soon though, because Jaecob was now very definitely dead.

So far there had only been three things that Lorlea, Khal and Jaecob (before he died horribly) had seen that were recognisable. The first were the trees. None of her crew were botanists – or even amateur gardeners – so they couldn’t identify the species. But the trees had brown bark, tall trunks and green leaves, and that was enough to make them feel familiar enough to be comforting.

The second thing was the grass. Although the seemingly random spread of the trees in the forest gave it a natural appearance, the grass was without exception immaculate. It was a healthy, vital green, and short too, as though it were freshly mowed every day in a lovingly tended garden.

The third thing they had recognised was the toucan. There were many brightly coloured exotic birds flapping around in the trees, whistling strange songs, but the toucan was the first one that they thought they could identify – even if it was larger than normal with a beak of purple rather than orange. Jaecob had approached it, just relieved to see something vaguely normal. Something they could put a name to. The toucan had hopped down a branch or two towards him, made a curious trumpeting sound, and then neatly and expertly eviscerated him. Lorlea and Khal fled in terror, running through the trees, chased by Jaecob’s agonised screams and the otherworldly trumpeting of the toucan.

If those were the three familiar things then there were plenty of unfamiliar things to outnumber them. Occasionally they would come across tiny houses built into the roots of the trees – delicate things that might have been inhabited by miniature dolls or fairies in a more  whimsical time. In other places they stumbled across thick bushes that, like the grass, appeared neatly pruned. Sometimes high-pitched, childlike laughter could be heard from inside, despite there being no obvious means of anyone getting in or out through the dense leaves.

Then there were the abandoned gazebos. Lorlea and Khal took these as another clue that civilisation must have existed her at one time. They were strange things with no walls and brightly coloured roofs that hurt the eyes if you stared at them for too long. There seemed to be one in every clearing. There was one in the clearing with them now. Khal was searching it, the clinical white of his chrono-flight suit making him look like a ghost flitting among the ruins of a long vanished civilisation. The flight suits didn’t really offer any protection – as the toucan had shown them – but they had all mutually decided to keep them on. Besides, they would need them if they ever found a way to refuel the time capsule.

Lorlea tried again to get a clear shot of the night sky and work out how far in the future they were from the positions of the stars. It still wasn’t working though. Her view was too restricted by the top of the trees. She just couldn’t capture enough of the stars at once for the app to extrapolate their motion and previous positions. Lorlea had considered climbing a tree, but then who knew how many toucans were actually out there?

Night had only just fallen. This was their third night here and already she dreaded it. She listened and there was just nothing…it was the worst sound she had ever heard. That was because she knew it was the calm before the storm, a dread moment of anticipation. In the daytime the garden forest was relatively silent and still, but in the nighttime, as the moon came up, suddenly it sprang to life. Giant white flowers suddenly bloomed, the birds began to sing their bizarre songs and lilting music drifted from the gazebos.

Lorlea and Khal settled down in the gazebo, huddling down together to wait out the night, trying to ignore the music box plinking that came from the roof above them.

When Lorlea woke it was the sullen silence of daytime. She sat up with a start when she realised it was even quieter than it should have been. Khal was gone. She leapt to her feet, calling his name. No response, but in the distance she thought she heard a tiny chop-chop-chop of propellers, as though some small airship or dirigible was navigating languidly through the trees. Was it a rescue craft? Why had they taken Khal and not her? She ran frantically in the direction that she thought the noise was coming from, catching and tearing her flight suit on branches in her haste. But it was pointless, there was no trace of Khal or whatever mysterious craft had carried him off, if indeed that was what had happened.

On her fifth day in the garden, Lorlea finally met another person. Or, what may once have been a person. Or maybe he never was. The stranger walked unhurriedly through the trees, his humanoid body androgynous and naked with a sickly blue hue to his skin. He seemed to have no possessions other than a red rag or blanket that matched the shock of blood red hair on his head.

Lorlea had spotted the stranger ambling through the trees before he had noticed her. She froze, uncertain whether to call out or quietly slip away. But despite his bizarre appearance, there was no air of menace about him. She wondered if he was a native of this strange place, or simply lost like her? Was he a distant relative of mankind, or something else entirely?

Lorlea had not slept properly in days, and she knew her judgement was not as effective as it should be. Yet she could sensing no threat from this strange traveller. Deciding she had nothing to lose at this point, Lorlea called out and waved to him. The stranger turned, regarding her with surprisingly soft features, and waved back. They walked towards each other; Lorlea’s steps cautious, the stranger’s almost playful. She was disappointed to discover that he did not speak English, or indeed any language she recognised. Jumbled syllables spilled from his mouth, many repeating, but none making sense. It was like his words were in a little pickle. A deep wave of weariness washed over Lorlea. Another mystery. Another thing that made no sense. The longer she was here, the more dream-like and surreal this garden forest seemed. And now the night was fading to black and the stars were out and bright.

As though sensing her tiredness, the stranger took her arm and led her through the trees to a gazebo that softly hummed a lullaby. The clearing that it sat in was the biggest she had yet seen, and Lorlea was able to capture an image of the stars on her data pad as they walked across the grass. The progress wheel on the app whirled, calculating how far the stars had moved since her crew had left their original time line. Concentrating on the data pad, Lorlea stumbled as she was led up the step into the gazebo.

“Oopsie daisy,” said the stranger kindly.

Lorlea collapsed in a pile of blankets on the gazebo floor, regarding the stranger with renewed interest. She had understood that! Maybe he knew other phrases she understood too?

The stranger made himself comfortable, and Lorlea decided to do the same, realising that they probably weren’t going anywhere else tonight. With a sense of resignation, she finally slipped out of her flight suit and helmet, revealing her pink dreadlocks and the brightly patterned dress that was her favourite. She wore it under her flight suit on every mission for good luck.

The blue stranger smiled appreciatively, then picked up a stick and drew in the dust on the gazebo floor. He drew himself, navigating the deep dark ocean on a tiny boat. The app chimed softly with a positive noise. Two billion years it said. Two billion years of the stars moving and the world turning.

Lorlea understood then. The blue stranger was a traveller, just like her, and what’s more she knew where they were. This was where the lost went to die; travellers, dreams and more besides, in the garden in the night.

Where the Whippoorwills Sing

~ Chris B.

The following is another short story that I wrote recently as part of an ongoing writing prompt exercise with a fellow writer. The purpose of the exercise is to give us both a chance to practise writing prompts and stories. The original prompt phrase or sentence is highlighted in bold.

This week, much like a incautious traveller straying into some half-forgotten New England village just as the sun sets, I’ve wandered back into Lovecraft territory…

***

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Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

Most people thought the sound of bird song was lovely, but she always felt that it was a portent of impending doom. In particular, Ada had learned to fear the song of the whippoorwills from the tales her grandma told. The two of them had been sat beside her grandpa’s bed, the balcony doors flung open to alleviate the stifling summer heat while the song of the ill-omened birds drifted in from the moonless night.

Grandma had told her that the whippoorwills would gather outside the window and sing in time to the breathing of a dying person, matching it perfectly, biding their time. Ada was a precocious child, level-headed and not given to flights of fancy. She had been raised within the straight lines and known angles of the city, where there were no dark corners and no blank spots on the map. But since her parents had died and she’d come to live here on her grandparents’ Massachusetts country estate, it became a little easier to wonder at what secrets might be hiding just out of sight. Wide-eyed, Ada listened to what her grandma had to say on the secret lore of the fog-wreathed hills and lonely woods.

“Pay yer grandma no mind,” wheezed her grandfather, trying to laugh it off and set Ada at ease. He paused for a moment as his chest heaved rapidly, struggling to catch his breath. The unseen whippoorwills outside momentarily sped up their rhythmic singing, seemingly matching his gasps. “Besides,” the old man added craftily, “they won’t catch me!”

Ada listened with mounting horror as her grandma described what happened when the marked person finally breathed their last.

“The whippoorwills will try an’ catch a departing soul,” said her grandma, talking as though she was describing the most ordinary thing in the world, “if they get it then they’ll flutter off, cackling like daemons at their feast. If the soul escapes their clutches then their singin’ slowly fades to disappointed whistles.”

Ada’s uncle, a thin man named Greer, tutted disapprovingly from the corner of the room without looking up from his newspaper. He was only there grudgingly; the bottle was calling him and it had taken an awful lot of cajoling from Ada’s grandma and threats of withholding his allowance to persuade him to come up to the bedroom. Regardless of whether he wanted to be there or not, it was clear that he didn’t believe in talk of whippoorwills and souls. Ada took her grandpa’s hand, her eyes wet with tears. She silently prayed the old man was right and he would be too fast for the hideous nightjars that sung and trilled in the darkness of the garden, just beyond the light cast by the grand old house.

It wasn’t until nearly two hours later that Ada found out. The end was near, and her grandpa struggled to breath, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the song of the whippoorwills lifting to a crescendo and falling away as they matched his rapid sobs. Ada wanted to get up and throw something at the ghastly birds. But she was a dutiful granddaughter and stayed where she was, holding one of her grandpa’s hands, her grandma holding the other, and her uncle nonchalantly flipping the pages of a motoring magazine in the high-backed corner chair.

With one last heaving intake of air, her grandpa passed away. Ada clutched his hand even tighter and held her breath. Outside, in the oppressive night air, the song of the whippoorwills slowly faded to disappointed whistles and then silence.

“They didn’t get ‘im,” said her grandma, just as if she’d always known they wouldn’t.

From then on the old house seemed a little emptier to Ada. With grandpa gone it was just grandma rattling around the big rooms and long halls, and her uncle skulking around, never too far from the liquor cabinet. As the years passed Ada’s grandma became a little frailer, the house a little more dilapidated and her uncle a little more callous. When it was time for Ada to leave the house and attend a college in the city, her grandma begged her to stay. She told her that she was getting old and slow, and wanted Ada to stay with her until the end. It nearly broke Ada’s heart to pack-up and go; she didn’t leave because she didn’t want to stay with grandma. She went because she wanted to see the world again beyond the crumbling house and the sallow woods with the birds in whose songs she could find no happiness.

A month passed since her leaving, then six, and before Ada knew it she had been apart from her grandma for a year. At first they exchanged letters every week, but as time passed the letters became more infrequent and her grandma’s handwriting slightly less legible, until finally she received a black-bordered envelope. Ada opened the envelope with trembling fingers; the letter inside was from her uncle Greer, curtly informing her that grandma had died and inviting Ada back to the funeral, if she would care to attend.

The funeral was a quiet and solemn affair, for few of grandma’s relatives or friends were left alive to pay their respects. The casket was closed, contrary to the custom of the family and the church, which left Ada saddened that she couldn’t see her grandma’s face one last time. She asked her uncle why this was, but Greer simply shrugged, saying that he felt they’d all seen enough of grandma over the years and a little less would do them all a favour.

“Did the whippoorwills get her?” whispered Ada, blinking back the tears, “Did you hear them cackling when she died?”

Her uncle snorted derisively.

“Ain’t heard a peep out o’ those damn bird in months,” he said as he walked away, leaving Ada alone with her grief and the firmly sealed casket with its big iron nails.

After the begrudgingly offered and poorly attended wake at the old house, Ada found herself returning to the graveyard on the edge of the woods where they had buried her grandmother that morning. Ada hadn’t wanted to linger in in her former home anymore, especially now it was her uncle’s to do with as he pleased. Her train back to the city wasn’t until the following morning, and Ada found that she wanted to spend a bit more time paying her respects. She stood by the graveside, paying the world no heed as the sun began to set, the guilt of not being there at the end a tight knot inside her.

It was only as the sun slipped behind the woods and the long shadows unfurled themselves from the trees that Ada was snapped out of her introspection by the sound of bird song. She looked up at the nearest tree and the whippoorwill nestled in the darkness there. It sang a song like wheezing breaths, shallow and laboured. Other birds took up the song and Ada whirled around, suddenly realising her grandmother’s grave was surrounded by a ring of whippoorwills, sitting in trees and perching on headstones. Together they encircled her, taking up the suffocating, air-starved song, emulating breathing that most definitely did not belong to Ada.

Panic gripped Ada’s limbs and terror lent her speed, and Ada sprinted from the grave side, leaving the birds singing around the freshly dug earth where her grandma had been laid in the ground that morning. As she reached the rusted iron fence at the cemetery’s edge, Ada paused and looked back for a second. The song of the whippoorwills was reaching a final, laboured crescendo. Then suddenly the song stopped, and the birds exploded into daemonic cackling, taking flight from the grave side, vanishing into the night with their prize.

Biological Imperialism

~ Chris B.

The following is another short story that I wrote recently as part of an ongoing writing prompt exercise with a fellow writer. The purpose of the exercise is to give us both a chance to practise writing prompts and stories. The original prompt phrase or sentence is highlighted in bold.

This week, I invite you to get your ass to Mars!

Caution: some adult language ahead.

***

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Photo by Suganth on Unsplash

“This seems…counterproductive at best,” said Mary through gritted teeth, trying to keep her cool. There was no point in antagonising Connor. Not yet. Sayid fumed at her left shoulder, shifting restlessly and grinding his teeth in anger and frustration. Mary had to use her body to physically stop him reaching the intercom that she was protectively hunched over, like a mother bird protecting an egg. Lei hovered nervously in the background, wringing her hands and shifting her weight rhythmically from foot-to-foot, her eye fixed on the glass window in the bulkhead next to Mary.

“Can you tell us again what it is you want, Connor?” Mary said slowly and carefully, holding down the intercom button as she spoke, “I’m not quite sure I understood what you’re demanding.”

“Independence for Mars!” yelled Connor, his voice distorted over the internal comms system of the space station. Mary exchanged a glance with Sayid, who pulled a face to indicate he clearly thought Connor was quite mad.

“I see,” said Mary thoughtfully, “and was that before or after you accidentally set yourself on fire?”

The fire hadn’t been an accident, and Mary knew it, but what she didn’t know were the details of Connor’s mental state. Right now the interior padding of the New Dawn Station’s primary umbilical was very definitely alight. It should all have been flame retardant material, so Connor must have used a serious accelerant. Mary, Sayid and Lei were in the habitation section at one end of the central umbilical corridor, clustered around the vid-comm next to the sealed bulkhead. A still smouldering Connor was in the science section at the other end of the shuttered umbilical.

“It’ll have to be after, obviously,” sniffed Connor, “and I saw that face Sayid pulled by the way.” Mary elbowed Sayid in the ribs.

“I’m not mad,” continued Connor, “I’m setting Mars free. Human habitation would be a mistake, I’m reclaiming it for the native Martians!”

“There are no native Martians you fucking fruit-loop!” yelled Sayid before Mary could take her finger off the comm button. Lei flinched then resumed her nervous shuffling.

“Not helping!” Mary hissed at Sayid before reactivating the comms.

“Connor, there’s no life down there, all the rovers have ever found is fossilised bacteria in million year old rocks,” said Mary slowly and patiently, “and I’m sure they don’t care who’s the next to inherit Mars.”

Mary glanced through the viewing glass at the raging inferno in the umbilical. She wasn’t sure if she was sweating from the heat or the tension. The automatic fire suppression system should have kicked in and the umbilical should have been sealed off from New Dawn Station’s oxygen supply. The suppression systems had been disabled however, something that was well within Connor’s skill set to achieve she reminded herself bitterly. The bulkheads were only sealed because she had done that manually when they discovered the fire.

One of several things was going to happen shortly. The fire was going to eat through the padding and destroy the intra-station data cabling and lock them out of the computer system, or it was going to reach the oxygen supply pipes in the umbilical, which it went without saying would be fairly catastrophic. Or maybe the viewing glass in the bulkhead would melt. Mary wasn’t sure what its fire rating was, but it was probably pretty low as it was not supposed to be possible for there to be a fire in the umbilical!

“We need to purge vent!” said Sayid, “Connor has fucking flipped out and he’s going to take L4 down with him!”

New Dawn Station was a hated committee-derived name that all its inhabitants thought was stupid. The crew called it ‘L4’, as it was on the fourth Sun-Mars Lagrange point; a null-gravity staging post for the future colonisation of the Red Planet.

Mary shook her head slowly, but couldn’t quite bring herself to look Sayid in the eye. As commander of the station, she could manually override the bulkhead on the science module – where Connor currently was – and initiate an emergency oxygen vent from that section. That would put paid to the fire, as well as significant portion of their oxygen supply, anything that wasn’t bolted down in that section and, of course, Connor. But surely if he had deliberately sabotaged the fire suppression system then he would know that Mary would be left with no choice other than to vent? She had to know more.

“Not yet,” she said simply. Lei whispered something quietly behind them, but whether it was in support or disagreement, Mary didn’t have time to find out. Connor was talking over the intercom again.

“I’m not talking about the bloody fossils,” snapped Connor, “I’m not insane. I’m talking about the robots!”

“The colony construction-bots?!” asked Sayid “Why the fuck would they want independence? They don’t even have sentience, just contextual-AI.”

“No, I mean the true natives. Opportunity, Curiosity and all the other rovers and robotic probes that colonised this planet long before we got anywhere near it. How are they any different from the Indigenous Americans who beat the Europeans to that continent? Why should we spoil what the machines have? Who are we to come and set-up home in their New Folder/Eden? It’s Biological Imperialism!”

“Yeah, no, ok he’s lost it,” said Mary, taking her finger off the comm and moving to a terminal

to initiate the vent sequence, “Opportunity and Curiosity? We lost contact with the rovers years ago, and they were remote controlled anyway, not alive! I mean, ok, robot colonisation is perhaps an interesting philosophical debate, but not ‘trash-a-multi-billion-dollar-space-station’ interesting!”

Mary stood in front of the terminal and furiously typed in the preparatory commands to begin the vent purge cycle of the umbilical and the science modules. Sayid muttered encouragement on one side while Lei stood silently on the other. As Mary typed there was an ominous groaning sound from somewhere in the umbilical. The air smelled staler than usual and the scent of sweat filled her nostrils. She typed a little faster.

As the vent process was a single keystroke away from beginning, Mary had one last pang of conscious. A cowardly voice in her head told her to wait for authority from Earth, to absolve her of all responsibility for the act she was about to commit. This far out though, L4’s initial distress signal was still several minutes away from reaching Earth, and she simply didn’t have time to wait for a reply. She decided to give Connor one more chance to come to his senses.

Mary gently steered Lei to stand her in front of the terminal, knowing she would wait for her command before acting.

“When I say, press enter,” Mary said. Lei nodded. Another structural groan and some definite rumblings underfoot. Mary ran back to the video intercom.

“Connor?” she asked. “Connor are you there? You’ve left us no choice, we’re about to vent the science module! This is your last chance. Reinstate the fire suppression system right now or I’m giving the order!”

The intercom hissed quietly. Flames licked at the bulkhead window and sweat stung Mary’s eyes. She couldn’t see any sign of Connor on the video screen.

“Do it!” Mary yelled. Lei pressed the key and the New Dawn Station shuddered and howled like a wounded beast.

It took them several hours to re-pressurise the science module from their oxygen reserves, and then tentatively proceed through the umbilical to assess for damage. They had been lucky. Remarkably lucky. Despite the alarming noises they had heard, the damage appeared to be largely superficial. Mary had acted just in time, something that she took little comfort from. She had sent a report to Earth appraising them of the situation and informing them that they were assessing for damage. She had ignored their follow-up messages, leaving it to Lei to reassure everyone back home from time to time that they were still alive. Mary couldn’t face the conversation right now, the debriefing and the questions. It was still too raw to relive. She’d much rather wander the modules and umbilicals of L4, taking stock and trying not to gag on the smell of burnt plastic.

What soon became clear was that in addition to a lot of oxygen, they had also lost a lot of supplies, just as Mary had known they would. Earth would have to hurry to step-up the next resupply mission. It would use up a lot of space program resources; resources that had been intended for the colonisation of Mars itself. And as well as supplies they would also have to replace a single member of the space stations’ crew…of Connor, there was no sign.

That Connor was missing was not a surprise, as he would likely have been ejected along with the air. What was a surprise was that L4’s emergency ‘life raft’ was missing. It was an unpowered escape pod, not intended for extended independent flight. It had no means of propulsion, just an internal oxygen supply, a location transponder and barely enough room for four people to squeeze inside. It was meant as a means of evacuation if New Dawn Station suffered a catastrophic hull breach, but it was reliant on being collected by another craft and towed to safety. If Connor had tried to use it to escape the purge vent then without rescue he was only delaying the inevitable, consigning himself to a lingering death in a cold powerless tomb amongst the stars. Mary swept the rescue frequencies but there was not so much as a whisper from the location transponder.

“Do you think he used it to escape?” asked Lei, as they stared through an observation window at the space where the pod should have been attached to the L4’s hull.

“No,” said Mary, shaking her head sadly, “what would be there point? Where could he go?”

“To Mars?” suggested Sayid.

“No,” said Mary again, “the life raft doesn’t have any power. He’d just be drifting. To get to Mars he’d need some sort of boost, like…”

Mary trailed off, and turned to exchange a look of dawning horror with Lei.

“…like L4 venting half its oxygen supply.”

“No way,” said Sayid in disbelief, “that would be one hell of a rough landing!”

Connor climbed his way out of the wrecked life raft, smirking in quiet self-satisfaction. He’d surprised even himself with how good his calculations had been. He’d expected a bit of a trek to reach the future colony site, but there it was, the tallest of the construction-bots silhouetted against the pink Martian sky, signposting the colony’s position on the other side of the small hill. Just as well really, the suit he’d stolen from L4 was strictly intended for EVA only, not walking through the Martian desert. Connor was forced to do weird bunny hops across the red sand, hampered by the limited leg articulation. It wasn’t exactly dignified, but that wasn’t so important right now.

As he awkwardly bounced into the colony perimeter he could see that the construction-bots were right on schedule. The whole project wasn’t finished by any means, but the main habitat building was definitely serviceable. The construction-bots scanned Connor with blank eyes as he tumbled past, then returned to their work, their contextual-AI having no programmed response for unexpected interlopers in their work zone.

Connor squeezed the bulky EVA suit through the primary airlock and into the main hab module. It was dusty and dark inside, the only lighting coming from the red beacons that lit when main power was not active. So the main generator was not running, but the air-recycling filters were functioning at least. The construction-bots had done well; they had spent almost a year building this place. Originally deployed from an orbiting surveyor craft, they had spent the Martian days running off solar generators and the long nights hunkering down against dust storms. Now they were almost ready for the expected arrival of the first colonist teams in 6 months time – an arrival that Connor’s actions aboard New Dawn Station would seriously delay.

Connor was the first human to set foot on Mars, but right now that was of little interest to him. He looked around the silent, shadowy room as he struggled to remove his EVA suit without assistance.

“I’ve done as you asked,” puffed Connor, exhausted and squinting into the gloom. With the clatter of decades-old wheels, the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers rolled out of the shadows to meet him, cameras silently turning to stare at his face.