(no subject)

22.

Mickey had never seen so many adults (whether they be human, fairy or troll) so dumbfounded. It was as if all the laws they lived by had just been voided.

Well, he didn’t care about laws, he just wanted his mom back!

“Where is she?” He demanded.

“We don’t know any better than you do,” Came the echoed reply from many points.

“Not my mother, the one who sent us here!” Mickey said with the conviction of someone who was going to take the situation over.

“That’s the one,” His father said, as he walked up to the Colonel with equal determination.

“I was in mental contact with her up until we landed. The link has been dead since then,” Colonel Stonedragon admitted.

“I doubt we’ll find her when we return to the base,” Benjy said, then he turned to his son, “I swear by everything my heart holds dear, son, we will get your mother back.”

The boy was encouraged, but still determined to be part of the posse that tracked her down, and sent that guy to the gallows.

“Let me get on your radio, I know some people who can help,” The boy’s father told them.

For a long minute there was a confused silence as the group mingled without a common goal.

And then the growling started. The sun had gone down. With it, out came a new army. They were not the vampires of Hammer movies. No tuxedoes, no classy manners.

These were things that didn’t bear a resemblance to anything so much as Romero’s zombies.

They came from every direction. Their number seemed endless. A few hovered a bit, but none of them seemed to truly fly.

Mickey tried to make some of them invulnerable, and therefore immobile, but they were not alive. His powers were ineffectual against them.

The Pellians braced for battle, but they were hopelessly out numbered.

Jeremy took out his new costume accoutrement, a belt that held four 12 oz. plastic bottles full of water. He began filling his mouth with the liquid, and spitting out acid at the attackers. It seemed to hurt them, but not enough to kill them.

Mickey had to survive this battle. It was the only way he could still try to save his mom.

It was then that something lifted him from behind. It grabbed him, took him off the ground and slobbered something slimy onto his neck.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

23.

She was lodged in cell that was unremarkable in every way. It could be in any building anywhere in the world. There was nothing to denote any location for this place.

She listened at the doorway, but no one outside the room was talking. There were just no clues to help her.

She sat on the cot that was to be her only place to rest. How long would the monster keep her here?

Would he have begun this siege if he planned it to take more than a day?

She raged within her heart. She who had been the strongest of her kind, one of the single most powerful beings on Earth, was a prisoner. Held here like a homeless drunk in a small town jail, totally and completely helpless.

“No, dammit,” She grumbled to herself. She would not be such. She would escape from this room, she would throw a wrench into this monsters plans and do it as a human woman. All the power she would need was in her head and her hands.

She suddenly remembered the day 3 year old Mickey got accidentally locked in the bathroom. It would be hours before her husband would be home from work, or David would be back from school.She might have waited it out if the boy hadn’t began to cry.

The sound was impossible to resist. She called a locksmith (this was long before they had any kind of 9-11 service) and told him she couldn’t last until they could come out and open the door. She cajoled the man into walking her through the process of picking the lock. It was something she would never forget.

She reached into her fanny pack, something you would have normally thought would be removed on her becoming a prisoner, but it was to arrogant an enemy that took her hostage.

From the recesses of the bag she withdrew a spiral bound notepad. Taking the binding wire loose she found the tool she needed.

While the door had a conventional lock, which was surprising to think it was within such a futuristic artifice. Perhaps this was not the interior of the flying saucer, but a building made to look like one.

The door opened as smoothly as butter, and Maria thought she might have made a good burglar if things had been different.

She peeked out the door and saw no one on either end of the hallway.

Out of her bag she took a metal pen, knowing, after taking a class in self defense from one of those “Take Back the Night” things, what a powerful weapon it could be. She imagined jabbing it into the throat or eye of her captor and caught herself just before she would have smiled.

In her other hand she held a wooden pencil, in case the first thing she encountered was one of the vampires.

She edged along the wall, to make sure no one could sneak up behind her.

She hoped her family was all right, and was committed to see them again.

She had no idea what was waiting around the next turn in the corridor.

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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