Tag: short story

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Old Photographs

The photographs were scattered at the bottom of an old leather and wood chest, which was not much larger than a regular shipping box, two feet by two approximately. Lilly huddled in the corner of the unfinished garage, staring down at multi-colored images discovered within the secreted container. The top few images were a myriad of moments: children playing, a birthday cake and smiling old man about to wish, a woman posing with a white dress and cigarette, and other mundane scenes. Something else lurked behind these casual accounts of ordinary life, but what it was her fifteen year-old self could not speak to it, only feel it.

Beyond the garage the sounds of a regularly scheduled argument flared up. It was his fault. She never listened. Money didn’t grow on trees. Lilly focused on the images before her to form a silent barrier between her and what had become a normal Sunday morning. If she stayed were she was, still and quiet, she would be forgotten.

Absently she began to shift through the images, careful to not look but only feel them. Her fingers dove into memories left behind by those left before her, flipping and caressing the shape and texture. When she felt a particularly glossy square, she smiled and drew it up to inspect.

The noise quieted behind her. The light dimmed. Lilly had no time to react as she watched the box’s lid slowly close down on the Polaroid of her smiling face falling into the pile of other captured moments, below.

Frantic voices would not be heard from her quiet in the box. She would never see the missing posters or hear the tears of family. It was quiet. It was what she wished for.

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Bound

     Ostentatious opulence cascaded before deeply apprehensive eyes across a royal courtyard. Sable and gold filagreed knights snapped to attention with each passing elfin step waked by a thousand silvery silks falling over an unaccustomed frame. Cabalistic men with whimsical conspirators bowed deeply, casting waves of adulation; their outstretched arms flourished skyward while shadows swept floor-bound in devotion. Expectant subjects’ breaths hushed. As those before her, she came, called by name from the Book of Queens, to ascend innumerable stone steps giving way to a deadly and ancient throne. Was this not what she desired?  Stealing resolve, the queen sat down. 

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Knick Knack Yokelwack

A newspaper flit, fluttered, and flourished across a downtown intersection of Capital City. Sunlight desperately clawed its way through roiling clouds, now empty of moisture, casting a hot, humid, and hostile sheen to the cement below. On a once bustling street corner, an old spoon player and tinkerer, knee-hammered out a strange melody, adding to the archaic and dreary feel of the day.

“This old man, he gave two…,” his song discordantly tolled.

Mr. Cotterill and his frail wife, paying little mind to the unfortunate tune, hurried to their royal appointment. It’d been long months since they’d celebrated their king’s defiance and promises of prosperity, but words cannot make grain grow, harvest, or sell. Storehouses burst at seams with last season’s unsold life while new hope rotted on the vine under the harsh sun of uncertain times. The king had assured all, his hands would assuage the deepest ills of his efforts to demand equitable exchange with their neighbors. For this guarantee, the Cotterills traveled to the Maga Birthing Center – the temple of their king – to acquire aid. The place where great ideas and great people are made, Cotterill heard the slogan ring in his head.

But as that thought reverberated, swarms of citizens lining the ostentatious walls of the Center pulled him from his worried woolgathering to the nervous voice of his wife. “Will we have to stand in line?”

“No, we have an appointment. Our place is guaranteed,” he assured.

Dread did not abate. Mrs. Cotterill’s tension gnawed at her as she regarded those passed. A young woman leaned exhausted against the tarnished facade, her belly more gravid than Mrs. Cotterill’s mind. A book bag sat unceremoniously at her feet, while her blouse, barely able to cover the debt of her condition, desperately climbed her hungry body even as the girls hands struggled to adjust the hem to a respectable place at her waist.  

A steely man, pushing a derelict conveyance, rusted and bruised with age caught the farmer’s wife next. He huffed, scuffed, and scowled. “They said it’s cost effective,” he glowered at the creaking cart. “Bah! cheap and defective is what it is,” his growling voice met her surprised stare. Mrs. Cotterill gasped and clutched feverishly at her husband’s arm who hurried them both along.

Across the street a clamor was rising. Internationals and immigrants shouted from behind a bright yellow tape denying them closer proximity. The cacophony of their protests assaulted the armed police and those near the entrance of the Maga building, in vain.

Nearby, a news truck’s repeated attempts to start caught her attention. Blazing red lettering W.F.A.K.E. Capital City’s Voice announced the news station’s affiliation. Sympathizers with rebels and unceasingly pressing for revolt, Mrs. Cotterill thought disparagingly. The scene was too much. She pressed into her husband’s shoulder, his hand gently rubbing hers where it clasped him.

Crystalline temple doors flew open, on the couples approach. A regal and haute gentleman emerged. A diminutive woman of dark tresses and olive skin quickly followed. “…and he worries about milk? Mr. Trudo” the southern born noble shook her head.

“And what about that wall? He’ll never fund it,” came the response, as the two hurried to waiting town car and driver.

Mr. Cotterill sighed. He failed to understand elites, who never questioned the source of their success nor gave gratitude for the work the rest of them did. This was all he could consider as they entered the opulent reception hall for their appointed meeting.  

“Dah! I told you,” the palatalized vowels of an obviously foreign attendant assaulted the couple pausing a respectable distance from reception. “We’ll not accept delivery! It’s foolish to quarrel.”  An emissary from the far east, stretched out his hand in warning, as two darkly dressed men with shaded glasses seized his arms and dragged him out.

“I swear, Vlad!!” shouting fervently.  “The debt must be…” the emissary’s voice faded as he was humiliatingly tossed onto the slick stone outside. The doors sealing closed behind him.

“Yes, May I help you?” Chamberlain Vlad, summoned.

“Um, yes. We have an appointment,” the farmer waited as the man flipped impatiently through a register. “Mr. Cotterill… C.O.T…”

“Ah yes,” the chamberlain interrupted. “Unfortunately, due to cuts in deliveries,” he glanced to the door. “You’ll need to be… more patient. His Majesty works ardently but negotiations are not finalized.” He proceeded to direct the country vassals to a waiting area. However, before acquiescing, Mr Cotterill implored, “My wife is tired. Hungry. Is there nothing?”

Begrudgingly silent, Vlad handed him a simple brown bag. A shadowed confusion and shock grew on Mr. Cotterill’s face. Vlad met it with a wry and unsympathetic smile.

“Patience,” Vlad stated flatly then turned to resume his duties.

An asian man sat across from them, seated next to a woman crunching passively on a small brown cracker, while a young boy rested on her lap. A familiar bag lay nearby, opened.

Hours passed when a ruckus disrupted all. Blackwood doors swung open as a plumb greyish man, large of snout and ear, dressed in white erupted forth shouting orders and reverently bearing a tray of delights. Hamburgers, fries, cookies and cakes, towered up in a glorious array of color and scent.

“Ah, Mr. Gio P. Ardee,” a marmish woman, Cotterill recognized as the King’s mouthpiece, hurried to direct the overburdened chef. “His tremendous majesty is expecting you”

Mr. Cotterill regarded his token bag. A sick feeling arose in him. Knick Knack Treats, in old font and worn paper stare back at him.

Beyond the common place the king took council. Fading conversation slithered out as the chef returned empty handed.

“… I said ‘Let them eat cake!” an female chimed.

“Me? Incredible fan of cake,” the King’s voice rang. “Let them eat dog treats!”

Mr. Cotterill, hearing his wife’s empty belly growl, opened the bag, withdrew a treat and handed it to her. “Eat this.”

***

Darkness fell. The tinkerer packed up and went rolling home.

 

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Decidedly Human

H | 01101000

“Open the door, Alister361!” Captain Chase bellowed while banging on the heavy locked iron door. Three uniformed men shifted impatiently behind him, burdened by the weight of their domed, metal and glass biostorage container. “Alister361! Open this door now!”

A grimy, dilapidated monitor lit up, and a handsome man with electric blue eyes stared back. “Code?” the politely masculine voice issued perfunctorily.

“DDS2103.”

When the lock disengaged with a mechanistic buzz, the surviving members of Exodus Alpha Team hastily entered their makeshift clandestine medbay. Grunts and curses filled the room as three soldiers struggled past their captain to the safety of the hidden haven, securing the domed biopod to hyperlocks waiting center room.  

“Run diagnostics,” the captain ordered.

Alister’s eyes blinked and shimmered before dimming to a low gold pulse. Only seconds passed before they returned to their normal sapphire hue.

“Diagnostics complete. All systems at optimum functionality.”

“You were slow to open the door; are you certain?”

Despite the Others having eradicated most technology and severed connections between humans and servitors in a single fortnight, Exodus had scavenged enough biorobotic components to create Alister361.

“All systems at peak. Scrubbing operations were 97% complete when you knocked. I determined…”

“You don’t determine. You follow orders,” the captain retorted.

Alister tilted his head, “I understand, Captain Chase.”

The officer’s eyes narrowed under a furrowed brow at his salvaged mechanical droid. The rebel men needed no command to leave quickly.

“Alister361, we have less than six hours to hack into this coder,” gesturing stiffly to the stolen pod. “It contains enemy access codes. Analyze, retrieve, report.”

“Acknowledged.”

U | 01110101

The gleaming case lay in stark contrast to its dingier surroundings. Wires twisted about the sturdy base and tubes of circulating amber liquid. Inside, a pale, naked woman with chestnut locks lay unconscious.  

The room housing the strange bed was rusted, bloody, and dark, with many instruments strewn about. Nearby, a worn black display with flashing cursor interrupted the aesculapian objects around it. Three dim ceiling lights hung precariously from chains, struggling to illuminate the room.

Alister circled the Other-made biostorage unit, before extending his metallic hand into a discreet crevice containing the latch. Hisses, clicks, and metal grinding accompanied odorless fog escaping the pod as it seperated.

The female coder did not stir. Her body was thin and somewhat translucent, as if it had never seen sunlight. The same golden liquid in the capsule’s tubes also ran beneath her skin. Curious, Alister thought. Her vital fluid was not the deep bluish-red of Exodus men. Yet, in every other way she looked human. Is she human?

M | 01101101

After a last inspection of both patient and tools, Alister gently lifted the insensate girl out and placed her in a repurposed dental chair. Alister had stood here many times and imagined himself a dentist – performing checkups and filling cavities. As he carefully secured her wrists and ankles with the restraints that had been added to his chair, he noted that this had not been in his imaginings.

Alister meticulously placed long needle probes in visible veins then made small incisions first to her chest, then to her heart. When he tilted the brunette’s head to insert an invasive tentacle at the base of her skull, however, the woman gasped in pain. And her eyes flew open.

Blue like mine. Alister hesitated. Is she aware?

Soothingly stroking the side of her face, “Do not panic. The pain will cease now. Shhhhh.”

She calmed, and Alister began his analysis. Soon the black monitor glowed with flashing lines of code, commands, and keys. Each freed sequence slipped him past another barrier, another firewall. Something like horror crept over the android’s normally passive face as he realized what it all meant.

A | 01100001

“It doesn’t matter, 361,” Captain Chase demanded. “It’s imperative we access that intelligence. It will save us.”

“Sir, she is a living DNA storage device. A human hard drive, storing infinite bytes of data. Retrieving it will tear her apart,” Alister grimaced, “piece by piece.”

Spitting with rage, the captain stepped inches from his servitor’s face. “Decode it! Comply!”

Alister looked down at his maker and referenced an earlier discussion, “Her life for thousands?”

Frustrated by a familiar argument, the senior officer responded gruffly, despite it being a robot questioning. “It is not a her. It is not living, breathing, red-blooded, birthed of parents human. It is a machine. A replicated machine, stored by the thousands in compiler silos across this nation. The access codes for their defences are in there.  This is how we win.” Turning, Chase met his men’s anxious stares. “The Others will find us. They could come any moment. Get my codes, machine!”

Alister’s eyes glimmered gold, and he obediently returned to the laboratory confines.   

N | 01101110

Alister let the door behind him slowly close, seal, and lock. Pausing at the lab’s entrance, he stared at his bound hostage thoughtfully. Is the captain right? Is she a machine? She appears human. I appear human. She feels pain; she knows fear. I do not feel these things… but I feel… something… when I think about dismantling her. To destroy her is inhumane.

***

Alister would later recall a faint clicking sound beyond the door, the ground shuddering, the scrabble of feet and bark of orders preceding the inevitable weapons fire and alien ululation of the Others. He would replay his disregard of the shrieks of frightened men many times before he deleted the memory.

“Let us in!”

“Alister361, Comply!”

“Obey!”

“Oh God.”

“Nooo!”

“Run, Alister! Get her to Omega Team!”

Run Alister did, but not to more men. His choice was made. His questions about what it meant to be human were finally answered. The Others would destroy her. Men would destroy her. All inhumane. Alister kept her away from the bloodthirst of the biological, the organic. They would be the humans now, Alister and whatever she chose to call herself. They would preserve humanity.

 

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The Unkindness of Ravens

Elisavet stood atop an opulent marble staircase watching hundreds of royal guests dance across the same deep black crystalline stone below. Women of every color and shape moved gracefully, gowns a blur of satin and swirls. Gentlemen clad in bespoke tuxedos and social influence joined in rhythmic pursuit, spurred on by a lively orchestra. The music called to Elisavet too, but she waited to be announced by the liveried herald. The aged man’s large, brass stave struck the floor thrice, his voice issuing throughout the hall,  “Lady Elisavet of House Amsel!”

Days ago, a raven drone had arrived on clockwork wings to deliver a summons to the royal holiday gala. For as long as history could remember, every member of her family had been called to such an affair, never to return. She had thought her ancestral hardship ended when her father died; year after year the event passed and no summons appeared. Elisavet had been wrong, however; her time had come.

Despite her fear, Elisavet could neither refuse her ruler nor abandon her familial obligation.  She gathered up her courage and the crown prince’s writ of forgiveness. She prayed the combination would grant reprieve.

Elisavet’s name permeated the dense, judgemental atmosphere, where it met with titters and gasps. It had been twelve years since an Amsel had been called to service. The king’s son, Prince Aeasus, was especially shocked at the announcement of a woman he had arranged never to see.

The Amsel were a noble clan bound to an ancient promise in payment for an even older sin. They had shown cowardice in the face of the crown’s enemies and were now generationally doomed to serve the royal palace as mechanistic raven messengers. Elisavet thought the curse was ended when her father saved Aeasus from assassination. In gratitude, the prince had agreed to allow Gorath Amsel to be the last avian automaton.  Elisavet, Gorath’s only daughter, would be spared.

Perplexed displeasure painted the prince’s face as his ambitious sister slithered up alongside him, drumming her spindly fingers against his arm.

“Beautiful, is she not?” Aealyth avoided her brother’s gaze as a low growl slipped from his lips.

“She should not be here.”

“She must have been summoned,” she shrugged. “A shame; she’s the last. But you know the law… all Amsel are fated.”

Elisavet gracefully descended the grand stairs despite threat looming in the shadow of every guest. With each step, the air and exclusion grew thicker. When Elisavet reached the bottom, the princess barely concealed her amusement. Glass sole touching stone set Aealyth’s waiting spell rippling malevolently across the obsidian floor.

“Go to her,” she taunted her brother. “Tender your condolences.”

Snarling, Aeasus leapt from the dais towards the woman he had protected. Just as he stepped out, however, attendees obstructed his path. Taking the throne to watch, Aealyth donned a sinister smile. It would be glorious to see her sibling tormented, his promise broken.

Pushing through the crowd, Aeasus made to meet the last Amsel, but found himself frustrated on the opposite side of the room. Again he aimed his steps, but was confounded in his journey. He had to reach her before the appointed hour; before the bells tolled her fate. Each sojourn failed however; he could find no path through his guests that led to her.

For Elisavet, the world slowed. Attendees languidly moved out of her way, gazes drifting to the floor rather than acknowledge her. She caught sight of the prince, but could not make him see her. Each time she tried, someone moved between them or he looked the other way.  Had he changed his mind?

The first of three bells rang. With a wave of Aealyth’s hand, the spell was lifted. The Prince and Elisavet stood face to face, as if they had always been so. The princess had timed this perfectly. Her brother’s promise would be broken, his honor put to ruin, and the last scrap of a craven bloodline would disappear into cold metal workings. Fait accomplis; the throne would be hers.

The second bell came, and with it the prince’s realization his sister had worked her dread arts. He turned to seek Aealyth’s gaze while Elisavet glared at him in disbelief. The wicked princess raised her glass to toast the foiled pair, a vulpine smile revealing viciously clenched teeth.

“What have you done!?”

“I have lived long enough to see you fall,” Aealyth gritted out. “From grace, when you made to excuse the treachery of the Amsel filth and now from honor, as you betray your word to her.”

Elisavet looked between them anxiously, clutching the now-worthless pages of her pardon. “But my father trusted you! He saved your life! You gave your word!”

Aeasus tore his furious gaze from the dais to look softly at Elisavet. “No, I…”

The third bell rang, and Aealyth clapped gleefully. “Time is up. Law is law.”

An eldritch light began to coalesce around the last Amsel, eliciting a different kind of gasp from the recoiling crowd. Elisavet’s fate was at hand. Metal pinfeathers brutally emerged from her skin, causing her to cry out. “Bastard!”

Disoriented by the miasma of sound and light, the prince did not see her newfound talons take aim until it was too late. “As you take back your word, I take back your life,” Elisavet heaved, slashing her metallic claws through the soft of his throat. By the time Aeasus raised his hand to his ruined neck, his legs had already betrayed him to the ground. The ruby heat gushed out between his fingers as Elisavet’s corax form was finalized.

It was over quickly. As the rays of light dissipated, the horrified guests watched the latest and last of the Amsel ravens wade through cooling royal blood.

The new crown princess stood, an imperious sweep of her arm directing attention to the bloody scene. “It is done. The treason of the wretched Amsels is proven and punished, once and for all – and the throne is mine.”

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Killing Ground

With the salvation of the great ice expanse still far away, Ulla already labored for breath. Darting right, then left, the lithe but diminutive huntress clamored down a small rocky embankment towards a nameless river. Thick, plaited hair adorned with twigs, needles, and muted clay beads whipped behind her with each sharp movement. The twilight hour called to her blood and beckoned her home, but snarls and clamor of claws bolstered her speed over the virgin snows and felled pines of the vast forest that lay between here and safety.

Twice already the dread Hiisi, all matted fur coat and razor claws, had almost captured her. Ulla’s woolen pants and worn leather belt bore the shredded evidence of the beast’s near success. Despite landing a solid fist, then biting into its shoulder with the bone edge of her skate, the foul creature persisted. She could not lose him.

Hours earlier, Ulla had crossed the border into the Dio Wer, the perilous domain of the reviled Hiisi. She had climbed up the jagged edge of an iced relic of criss-crossed iron sticking out of the ground like a broken sword, its blade the only bridge to the unfamiliar woods beyond. A metal plaque, barely visible, marked the disputed territory with worn symbols of the ancestors: R DIO WER.

By the time Ulla jumped down from the uprooted end of the strange construct come ladder, already the ambient swelter of the Hiisi god’s rage had begun to creep under her tunic. It assailed her pale skin with cloying heat and siphoned her body’s precious water. Careful to remain undetected, she quickly knelt to plant the seed of ice she carried before the divine calidity could melt it. Like all before her, Ulla would give her goddess a drop of power in the lands of the Stone God’s children.

It would take little over an hour to arrive at the stone pillar the Hiisi prayed to. The heat emanating from the weathered obelisk had tried to repel her. Undaunted, she sliced into her hand with the sharp edge of her bone skate. This would be her rite of passage; she would return home a true woman of her tribe. Smearing her pooling blood on the stone’s surface and allowing it to burn her in return, she had called forth the hunt.

Now she crouched under the branches of a sickly old pine at the river’s edge, desperately listening for the Hiisi dispatched to punish her act of desecration. But no matter how much she quieted herself, all she could hear was the gentle river laving its stony shore; nothing else. If I had lost him, he’d still be running.

No sound meant everything, not nothing; he had found her. Ulla broke from her cover just as the Hiisi launched from his perch above her. Colliding, river and rage enveloped them both.

Her back scraped along the scabrous river bed as warm water rushed around her body. The Hissi pulled at her, trying to free the bone blades lashed to her belt. She could not allow him to trap her here, could not lose the only means to cross the great lake of ice.

Ulla bellowed in frantic fury, thrashing and kicking as the relentless beast groped and clawed at her. Luck drew a stone into her hand, and she won just enough freedom by smashing it into his head. She had escaped him a third time; it only seemed to enrage him. Behind her, the creature’s hunger was palpable in the thick air of his howling pursuit.

The wind picked up, carrying with it the harrowing sounds of other Hiisi joining the chase. If they found her, she would never see the white mountains of her motherland again.

For the first time, fear gripped her as cruelly as the creature had. She realized she might fail.  A hundred gruesome fates besieged her thoughts, all ending with the Hiisi smashing her skates and stealing her life. She could not stop; she was nearly to the proving ground that was the frozen expanse.

The ravenous snarls had grown close enough to swallow the sound of her own heart, and she willed her bruised body to run. If she could make the edge of Dio Wer, she might truly escape the beasts. They would not brave the cold; they feared it.

Bursting through the last line of trees, Ulla came up short.  She had miscalculated her return. She was nowhere near the iron relic ladder, and no time remained to search for it. The only way was to scale down the craggy rock face and be careful not to drop too heavily on the thin ice below.  Before she could begin her descent, the wounded Hiisi tackled her from behind, sending them sprawling across the lake’s frozen surface.

Close now, the Hiisi and Ulla’s gaze met. Feeling the hard cold beneath her, her eyes glinted with rancor and advantage; his burned with fury and fear.

The ice cracked beneath their weight. Ulla slid back gingerly, inhaling the chill, allowing it to give her strength. The Hissi tried to scuttle away from the ominous sound, but was neither quick nor graceful enough. The delicate ice shattered beneath him, his panicked shriek piercing the air as he plummeted into the Goddess’s cold, watery embrace.

Panting, Ulla watched the beast sink until the slick ‘shuck’ of skates tugged at her awareness. “Well done,” her mother praised her. “And with the Stone God’s child as sacrifice,” she added with a chuckle. Ulla beamed with pride.

Beneath the ice, the exhausted boy struggled, his metal gloves frantically stabbing at the frozen barrier until they became stuck in it. The merciless chill claimed the last of his warmth, his grey eyes turning blue. He had lost; he would spend eternity peering up through the black waters.

As the two huntresses skated home across the lake, a thousand dead blue eyes glared up through the ice up at them, paving their way.

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Leningrad Gambit

It was August 31st, 1941 and hope was in short supply for Russian Jews.  A lone car fled Leningrad. Its driver determined to run the metal horse until its heart burst. The Nazis had come, just as in Kiev. The railways stopped weeks ago, and the city prepared for siege. Elishov knew that soon the barrage of war and smoke of death would surround them all.  The Nazis would not accept capitulation; they wanted Leningrad’s utter destruction. Perhaps he had fled too late, but staring at the landscape the day before, flee he knew he must.

The King’s Gambit

“We’re out of petrol.”  Elishov spoke softly to his wife, Ayala, trying not to wake their son. “Perhaps we’ll find more here,” he shut the door and strode toward the large entrance to seek aid.

At his persistent knocking, a wooden panel slid open. “We’re closed,” a haggard voice spoke cold and perfunctorily.

“We need help.”

“We have nothing.”

“Truly nothing? Petrol? Warmth? Anything…” Elishov’s voice trailed off into the sounds of the slide closing and locks releasing.

“You’re Jews?” questioned an imposing figure now filling the doorway.

Elishov nodded cautiously.

“Come in. Quickly!”

When all had entered and the door was shut, Victor snapped his heels together and bowed,  “I am Viktor, headmaster here. Welcome.”

Viktor, at least four inches taller than Elishov’s five-foot-eight frame, called out over a gathering huddle of children. “Peter?”

A pale and malnourished teenager emerged from the clutch of silent and stirless faces.

“See if there’s any petrol in the abandoned Nazi truck.”  Turning back to his new guests, “If there is petrol, he will find it. Come, come. Get warmer by the furnace before its heat wanes,” explaining that like so many in Leningrad, they rationed all they could, including heat.

“There is drink, please avail yourselves of it,” Viktor motioned toward the nearby bar.  “There are also food stuffs in the kitchen. Take what you need,” he spoke softly to Ayala.

She nodded gratefully.

“Do not, however, go out the southern door,” the headmaster continued, “The house is in perilous disrepair. The Nazis have already come once and done their worst. It is not safe.”

Ayala smiled acceptingly and carried her son off towards the kitchen. Elishov allowed himself a smile as they left. Ayala wore a favorite dress he had bought her years ago and Istak’s sleeping form prayerfully clutched a gifted pair of protective motorcycle goggles. If only that protection had been for what came next.

Strategy

It did not take long for the two men to engage in conversation about war and Germans. Victor spoke of the advance guard that slithered towards Leningrad. Elishov spoke of the brigades of civilians building wooden barricades.

Frustrated, Elishov began to speak. “I don’t see why the army doesn’t just…”

“Do you think it’s that simple?” Victor interrupted.

Elishov tilted his head and grimaced.

Viktor motioned to the chess board and bade his guest to sit. “I teach chess here, and beginners always think it is a game of ‘justs’.” He paused long enough for Elishov to choose a side. “Just move forward. Just decline the gambit. Just memorize the Caro-Kan,” he waved his hand dismissively.  “It is not that simple, neither in chess nor in war.”

The headmaster grinned unnervingly as he himself sat down. Even his eyes reflected the furnace light poorly, adding to the room’s darkness, which grew darker still with Peter’s return: no petrol.

Elishov drew a heavy breath. “May we stay the evening? Perhaps tomorrow… “

Viktor leaned over the board, coming uncomfortably close to Elishov. “And what will you do?” Letting the words linger long causing Elishov to shift anxiously in his chair. “Walk out of Leningrad? As I’ve told you, the Nazis have already come. More come still. You will be found out, and then you will be shot or worse.”

Elishov shuddered. “Surely there was a way out,” he protested.

“Perhaps…” Victor continued to lay out a wager for him. He would play a game of chess. If Elishov won, they would all endeavor to do what they could to secret him and his family out in the morning. But if he lost, they would stay and resist the coming days.

Elishov furrowed his brow and held up a hand, trembling.

“Elishov, we are already dead,” gesturing those gathered, “Walk out, and the Germans will find you, stay and still they might. However, if even the British chess masters can join the war efforts as code breakers, surely we can do our part? No?”

Looking beyond the many pale faces staring at him silently, he imagined his gaze on his wife and son in the kitchen, then nodded. “Very well.”

Tactics

Itsak nibbled on bread and pieces of mangled fruit while his mother stood by anxiously. Something nawed, clawed, and bristled in her gut. It was too quiet. The air too still.

A scratching at the southern door started suddenly, jolting Ayala out of her musings.  Perhaps it was another lost soul fleeing Leningrad.  The door popped and creaked open. The animal scratching at it fled as quickly as it had come. Ayala thoughtlessly stepped after it only to find she could not move and was unable to scream.

Endgame

In the lounge, Victor and Elishov were in full game. Move after move, both players diligently assessed the board and Elishov made admirable progress. Move after move the men continued. Until finally Victor’s King and two Bishops surrounded Elishov mercilessly.

Outside, Ayala could not move. Those who gave them safe harbor lay shot and dead. Every. Single. One. Most disturbingly of it all was the headmaster, who, for all the bodily chaos, hung on to a child defensively, looking to shelter him from the barrage of german bullets which had to have come not long before their family had arrived.

Checkmate.

It was September 1, 1941 the Siege of Leningrad had begun.

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Six Only Street – a grumpy love story

Rule #1: Never let’em see your lane loafers slip. Theodore Wendell Montgomery, expert bowler and part-time fish stalker, moved deliberately into the crystal clear water, his bare feet slipping cautiously through the virgin white sand below. In his hand, a scavenged metal bar, hammered to a point, firmly grasped.

Come on Teddy, you got this… you, Sir, are the hunter, it is… 

“Jesus, Ted, have you not got the damn fish yet?!” The spine curling voice of Ms. Kay Travers surged out over the beach and slammed into the back of Ted’s consciousness.

Ted’s brow furrowed, his lip twitched and his knuckles whitened. If only he’d been a javelin thrower in high school. He’d fling this spear like a pro, and that no good, self-important, New York wannabe socialite would be dead.

“Well, do you?!” she demanded again, moving closer.

He could sense her naturally quarrelsome approach. It was like a sixth-sense he’d developed these past five irritating days, stuck on this parody of a tropical paradise with her. Between her huffing and sighing, scuffling, nagging, and complaining, he could pinpoint her location like he was made of GPS. You’re a regular fucking Detective Poirot, Teddy.

His woolgathering had a price, however. The fish he’d been stalking for days mockingly slipped past his feet and out into the bay.

“Horse tits!” Ted cursed, throwing the spear in a last ditch effort to skewer the fish dinner that might get him laid.

Kay made a throaty sound of disappointment and defeat. “So – it’s coconut and lizard for dinner. Again.”

He leaned to watch her backside sway and saunter towards the wrecked fuselage, cigarette in one hand and near-emptied mini booze bottle in the other. Wait?! Is that my whiskey?! Scrambling he retrieved the spear and ran up the beach after her. Did she find my stash? 

Ted approached the shelter boldly and eyed her empty bottle. “Whatcha got there?”

“Found it rolling under the attendants broken seat,” she offered the vodka bottle. “Want some?”

Shaking his head, Ted leaned the spear against the draped opening of their shelter.

“Don’t leave that there,” she spat over her cigarette.

Ted rolled his eyes, turned and walked away, leaving the spear exactly where it was.

“Gettin’ wood,” he grumbled.

He left the cool respite of shade, walking around the fuselage and into the tangle of trees and shrubs serving as backyard. Ted was just confirming Kay hadn’t found his carefully procured whiskey miniatures when he spotted the out-of-place cloth and haphazard branches concealing a small mound.

What the hell?

Lifting the tatty camouflage, Ted was surprised to find Kay’s own little hoard: eight packs of Marlboro Reds and a single brick. Ted muffled his cackle at locating her swag, but the brick tugged at his thoughts. What was that for?

Ted stood there for a long moment considering why she might have hidden the mundane object.

She’s gunna kill you in your sleep, Teddy! He came to the realization But not if you kill her first!

Ted had had enough. Ms. Kayla Lynn Travers had chosen the best part of the fuselage to sleep in and left him the dead pilot’s seat. Even fearing wild, hungry dingos were in the area, he could not convince her to let him sleep closer, in the safer part of the plane. Bitch.

The dark hours came. They’d eaten coconut meat and grilled lizard – again – then finished off her remaining miniature vodkas. Ted waited until Kay, well fed and liquored, fell asleep.

***

He hefted the brick over her head. It would be quick.

Ted stood perfectly still watching her chest rise and fall underneath a patchwork of salvaged cloth and curtain. It had been five lousy days cooped up with this irascible she-devil. He’d let her have the best part of the plane and had only taken one pack of her smokes. For this, she wanted him dead?!

Ted took aim. He just had to wack her, and all the cigarettes would be his.

Despite the promise of tobacco bounty, Ted hesitated.

I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want you to kill me. I want to sleep in the safer part of the shelter with you, you vengeful harpy! We would talk about bowling and fried chicken recipes, and whatever you like to talk about. Then, maybe we could have sex. Because, what else is there to do on a deserted island?!

Ted slowly lowered the brick, realizing if he killed her, he’d be alone. Defeated, he turned for the makeshift door. Then he heard it. The sound of small movements scaling along somewhere behind him, near Kay. Ted turned back to look at his sleeping villainess. Shit! Slithering through a small crack in the fuselage near the dour-mouthed ogress’s head was a venomous red-eyed snake!

In a flash, Theodore Wendell Montgomery leapt into action, in the long tradition of Kentucky gentlemen, to rescue his vociferous shrew from the serpent’s jaws.

***

Kay jolted awake, Ted’s face inches from her’s. In her periphery, the bloody remains of her reptile attacker oozed off a very familiar brick.

“It’s dead,” he challenged her. “You’re safe.” Vindicated, he made to withdraw to his humbler quarters.

“Wait,” she spoke softly, “Don’t go.”

***

Two shadows behind the curtain moved closer together. However, a howling in the distance briefly shattered the ambiance. “Was that a dingo?!” Ted’s shadow shifted uncomfortably and moved towards the curtain.

“There are no fucking dingos, Teddy. Shut up and kiss me!”

***

Rule #2: Never let a gutter ball ruin your mood. Ted moved out into the water stealthily. Happily hunting for their dinner, he glanced back to his surly hellcat. Kay lounged and smiled for watching him. The brick she’d originally planned to kill him with now sat proudly at the edge of the fuselage, the number ‘6’ having been carved into its face – marking their agreed-upon house number on the only street on their tropical island paradise.