A short story

#1 Mr. Apol

medica mechanica

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Posted 29 March 2006 - 12:10 AM

I wrote a short story today because I felt like it. It's not the most profound thing ever, but I had fun writing it. Maybe you guys will like it.

14 Minutes by Matthew W. Collier

It's September 29th, 5:03 in the morning, I have a hangover, and the phone is ringing.

I get up groggily off the couch I'd passed out on last night and stagger over to it. Too much whiskey the night before and now I'm feeling it hard. Phones are awful inventions, I hate the sound of one ringing, I hate answering them, but unfortunately one had become an unwanted necessity of my current life. The world spins a bit as the blood rushes to my head.

The phone keeps ringing. It pierces through my skull like a bullet train.

I reach forward and remove it from its cradle with a click. Pressing the TALK button I put it up to my ear and respond.

"Hello?"

"Look, we don't have much time. I need you to believe me on this. The world is going to end in fourteen minutes, and you're the only person who can stop what's about to happen."

The whole room was standing still. An anchorman on the television is talking so loud it's almost startling. Until now, I hadn't noticed how loud the TV's volume is turned up. It's just me, this person on the phone, and the anchorman. Everything else in my universe is completely silent. More than anything I'm thrown off by the urgent nature of my caller.

"Peter, do you understand what I'm saying?"

"? What?" I ask, confused so badly that I almost drop the phone. How did he know my name? This guy certainly didn't sound familiar.

"Listen to me, something terrible is about to happen. You're the first person I've been able to reach from here. I can't tell you where I am but let it suffice to say it's very, very far away. Look, we don't have time for formalities. I need you to-"

"What the hell are you talking about? I think you have the wrong number."

"Your name is Peter Allen Davis, you're 24 years old. You live at 587 Blackjack Lane, Owen's Point, Georgia, United States of America. The year is 2006."

"This doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense Peter. The world is going to end in 13 minutes and only you can stop it. I need to you to go to the post office. Look in box 246. Inside there will be a small metal ball. It may feel as if it's vibrating, but it's safe, you'll have to trust me on this. You must take this ball and bury it. It doesn't matter where, but it will have to be buried deep, possibly about two feet down. Bring a spade. I wish I could've called you sooner, but there's no time Peter, you have to hurry."

My heart is leaping, running mad like I'd just had a nightmare. I feel like I have to vomit. The hangover isn't helping.

"What the fuck? None of what you're saying makes any sense. Why should I believe you?"

"Because you have to Peter. In twelve minutes, everything you know will be gone. You will be dead, everyone you ever knew, loved, or hated will be gone forever and all because you wouldn't do something as simple as burying a ball. We come to a crossroads Peter. You've got a little over eleven minutes to find a metal ball that will determine if your reality lives or dies."

I gulp. It's the loudest gulp of my life.

"Make your choice."

My head is swimming. Goldfish in a bowl. Hard-boiled wonderland and the End of the World.

"Alright, I'll go."

"Hurry Peter."

The phone screams static as he hangs up.

I'm not for sure if I believe him. I pace for a moment, trying to figure out what I'm going to do. Thoughts fly through my mind like speeding bullets.

Suddenly, the TV squeals loudly and static fills the screen. The picture wobbles back on briefly, leaving enough time for the anchorman for the morning news to report that the station seems to be having some sort of technical difficulties. The squealing starts again, high-pitched and awful, just as the picture warps around back to white noise. After a moment the picture comes back once more. I catch the anchorman's report mid-sentence.

"-just in, we're getting reports of high winds and earthquakes in several major cities, New York, Los Angel-"

Static again. This time the picture doesn't wobble back. The whining noise coming out of the set grows in frequency, getting higher and higher until, with a pop, the speakers on the set blow out. A test pattern comes up on the station and I finally do throw up, gushing bile out through my mouth and nose all over my hardwood floor.

Wiping my face I grab the phone again and try to dial my girlfriend's phone number, fumbling with the clunky off-white cordless. In my nervousness and paranoia I slip and dial a digit wrong. I start over, again dialing incorrectly.

"Fuck!"

I scream this with childish rage, shaking the phone and gripping it so hard I hear the casing crack. The operator informs me of my mistakes in that unmistakable flat voice, almost as if she's mocking me. I start dialing again, this time actually completing the correct series of digits. It rings four times before Angela answers.

"Pete?" she mumbles. I'm assuming she was asleep like I was.

"Why are you calling me this early? God, it's 5:00 in the morning."

"Angela, you have to come pick me up. We've got to go to the post office," I say frantically in the phone, on the verge of yelling.

"Calm down! What? Why?"

I try to gather my thoughts and steel myself. It feels like I need to throw up again.

"Angela look, I don't have time to explain. Basically, we've got ten minutes until the world ends. Everything is going to shit, the TV's out, there's ear-"

"Pete, are you high?"

"What? No, I'm not, Angela we've-"

"Pete, I seriously don't have time for this shit. I've got work at eight and I'd like to sleep until six-thirty at least."

"Angela! I'm not lying! I'm serious!"

Although I'm still talking, she hangs up in the middle of my pleading. The idea of calling her back plays in my mind, but I don't have time. I'm going to run. It's a three-minute drive to the post office -I lived fairly close- and I was going to have to run the distance in nine. I've never been very athletic, but I was going to have to try.

The world depended on it.

I burst out of the front door and ran as fast as I could across my front lawn, my neighbor's front lawn, and then across her neighbor's front lawn. The air is freezing cold and it feels like I just ran into a meat locker. It's slightly windy out and this confuses me; the forecast today said it'd be clear and sunny. I'm not wearing a shirt or shoes, just my pajama pants, and my feet are instantly shocked with the icy dew covering the grass. Running frantically over to the pavement, I keep moving as fast as I can. Dark clouds are gathering overhead, swirling around a central point. It reminds me of weather specials I'd seen on cable about tornadoes and how they look just before they touch ground. My heart sinks when I realize where exactly the clouds are forming.

They are spinning directly over the post office.

I decide to run straight for it, ignoring the streets and trying to make it as short a route as possible. My feet pound the asphalt as I run across the street, but it's replaced by grass again as I cut through a backyard, jumping over a low fence. The wind is getting stronger, and I'm almost hit by an inflated rubber ball as it blows past me, caught in the coming storm. The sun is not quite up yet, but it's not night either. The sky is that murky blue half-light that comes only in the very early morning, a time I'd rarely seen. The adrenaline was really going now. I haven't ran like this since the time I hit my little brother in the head with a stick so hard that he'd passed out. I thought he was dead so I ran and hid in a ditch until nightfall fearing that I had become a murderer. When I returned home he was sitting on the porch crying, wondering where I had been.

Over another fence, across another street; and I'm still running strong. That maelstrom of clouds above the Owen's Point Federal Post Office is getting closer. Now I notice that all along the giant cloud little bursts of lightning are dancing. The storm sirens the government uses to inform citizens of inclement weather start blaring like madmen. It's an air raid without bombers.

My heart and legs are pumping as fast as they can, my skin is cold and sweaty and my lungs are filled with a thousand needles. I lose my footing and take a tumble on a street I'd just started running across. The pain is intense as I catch myself on the blacktop with palms outstretched. The skin peels away and black pebbles force themselves into the cuts, blood is already starting to gather around the scrapes. I force myself up with shaking hands and a grunt and keep dashing.

It's then I suddenly notice that there are no cars on the street, anywhere. I run out of a front yard onto the main street and look around. I really have to be going out of my mind. Was everyone in the world gone except for me? There aren't any vehicles as far as I could see. All the streets, every alley, all the yards, they are all completely devoid of life except for frost and wind. There are no birds singing, no one traveling to work. It's just those air raid sirens and myself, standing in an empty street in a doomed universe. I try to guess how many minutes I have (three, four?) while I make a break for the post office doors.

They swing open and the little bell above the door tinkles, gathering the attention of a nonexistent attendant. The wind outside is picking up and it's causing the whole building to shake violently. A TV set behind the desk shows the same test pattern, it's speakers also blown by the squealing. By now the lights on the inside are flickering, presumably from the electric surges in the air above the office. The rooms of the post office are constantly plunged into light are dark.

Box 246, box246 where are you? I run down the rows and find it. It's standing open and frantically reach inside to find a tiny, black lacquered wooden box with a dirty bronze hinge holding it shut. Opening the box like a kid opening a Christmas present I find what I was looking for: a small, extremely shiny metal ball about the size of a marble.

As I touch the ball, a small static charge leaps out of it and shocks me. I yank back my hand, but quickly grab the ball again and run back outside. Its oddly heavy, much heavier than it should be for its size. I don't really have time to be confused about this though. Maybe I could contemplate this after I've saved the world.

There couldn't be more than one minute left.

I jumped to the wet, frost-covered dirt and started digging with my hands as fast as I can manage. The voice on the phone had said that I should bring a spade. I should've trusted him. Dirt flies and cakes beneath my finger nails and I get deeper and deeper. His words are echoing in my head and I'm cursing myself loudly as I dig furiously, trying to get a hole deep enough to satisfy this ball.

The wind picks up so much that I fall down on my side and slide along the grass, the ice covering it stinging my bare flesh. Everything is getting louder. A whine starts building in my head and soon it's so loud that it's drowning out everything else. The ground under my feet starts vibrating and it feels like the earth is falling apart. The static is so loud now that it's all I can hear and my eardrums feel as if they are about to burst. I feel two streams of hot blood spill from my nostrils. The blood gushes out as it pours down my face and onto my naked chest. I grab the sides of my head and scream so loud my throat is raw but all I hear is static. Tiles are flying off the roofs of houses across the street and suddenly, an entire house lifts off its foundation, followed by another house farther back. They tumble through several yards like apocalyptic tumbleweeds. I try to stand up so I can dig again but the wind knocks me flat to the ground. My hand hits the pavement and the ball rolls out of it across the asphalt. I try to scream but can't do anything but hold onto the grass with both hands as the wind threatens to throw me into the sky. The whine grows louder and louder. It feels like my body is exploding. The universe is crashing.

Everything is quiet and I see nothing but blinding white. In the distance I hear a vaguely familiar tune, but in an instant it's gone, washed away like a ghost in an empty alley.

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Back to top of the page up there ^

#2 Revvy

Jeez guys, there's no need to be narky.

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Posted 29 March 2006 - 12:48 AM

Did he beat the boss?

<+AFK> Bringing whisky to my mother is like irrigating a lake.

<+AFK> dormando's apathy is palpable.
* AFK palpates
<dormando> stop that

<Malwyn> undressing with revvy a little over a metre away. new definition of awkward.

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