Invaders from Beyond the Sky - Flash Fiction Challenge

I wrote this for a flash fiction challenge on Terrible Minds.  The idea is to combine two sub-genres in 1000 words.  I decided to combine three, Dieselpunk, Alien Invasion and BDSM erotica.... which means, NSFW.  Reviews welcome.

The dashboard had five dials in it. Five dials and 16 toggle switches. It seemed like more than enough, but what did I know about motorcycles? How to fix them, but not how they should look. 

Anyway, Ace Savage was impressed with himself and I wanted to be polite.

“She's a beaut,” I told him. “Looks just like a jewel or something.”

“Like a bullet,” he corrected me. I didn't argue, even though a bullet like that would never get out of the chamber.

Ace was a nice enough kid. He was a couple years older than me, blonde, handsome. Not my type. We'd known each other growing up and he always wanted to wear the pants. He'd boss me and I'd let him, but if I'd ever wanted to, I'd have had him grovelling in a heartbeat. I didn't like that. Inconsistent.

I batted my eyelashes at him. “Can I go in front?”

He shook his head. He wasn't about to let a girl drive his new toy.

My baby blues were losing their charm. I sighed. “OK. I guess I'll just get behind you and hold on real tight.”

Ace smiled and handed me a pair of goggles.

The road was empty, but the sky was full of zeppelins. I closed my eyes, smelled the cedar and squeezed Ace tighter. It was too quiet. The calm before the shit storm.

When we got to the base, my hair was mussed, so I pretended to worry over it while Ace went to talk to the guard. I didn't catch much, but I heard Ace refer to me as his girl twice. Their talk ended with him turning to me and saying, “You don't mind waiting with the bike, Millie? There's a good girl.”

I nodded and sat side-saddle on his bike. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

Ace went through the gate. I looked at the trees.

After about a half-hour, the guard got a call on the radio, put his gun over his shoulder and high-tailed it down the road.

I waited until he was out of sight, walked along the fence a little ways and slipped under it into the forest. I didn't always snoop around the base; I'd planned on waiting right where Ace told me to – but it was strange for the guard to abandon his post like that, and I was curious.

I walked parallel to the road, right up to the marble building and in through a side door. Usually this is where my heart would start pumping so hard I could hear it, where I'd have to duck into a doorway to avoid being caught – but the halls were empty, just like the road.

There was a faint buzzing sound, and I followed that. Everybody was gathered in one room, silent.

I crept in through the open door. The sound was coming from the projector. The screen was full of tiny discs, nothing too impressive, just blobs of dark grey on white. There was a big blob that was lighter than the rest. It took a second for me to see it was a zeppelin – which meant that all those black blobs were filling up the sky.

I covered my mouth to keep from gasping and backed through the door. I hit something, and before I could turn around, I felt a giant hand pinning my arms together at the wrist. I tried to turn my head, but another hand pushed my face forward. I felt lips against my ear and heard, “Don't bother, just walk,” and was pushed down the hallway.

I'd been around the base enough to know I was lost. I hadn't even known there were elevators until he shoved me into one.

I hit the wall hard, too fast to get my hands up. I turned around in time to see the doors close.

“Want to tell me what you're doing here? Who are you spying for?”

Tears stung my eyes. This was the problem; I'd get roughed up and I'd be such a mix of turned on and spitting mad that I wouldn't know what to say. “No one. I was just—” I thought about mentioning Ace's name. It would have been the fastest way out of the mess I was in. “I was just snooping. You know, in general.”

“Which General?” the man demanded.

I blinked at him, disappointed that a man like this should be so stupid. “Sorry, bad joke.” He cracked a smile. Gorgeous white teeth. I thought I might provoke him, see if I could get him to bite.

His uniform wasn't one I recognized. Some special division, maybe. Definitely not in Ace's unit.

“I'm Millie.”

“Vale.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Basement.”

“Why?”

He crossed the elevator in half a second, backing me into the corner he'd thrown me into. “Questioning.”

My heart thudded in my ears. I pressed myself into the railing to keep from pressing into Vale. The elevator bell dinged and the doors slid open.

At first Vale didn't say much, just asked me questions and tightened my restraints when he didn't like the answers. He finally worked out that I got off on it and gave up on interrogation. Every time he came down, he looked a little grayer, a little weaker, sometimes beat up pretty bad.

One day he came in, looking rough and told me, “This is the safest place for you,” chained my arms above my head and fucked me against the bars of my cell. That was the closest to a heart-to-heart we ever had.

The aliens have taken all the big cities. Not just here, worldwide. This base is one of the only ones left and I have to wonder who's holding it together.

I don't know what's happened to Ace. Vale still comes to see me sometimes, but we don't do much talking.

Rain

It started raining last week.  Not heavy but endless.  Cold, constant, November rain. 

There aren't any animals.  If there are any left, they're in hiding, curled up under a tree somewhere, waiting for the rain to stop.  You can see faces, too, in the windows of other houses, staring out at you, watching the rain and wondering the same thing you've been wondering all along: is this it?

Of course it's not it.  You tell yourself that over and over again.  Of course it's not.  But you don't know, not for sure.

The world will end on a Tuesday, there isn't any question.  The only uncertain thing is which Tuesday it will choose - and where all the calenders have gone.

That's my flashy thing for the writing prompt I put up on Monday.  I had the idea for it during heavy rain yesterday, and wrote it just now - the sky is a crisp blue and cloudless, the sun is shining - we definitely are not having apocalyptic type rains here.

So I'm gearing up for NaNo, and working like a nut to finish my All Hallow's Read poster.  I only found out about the contest last week, so creating something worthy of AHR in that time is not going to be easy - that being said, I am at the finishing touches stage, so I should have it in by the end of the weekend, and I'll definitely post a link to it when I have.

I also finally got myself another day job, which is good (yay!) but is also a minimum of 45 hours per week (also yay!) - which means NaNoWriMo is going to be CRAZY this year, especially since I'm also going to Prague for four days at the end of next week (super yay!) - I'm going to have to write at least 2,000 words per day at the end of a 9 hour shift - but I was reading through my (now 16 page) outline a couple of days ago, and I really do think this story is going to be good.

At Night

An albino Father Christmas stood on the end table and at night, it came to life. It jumped down, plastic censer swinging from a cardboard-present clutching hand, and moved around the lobby. It went on the computer and changed the reservations, it looked at Internet porn. It chased the mice.

In the morning, it went back, replaced its taffeta hat and waited for the guests. When they touched it, reaching for a dining guide or filling out a comment card, or because its beard looked so soft, it took a piece of their soul and at night, it ate it.


By the way, I wrote the soul-stealing bit before I read Rhiannon's story, which just proves that we're a) very alike and b) very crazy. I would have posted it earlier, but in keeping with the brand new DevCo tradition of posting terrifying holiday art, I wanted to find a picture to go with it.

Ecksmas Prompt: Man of Snow

This is proof positive that I'm bugnuts, by the way. Enjoy! And happy Solstice Rites Of Your Choosing!

~~~

When he woke, he was blind and cold and deaf and could not scream. He couldn’t move, either, but he could feel their hands.
Sensation returned first to his arms; his fingers felt cold and brittle.
Sight returned, then smell. The world was shades of grey, but he could see it and was thankful, even if it did smell of carrots.
They stuck a corncob pipe where his mouth was supposed to go, before they gave him the hat and scarf. It didn’t charm him; he was as cold as death.
They wanted holly-jolly laughter. Instead, he took their souls.

EDIT: I tried putting the damn picture at the end. It won't let me. I blame the shitty computer. And I'm totally adding this after the story's been up for a few moments. Hah! Also, there are waaaaay too many pics of creepy snowmen out there. They're coming for us.