Monday, February 18, 2019

Operating System Zero ep.3 (A Flash Fiction Serial)


If you missed episode one click here to read.
If you missed episode two click here to read.

Episode 3

Rick:    
     I hit the floor, not thinking about what I would land on before I jumped. The System Zero GPS hit the ground first, and I followed by falling on top of it. Knowing how fragile technology sometimes can be, my body nor my brain seemed to remember that when I was lunging through the air.
     I roll over wondering what Curtis was warning me on. Andy, the butcher, form the local grocery two blocks over, stands over me looking like had he the crap beat out of him. His canine teeth are dripping blood. I pull my pistol from its holster and unload the low capacity clip into Andys's body in an assortment of locations.
    Each bullet enters Andy's body, and he never bleeds. They absorb into his flesh. Andy does not look the way he did before he absorbed the shots. He looks stronger. Why!
     “Curtis…” I say with a puzzled sound in my voice.
     I'm still watching Andy, and the confusion in his eyes is frightening on its own. I shake The System Zero GPS.
     “Curtis, can you hear me?” I say raising my voice.
     I shake the GPS harder and watch the screen power down. I glide my eyes from the screen watching Andy move closer as I lay on my back crawling backward. Thinking I may have hope, I feel the blood drop from his teeth on to my leg. I keep crawling backward. He grabs my foot and my faith. I squint my eyes shut and yell, "Help!!!"
     The front door of my house is kicked open; my eyes shut, but the sound is unmistakable. I open my eyes and see Curtis standing on the opposite side of the den holding an attachment to his GPS looking like a gun.
     "Don't shoot!" I yelled, knowing the bullet would be my death ticket.
     "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!
     Curtis holds his System Zero GPS eye level and says, "Hold on to your guts."
     Curtis types a code. A digital claw, the size of a human hand and molting red hot flies from the back of The System Zero GPS connected gun followed by an attached digital chain entering Andy square in his back. Not sure of the outcome or even actually what is going on, I watch the chain and claw withdraws from his back, and before it reaches The System Zero GPS gun, it turns white hot annihilating any existence of Andy's heart or blood. I stare in amazement as I watch Andy fall lifeless and motionless at my feet. Curtis throws me a towel.
     "You might want to get his blood off your skin. If it soaks in and gets into your bloodstream your screwed," says Curtis.
     "What the..." I say, frantically getting Andy's blood off my legs.
     I can't help myself but watch Curtis as I thoroughly get the remaining part of Andy's blood off my legs. He is inspecting his GPS intensely. Like he seems to know something about it from out of nowhere.
     "How did you know how to make The System Zero GPS be able to do what you just did?" I say.
     "First you have to check this out," he says, as he motions me to the front door. 
     He pushes back the door that barely hangs on its hinges and steps aside. I slowly look around the door frame not wanting to have the same incident I just had with Andy but what I see laying in the street is a whole army of dead humans that look precisely like Andy. 
     "What the..."
     "Say hi to what happened when we were in the fallout shelters for no more than 5 days."

TO BE CONTINUED...

Big Green Publishing


Here are some books I have short stories in that are on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, BAM and Kobo











Saturday, February 2, 2019

Operating System Zero ep.2 (A Flash Fiction Serial)



If you missed episode one click here to read.

Episode 2

Curtis:    
     I wonder what the hell happened as each day passed. I took refuge in the small square fallout shelter that was placed in my house by my employer. Hopefully, Rick did the same. I have not spoken with Rick in 5 days, the day all hell broke loose, and I am starting to get Closter phobic in my small 8x8 emergency cell. I am glad today is the day our emergency manual says we can exit the shelters to search for answers.
     I push open the door wearing my emergency approved gas mask carrying the System Zero GPS and am overwhelmed with an avalanche of ashes that fill the shelter. The ash kills my half ate odd-tasting vegan Danish pastry, five days of those things just for breakfast can make cabin fever show its crazy face even faster. I guess that was the silver lining.
     "Can anyone hear me..." Blares The System Zero GPS as I lay it on the floor exiting the fallout shelter.
     The System Zero GPS did not activate itself until it was out of the shelter due to the massively shielded walls which would not allow any satellite signals to feed through. I grab the GPS, "Who is this?"
     "What do you mean who is this. Five days and you forgot my name? No wonder a one night stand is a long-lasting relationship for you.”
     " Rick?"
     "Yeah...."
     "Where are you?”
     " Press the 'Home Button' on your GPS."
     The screen lights up on my GPS and freezes on an activation screen with an input box. "What is..."
     "Press the input box and speak your daily work password."
     "KermitTotes9mm..." I say hopefully.
     "What's up with you and the Muppets?"
     "Shit...'
     "Did it work?"
     "No, " I say with disgust.
     "Try you clearance badge code, " says Rick questionably.
     "Kermit22986..." I say as the screen on the GPS begins to flicker.
     I see Rick on the screen smiling at me. "Wow, I'm impressed with the high HD compression codec it is using."
     "Yeah that's hard not to notice, " says Rick.
     I keep my eyes on the screen and notice the layout in Rick's house is an exact duplicate of mine, minus a few colors and pictures. Time stops for me, as I start thinking: I remember when I was younger and myself despising conformism, and how I live now. I blow it off by consoling my thoughts, "You gotta give a little to make a little."
     "Did you say something, " says Rick.
     "I was just thinking out loud, " I say.
     I still have my eyes glued to the screen on the surroundings of Rick in his house, and I notice someone walk across the hallway behind him. Or was that maybe a shadow from a possible flickering light?  Questioning what it might be, I turn and look into my house as some of the emergency lights are flickering. They seem to have invited a whole circus of shadows into my home.
Thinking nothing of it, I turn back to the GPS screen and see the shadow in Rick's hallway once again.
     "Rick I didn't know you had company..."
     The shadow is shedding its darkness with every step, the closer it gets. The puzzled look on Rick's face slowly vanishes as his eyes see mine. With no question, he lunges forward as the figure reaches for him with blood stains on its mouth and the look of death in its eyes.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Big Green Publishing


Here are some books I have short stories in that are on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, BAM and Kobo