Nick Bryan

fiction

Another short story: "Popped"

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Hello. It’s Friday, and I thought I’d attempt another round of the short fiction. You can see my previous efforts elsewhere on the blog. No prompt this time, so I was left to my own devices and, um, the result is probably a good example of why I shouldn’t be left to my own devices.

Popped

By Nick Bryan

Lew was beginning to suspect he’d been stood up. She was half an hour late, and he’d made remarkable progress on his pint. In fact, he was fast approaching the tipping point, after which it’d bode better for Lew if she didn’t turn up.

His mobile had provided a welcome distraction, but he had to avoid rinsing the battery with stupid games. After all, she might yet contact him on it. So this left him no choice but to stare around the bar. Well, pub. Well, shithole.

It was wood-panelled, infused with the stench of wee and, most of all, it was dark. Not merely dingy, but pitch black. One didn’t so much walk across the room as feel one’s way from lamp to neon strip light. He was seated near the door, as he worried his date would never be able to find him when she arrived.

‘Waiting for someone, are we?’

‘Ummm.’  He looked around, with both a start and a finish. It was… a man, with an expensive suit and slicked-back hair. And somehow, not only had he approached Lew’s table without being noticed, he had also taken a seat and placed his drink. Tap water, oddly.

‘Because you look like you’re waiting, I think. You don’t appear to be experiencing enjoyment, so.’ Long pause. ‘Are they not coming, do you reckon?’

Maybe it was self-consciousness, but Lew could have sworn other tables were throwing nervous glances in his direction. ‘Well, something like that. I was meant to be… sorry, do you work here?’

‘Oh, no.’ The stranger straightened his jacket. ‘I’m just a regular. Want to hear a story?’

Lew was no fool; he’d watched television. When an odd man in a bar offered to tell you a story, it often ended badly. He was right next to the exit, too. But this guy was between him and it. And the staring was starting to burrow his forehead now. This person didn’t blink.

Finally, he nodded, because what harm could it do?

The suited man smiled, and it was the first non-threatening expression he’d produced. Leaning forward, though, it didn’t last.

‘So,’ he began, ‘it was probably a dark and stormy night. I was at a funfair, watching the balloons. I like balloons; do you?’

Lew nodded, beginning to wonder if he’d ever see his family again.

‘Good. So, I was staring at the balloons, really really staring at them. There were clowns and candy floss and probably some other things, it wasn’t raining because there were kids running around.’

So, it was a dark and stormy night without rain? Was he nuts or really terrible at improvising?

‘Anyway, I looked at this cluster of balloons, like I said, gazed for a while. And there was a bang, then some more, like a machine gun going off. The kids jumped and the clowns seemed concerned because it wasn’t in their script. Clowns, I find, are pretty stupid.’

Lew had never met any clowns, so didn’t feel offended. He took another sip of his pint, it was fast running out. Maybe he could offer to go to the bar, then leg it?

‘So, it occurred to me that perhaps I burst those balloons? That perhaps, like, it was some kind of a super-power. You must have seen Heroes, you know these things can happen.’

He was quickly revising his opinion of this person down towards psychopathy. How did he afford that suit?

‘So I bought some balloons and burst them in my house. It was easy, I just glared until they went bang. It took a few hours of practise, but eventually I was able to do it easily. Not just balloons, I moved on to footballs.’

The balloon-bursting man was still leaning quite far into Lew’s personal space.

‘Eventually, I thought of an application for it. It’s a hard field to get into, but yeah. Turns out, there are some who pay good money for a guy who can explode someone’s head with a hard stare.’

Expensive suits and shiny hair. Mafia chic. Lew felt his eyes widening and couldn’t seem to shrink them back to a polite size.

‘I did some CEO once, from the building across the way.’ The stranger grinned. ‘His head burst like some kind of over-ripe tomato. His PA shat herself, it was all over her blouse. The blood and the shit. Nowadays I don’t even need direct sight of the target.’

The eyes were boring into him. Lew felt a tingle in his head and hoped it wasn’t about to go pop. Not that he believed this nonsense.

‘So, with that in mind, here’s the deal.’ Finally, the man in the black suit leaned back. ‘I’ve been watching you, you don’t belong here. You’re looking down on us.’

Come to think of it, everyone in this bar seemed rather smartly dressed.

‘Give me all the money in your wallet, the nice phone too, then piss off.’ He smirked. ‘Otherwise I explode your balls.’

It seemed he had to make a decision. But all Lew could do is stare and think, oddly, about whether the girl who’d stood him up had been in on this whole thing.

‘Seriously, now.’ His tormenter was clearly having the time of his life. ‘Another minute, then I pop them like blobs of whipped cream covered in ketchup.’

That could be the most disgusting thing Lew had ever heard. And it was perhaps that which inspired him to turn out his pockets. Because, you know, better safe than sorry. Good job he’d not planned on taking that girl to a restaurant, otherwise he might’ve had more than twenty-five quid on him.

So he let the money drop to the table and put his mobile down beside it, before getting up without saying another word.

The stranger gave him a quick nod. ‘Thanks, my friend. Appreciate it.’

And Lew made it to the door, before there was a wet popping sensation around his crotch. Something slimy slipped downwards, before it was caught in the waterproof sack that was helpfully provided. A tear sprang to his eye.

‘Ah,’ the man in the suit shrugged, ‘sorry, I got curious. Be glad I only did one of them.’

Sorry about that. This story is somehow copyright Nick Bryan in 2010, don’t steal it or anything. God knows why you’d want to. If you would like to use it somehow, let me know and I’m sure we can sort it out.

The Lonely Altar

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Last week, I wrote this story about ducks. It was oddly well-received, and thanks very much to everyone who got in touch through various mediums to tell me they enjoyed it.

So, since it seems rude to only do stories for the prompts that are helpfully based on my dreams, I have done one for this week’s prompt as well. Click below to read it. If you like.

The Lonely Altar

By Nick Bryan

The church had been on the coast. Water eroded the base of its cliff, until rocks began to shift. Never a strong construction to begin with, it struggled to survive the dissolution of its very foundations. Beams tumbled over one another, doors hit the ceiling, but the altar stayed whole.

It was only a wooden table, still. Not one of your stone altars. No-one had been in the church at the time of collapse, so there were no bodies to pray to it with their dying breath. Not one person even saw it go. The nearest town was a mile away. It was alone, without worship or attention.

In short, it was bitter. But there was precious little that a slightly scratched piece of carpentry could do about it.

Years passed.

A teenager, urinating behind some rocks whilst bunking off school, spotted a golden chalice on the ground. He attempted to sell it at a local second hand shop, to fund a huge bottle of cheap cider. Fortunately, the owner recognised it as an artefact of interest and alerted… Eleanor and Edward, wife-and-husband archaeologists.

They prided themselves on the unbiased uncovering of the past, whilst maintaining an air of reckless adventure. So into the rocks they went, armed only with trowels, small plastic bags and some dynamite. They also took the teenager, a shaven-headed miscreant named Lee, to show them the scene of the find.

‘Er, it wos round there.’ Lee gesticulated at the sand. A pile of mishaped stones clung together all around them, and they were well inside a cave by now.

Eleanor and Edward exchanged annoyed glances. This was not useful so far.

‘That’s really useful, darling,’ Eleanor was definitely the people person of the team, ‘but could you be more specific? Did it have roll out from anywhere? Was it a particular time of day? Was it damp?’

This required a mental exertion most reserve for marriage proposals or long division, but their informant finally concluded that it was by the big rock on the left, and might have fallen from beneath. Edward raced over to begin investigating, whilst Eleanor congratulated Lee.

‘Very much appreciate your help, my dear. Here’s your reward as promised.’

A pink purse appeared from one of her twenty-seven pockets and she produced a crisp fifty pound note. He snatched it, grunted something inaudible and raced away, no doubt to buy penny sweets and marbles.

‘What a nice boy.’ Eleanor seemed pleased. Edward refrained from commenting.

Instead, he focused on the chips of paint on these rocks, which not even the tide had washed off. He glanced behind them, kicked the rock a few times and appeared to be reaching for his trowel.

At the last moment, he changed his mind and went for the dynamite. He used only a single stick, and set a short fuse. Then, with a high yell of ‘Fire in the hole, my dear!’, Edward and his wife raced for the cave entrance.

The resultant bang rippled through the cave, practically disintegrating the rock which had been indicated to them. Beneath three or four layers of shaken stone, the altar metaphorically trembled with anticipation as its tomb fell away.

Luckily, few sunbathers used this stretchline of coast, as it was largely cliffs and harsh terrain. So none were drawn to the loud bang, except for its instigators. Edward leapt gleefully into the hole he’d created, and his eyes fell immediately on the altar.

Well, it was more of a sturdy table, thick legs with some carved pattern at the top of each. It was hardly ornate though, merely decorated. There was water damage around its feet, sometimes splitting into cracks, but it seemed that the rocks had protected it from being soaked through. And after many months, it was a touch attention starved.

‘What do you think, darling?’ Eleanor called back from the opening. ‘Is there anything?’

‘Oh…’ He paused, trying to accurately describe the glory before him. ‘I think I’ve found an altar, Eleanor. It’s lovely.’

A simpler mind might think that a particular altar wants you to worship a specific God, or belief system, or eviscerated goat carcass, but they don’t actually make much of a distinction. Like a cat, they just want to be adored.

‘Really?’ Excited, she took a few paces into the gap, still glancing nervously at the shifting noises around her.

‘Oh yes.’ Edward ran a hand along the edge of the altar, impressed at how shiny it remained, even though he wasn’t sure varnish had existed in the relevant period.

Breathless, his wife finally scrambled into sight, and exhaled sharply when she laid eyes on the wooden worship-fodder. It swelled with joy.

‘Get your phone out, darling.’ She grinned. ‘We need to take some photos now and start finding a good home for this one.’

Nodding in profound agreement, he grabbed inside his jacket, expecting his hand to close around a mightily mega-pixeled cameraphone. It didn’t, and his eyes widened.

‘That little turd!’ Spinning on his heel rather too fast, Edward faced Eleanor. ‘Lee, the kid from earlier! He took my phone!’

She merely tutted, but he was incensed.

‘No! This won’t do! Doesn’t he remember we know his name and where he lives? I refuse to be robbed by someone that stupid! I quite simply refuse!’

Crunching up dust as he went, the enraged archeologist stormed away. ‘More importantly, he’s stopping us putting the word out about the altar, and that won’t do! I’m going to see him! And I’m taking the baseball bat.’

‘But, Edward…’ Eleanor called wearily after him, before dashing out of the cave in his wake, wishing she’d a phone with a decent camera. Behind them, the altar was almost orgasmic with glee.

This story copyright 2010 Nick Bryan and so forth. If you wish to somehow use it, let me know and I imagine we can come to some arrangement.

Ducks!

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So, it’s rare that I post my attempts at fiction online, more due to nerves than a desire to preserve my oh-so-precious ideas.

However, fellow aspiring author-person Isabel Joely Black, who is always good company on Twitter, has been posting a weekly prompt for short fictions on her website.

So I thought it was only fair that I take a stab at it, really…

Ducks From Space – by Nick Bryan

From The Journal Of Doctor Lewis Lamb:

As I understand it, the first sighting was in a suburban back garden. An elderly gentleman saw a small, golden object fall from the sky and embed itself in his lawn. He raced out there as fast as he could, but due to his advancing years, it still took half an hour.

But, at last, he arrived at the scene with a trowel. Rather than alert the authorities, he was going to dig it up and hawk it to one of those places that offers you money for any gold you can find. He had high hopes for this, it looked about the size of a table tennis ball.

Scarcely had he scraped the surface, however, when there was a strange squeaking noise. Pecking its way up from below the soil, a tiny yellow duckling emerged. It looked around, clearly confused, before another startled squeak came out. The fervent gardener had swept it aside looking for the golden shell.

But he never found it. And soon, similar landings were spotted around the country. Newly formed birds coming up from the ground, squeaking for attention.

This warrants further investigation.

Three Days Later

The duck landings have spread worldwide. The pod falls from the sky, burrows into the earth and grows into a duckling. Any which land on concrete roll towards the nearest soil. We have captured a few to test under laboratory conditions.

The ducklings and ducks that grow appear normal examples of the species in all measurable respects. We are in the process of checking at a deeper genetic level, obviously this will take some time.

Speculation continues in the lab, as well as the wider media, about the source of these falling duck-seeds. Their spherical shape and golden colouring does not resemble the conventional “duck egg” at all. Some wonder whether these are a new type of egg, evolved to try and escape the confines of the duck pond.

One of my laboratory assistants speculated they might be the result of ducks cross-breeding with root vegetables. I can only assume this is a “joke”.

Two Days Later

As the influx of ground-grown ducks continues, slowly but steadily, the more alarmist elements in the media have started to question whether the ducks may be some kind of invasion force, from beyond our solar system, come to colonise our planet and subjugate humanity.

At first, I thought this too was a strange attempt at humour, but it appears they were serious. I did not think anyone was stupid enough to believe ducks would rise up to take over the world, but I am once again disappointed.

I have appeared on breakfast news repeatedly to assure the public that there is nothing untoward about these ducks. They quack, they lay eggs, they have no sign of the so-called “alien DNA” or “killer death vision” that the papers are quacking about. I have also pointed out that “killer death vision” is a double negative.

More worrying still are the cries to “send them back where they came from”, presumably involving a giant cannon.

Three Days Later

The affair of the ducks from space has taken a worryingly sombre tone. Spurred by fear and heavy media pressure, the government have ordered a cull of an unspecified percentage of ducks. They claim it will focus on the new arrivals from the sky, but since they are identical to pre-existing specimens, I fail to see how they will discern.

They have issued reasons for the massacre, of course. Ponds are becoming overcrowded, the skies are dangerous for aircraft, a slight increase in the number of small children pecked in parks. People are avoiding Chinese food. I’m surprised they didn’t mention the risk of rioting when bakers throw out the stale bread.

Clearly, this is an unscientific travesty based on mass hysteria and little else. Petitions against it exist. I heard rumours a throng of protestors were marching towards the Houses of Parliament, quacking.

One Day Later

And so the cull came into effect. Ducks were collected up and taken to be slaughtered. It has not been pretty. Policemen in hideous bright high-visibility vests smashed into my laboratory, broke my equipment and carried off every duck they could find. They went into the night, quacking for help, and none of us did anything. I think one of my laboratory assistants may have cried.

And it was then that I decided someone had to take action. I like to think I wasn’t the only one, that some of the failed protesters and petition signatories had been spurred into it too, but I’ve learned not to over-expect of people.

One Week Later

The duck-seeds, when they fall, roll instinctively towards earth so they can take root. My employees looked for the best way to collect them for experimentation, and ended up using a huge sheet of high-tension material, secured with springs. In effect, a giant trampoline.

Luckily, no-one had thought to notify the police that we had dozens of these golden balls in giant buckets, tucked away at the back of our storerooms. It probably helped that we threw tarpaulins over them. Having waited a week for the furor around the cull to die down, we hauled them out and carried them to the nearest available green space.

As we were planting seeds in the ground so they could grow into ducks, one of my employees commented that if the ducks actually were alien invaders come to crush humanity, we were playing right into their hands. This was the same one who had made the quip about root vegetables. I told him to stop being so stupid.

Blah blah copyright Nick Bryan 2010 I suppose, please don’t steal it. If you’d like to publish it somewhere for some reason, email me and I imagine we can come to some arrangements.