Stories

It’s in his DNA

/ Editor, Witcraft / 5 Comments

Yuri’s work on his historical DNA database project was progressing every day as his secret source gained more access to items worn by historically significant Russian people and samples from their known descendants. His latest triumph was a sample from Vladimir Putin and he excitedly ran it through his system.

After several hours he had a match. His mouth gaped.  Joseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, born in Georgia in 1879, later adopting the name Joseph Stalin. Unaware his system had been hacked, he answered the door to the men from the Russian Ministry for State Security, the reincarnation of the KGB.

Intercept

/ Editor, Witcraft / 10 Comments

This piece has just been published in Volume 2: “I Probably Shouldn’t Tell You This” anthology by Bar Bar Publishing. “I Probably Shouldn’t Tell You This” is available on Amazon & Kindle Unlimited

Intercept If only Brian could find some way to intercept the letter from Homeland Security. He had written to them because he no longer trusted that his emails and phone calls weren’t being monitored by Them. As a child of the Sixties he knew that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

He believed that the postal service remained secure, so far, but he cursed himself for not having rented a postbox instead of using his own address. His wife always collected their mail from the converted oil drum on the post at the entrance to their small farm and she would be suspicious of any change to that routine.

Daily he had to suppress the awful thought that she too might be one of Them, so he hadn’t kept a copy of what he wrote in case she discovered it, like she did everything else. However, he knew what he’d written. ‘Dear Sir. I have to report a matter that should be of grave and urgent concern to you and your Department. I believe I have evidence that forces unknown (hereinafter referred to as They or Them) have infiltrated the lottery system as a way of funding Their various nefarious activities.

Having researched the matter thoroughly, I offer the following (admittedly circumstantial) evidence. 1. I suspect, ‘sleepers’ were planted in the gaming authorities many years ago when the winning numbers ceased to be televised live, providing the perfect opportunity to manipulate the results

2. The winners of most major prizes are ‘anonymous’, purportedly in order to protect their privacy. What it does do is provide a perfect cover for diverting funds to Them. Through off-shore numbered accounts and shell companies the money can disappear without trace in an instant.

3. I have tracked down those that have disclosed their winnings, only to find that in every case they were no longer at that address. I am willing to hand over my detailed case notes as proof of my diligence in this matter. I referred earlier to Their nefarious activities. While it will take the specialized resources of your Officers to confirm the breadth of such activities and their detailed operations, I suspect some of the funds are being funnelled into infiltrating the labs of vaccine producers.

Through the addition of cleverly disguised viruses to commonly accepted vaccines, They are progressively gaining the ability to manipulate the life choices of our citizens. I need point no further than the plethora of reality TV shows and the screen obsession of teenagers as incontrovertible proof. I await your further instructions.

Your humble servant, Brian Peabody.’

As the time for the postal van’s arrival drew ever nearer, his anxiety began to rise exponentially and his wife kept looking at him more oddly than usual, so he locked himself in the gardening shed he called his ‘study’. Thirty minutes later his wife knocked on his shed door and said “Brian, parcel for you. Marked ‘Private and Confidential’. What have you been up to?” Brian quickly swung the door open, snatched the parcel from her hands, slammed the door shut again, and double locked it. His hands shook as he tore the medium sized box open.

Inside was a letter, sitting on top of a smaller box. He opened the letter and read: ‘Dear Sir (I will not use your actual name for obvious security reasons). We intercepted your letter before it could reach the Secretary’s office because we have reason to believe it has been compromised. Thank you for your alertness in detecting the indeed suspicious activities you referred to in your letter.

We would like to take you up on your offer to co-investigate with our Officers. On Monday, call the number listed under my signature. Making sure your wife is listening, pretend you are 21 calling Emergency and say you are having a heart attack. Shortly, a white van resembling an ambulance will arrive at your home and two of our Officers, disguised as paramedics, will put you in the vehicle. You will be taken to the secret location of our offices in the basement of a medical facility. You will receive further instructions when you arrive.

While waiting for the appointed date, please ensure your ongoing security by wearing the hat in the smaller box at all times when you are outside. Be sure to memorise the phone number and then destroy this letter and the box it arrived in. Yours sincerely, Chief of Security.’

Opening the smaller box, he found a checked peaked cap. He turned it over and noticed that it had a silver lining and he smiled to himself conspiratorially. Titanium, of course, with its unique abilities to block transmissions. Now he was absolutely certain the authorities were taking him seriously. Having memorised the letter, he tore up the boxes and the wrapping paper and fed them into the potbelly stove he kept going in his shed for warmth in winter.

In his haste, he failed to notice there were no stamps or postmarks.

***

“Good evening, this is ABC News. In today’s lead stories, reports of students at a local school behaving very strangely after being vaccinated against whooping cough. And the anonymous winner of last night’s record-breaking lottery jackpot has gone into hiding.”

Vintage Hospitality

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This micro piece will soon appear in an anthology called The Bad Day Book – Volume 1

The Oldie Curiosity Shop differed from the other antique, bric-a-brac and charity stores that lined the seafront in the rapidly fading village of Under Constumple in the designated tourist zone known as the Fossil Coast. It rented out, by the hour, old people with stories to tell, or as they liked to call it, remnants from remnants.

For a modest sum, you could hire a desiccated, but nonetheless living and mostly coherent, octogenarian who in a previous time had held an important role in the community and, as they talked, customers would wonder at how such people ever existed, let alone earned a living.

Shirlene Hardcastle (Shirlene Farquhar as was) would have people gape-mouthed as she related how she gave birth to five children, never had a paid job, made all the family’s clothes on a cantankerous Singer sewing machine that she’d bought second-hand, cooked meals on something she called a stove and they would guffaw in disbelief when she’d say she couldn’t remember ever being unhappy.

Ernie, the last of the Youngblood clan from Tantanoola, would regale his customers with stories of repairing cars that people had to drive themselves and constantly refill with something called petrol; when he added that these cars sometimes cost more than a house and had a propensity to kill their owners with little warning, skeptical eyebrows would collide with the ceiling.

Marilyn Burnside specialised in describing how people used to be required to travel many miles to work in buildings called offices and spend their days typing on something called a keyboard and communicate with people in other offices with an instrument with a cord attached called a telephone, all for the purpose of selling things to other people who worked in offices, just like them.

But the star attraction was Bill Barnes, who would show them things called books, consisting of printed words on paper made from trees, that people would buy to keep in their homes and sometimes read more than once, a fact that stunned his customers almost as much as the fact that you couldn’t talk to them and get a response (although some wondered if they were an early version of a teenager).

At the end of the word

/ Editor, Witcraft / 11 Comments

This piece has won 3rd place (and some money) in the annual Peter Cowan Writers Centre 600 word Short Story Competition.

At the end of the word

The man had sensed the teenage boy was out there, even before the dog smelled him and hunted him into the clearing, nipping at his heels.

‘Call your bloody dog off!’ the boy snapped.

The man looked at the dog and it sloped off to drink water from a tin bowl.

‘You oughta have him chained up.’

The man turned his back on the boy and went to sit in the old armchair under the lean-to veranda. He took a sip of tea from his enamel mug, picked up a book, opened at it the page marked by a feather and began to read.

‘Can I have something to drink?’

The man didn’t look up but nodded in the direction of the rainwater tank. A tin mug dangled from a rusty chain on the tap.

‘Jesus, mate, I’m not that desperate. What about a coffee?’

The man continued to read.

The boy began to walk towards the house. The dog moved into his path, with its lip curled and emanating a guttural sound. The boy groaned before moving towards the tank.

When he’d finished, he sat on a tree stump and looked around the clearing. Apart from the small house, there was a chook run, a veg patch enclosed by chicken wire, and an outhouse.

At dusk, the man put down his book and entered the house, leaving the door open. Shortly after, a light appeared in the window and wispy smoke began to emerge from the chimney.

The boy ventured as close as the dog would allow him and called out ‘Any chance of a feed?’

Just before dark, the man appeared, dropped a blanket on the armchair and put a plate of steaming stew, with a spoon sticking out of it, on the veranda floor. The dog emerged and settled on a pile of hessian bags between the chair and the door. The man returned inside, closed the door with the thunk of a heavy bolt and the light was extinguished.

The dog allowed the boy to pick up the plate and sit in the chair to eat. After eating, the boy stared briefly into the total darkness. He closed his eyes and wrapped the blanket tightly around his thin frame.

…

The boy woke to the sound of caroling magpies and a vehicle navigating its way up the twisting track to his house. The man was up. He pointed to the bush and the boy took off.

When it arrived, a Police officer stepped out and said ‘G’day. Sergeant Cameron Thomas, Yarra Valley Police. Just wondering if you could help me.’ The man said nothing.

Thomas produced a photo and showed it to the man. ‘Recognise this lad?’ The man’s face remained immobile.

Thomas noticed an ancient and battered Land Rover. ‘Do you have drivers licence?’ The man retrieved a wallet from his back pocket and extracted a plastic card which he proffered to Thomas. He wrote down the details in his notebook, took a photo of the card with his phone and returned the licence to the man.

Thomas climbed into his vehicle and started the engine but before he drove off he said through the open window, ‘If you do come across that young bloke, be careful. I think he could be dangerous.’

After Thomas left, the man returned to his armchair on the veranda, picked up his book and apart from turning the pages, he and his dog sat perfectly still. They knew the boy would not come back.