Tuesday Tales - Silly

 

Welcome to Tuesday Tales! This week's word prompt is “silly”. We are back with my new Sci-Fi story. 

In this excerpt, I'm introducing a new character, Boboneth - or Bobo for short. The photo below gives you an idea of what he looks like but in a humanoid form. (Please disregard the Lokis pruning each other in the background.)

Be sure to check out the other Tuesday Tales by clicking here!

Someone needed to shut off the sun. 

Dani clenched her eyes closed to try to block out the bright light. It didn’t help whatsoever. Her head pounded so hard it felt like it was a drum and someone was performing a drum solo. The pressure she felt the night before was gone. Maybe her migraine released itself and joined her hangover. 

She didn’t remember much of the walk home. Was Ezra still there? Was she actually home? She was dressed and whatever she was lying on felt like her couch.

The margarita didn’t make the horror she witnessed disappear. Ezra said that smoke thing that came from him, that wanted to eat that poor guy, was not from this world. Was he telling her the truth? Aliens weren’t real, were they?

She heard chattering and squealing from the other side of where she believed her coffee table was. Great. She had the headache of a lifetime and there was a squirrel in her living room. 

She froze as a voice filled her mind as she listened to the squawking. “Ezra left a glass of fluid and brown tablets near your head for you.”

Her eyes popped open. The sunshine made her wince. A stab of pain filled her skull. It didn’t stop her from gaping at the creature she found standing on the coffee table.

It was a magenta balloon sculpture of a stick person with a head way too large, including knots at the end of its arms and legs. There were two black dots and a half moon grin embedded in its face. Dani guessed it had to be a foot and a half tall. 

Of course, that was if the silly little thing was real. Her hangover must have made her delusional. 

“You are just a figment of my imagination. Once I get up and take some pain medication and get some water, you’ll disappear.”

The balloon figure stomped an inflated foot and clenched its knots to its hips. “I am not an illusion.” It gestured towards her head. “And what you wish for is right there.”

Tuesday Tales - Fruit

 

Welcome to Tuesday Tales! This week's word prompt is “fruit”. We are back with my new Sci-Fi story. 

Be sure to check out the other Tuesday Tales by clicking here!

His gaze dropped back to the bottle in front of him. He reached out as if to take a drink. Maybe a little liquid courage would make this easier for him. Instead, he picked at the label. “I wandered a little too far into the woods. I saw a bright flash of light. I thought it was Grandpop and his flashlight looking for me. The next thing I knew it was daylight. I was sitting on the forest floor and my parents, aunts, uncles and Grandpop were surrounding me. The back of my neck hurt a lot. It was difficult to register everything they were saying over me but one phrase stuck out to me. I remember it now. Three days. I was missing for three days.”

“My goodness. Where were you?” Dani let out an audible gasp. Her hand may have even flown to her breast like a damsel in distress. When did something this terrifying turn her into the heroine in her favorite historical novel? She grabbed her margarita to take another burning swallow. Wincing, she suddenly wished she asked for the frozen fruit one.

“At first I had no idea. The only evidence of where I had been was the four dots at the base of my skull.” He turned his back to her and lifted his long, black hair to show the four dots on the back of his neck. They formed a box much like what a die looked like when a gambler rolled a four. He spun back towards her in his chair and continued. “I could hear voices in my head. I saw constellations in my mind that I still haven’t heard of. I told my parents about everything and they took me to all sorts of specialists. No one knew what was wrong with me. It wasn’t long before the fevers started.”

“You had an infection.”

“Not quite. When I say fever, it isn’t like the high temperature that comes with a virus. It was an intense desire I didn’t instigate and couldn’t control. At first, I wanted to make friends in the worst way. I would ask someone to play, lure them someplace private and vacant…”

“And then?”

“Everything would go black. When I woke up, my new friend would be lying dead, drained of every drop of blood in their body. Either the intense pain and pressure in my head or the lifeless body of someone who trusted me made me sick. It still does. However, the voice in my head was sated.”

Tuesday Tales - Cold

 

Welcome to Tuesday Tales! This week's word prompt is “cold”. We are back with my new Sci-Fi story. 

Be sure to check out the other Tuesday Tales by clicking here!

The translucent ice cubes bobbed in the pale green liquid like ducks floating on a tranquil lake. Dani stared at the goblet-like glass in front of her. Alcohol was certainly not her thing. She normally indulged in a cup of tea for her nightcap before turning into bed. 

After what she witnessed tonight? No amount of camomile would settle her nerves. 

She snatched up the margarita and guzzled about half of it. The cold liquid and the bite of the alcohol sent a shiver up her spine. She didn’t want Ezra to think she was a lush but it had been a rough night. She glanced up at him, finding him staring at the imported bottle of Mexican beer sitting on the table before him. The beads of sweat drizzled past the gold label and pooled around in, reflecting the bright colors of the painted tabletop. 

There was a buzz in the little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. It was enough to drown out the questions that Dani had for Ezra. She glanced around the place at the other patrons enjoying their chips and salsa or their ordered dishes. Most of the tables had no fewer than three empty margarita glasses on them. The walls were painted yellow gold with red and green accents. Painted artwork was nailed into the plaster to give the place a homelike feel.

Dani took one last look around her, sucked a deep breath that reached her belly button, then spoke. “So. About your little friend there.”

“He isn’t my friend by any means,” Ezra growled. His gaze still didn’t reach hers. He kept it locked on his beer bottle.

Dani laid her hands in her lap and twisted them, flustered. Things around her grew a little fuzzy. She was such a lightweight. 

Before she had a chance to pry further, Ezra continued. “It all started when I was nine. I was playing Ghosts In the Graveyard with my cousins at my grandparent’s farm in Wisconsin.”

Dani didn’t think as she pointed to herself. “I’m from Indiana. I’m just on the other side of Lake Michigan.”

The glare Ezra gave her shut her up quick. She dropped her hand back to the table. “Sorry,” she apologized.

Ezra’s head dropped low again. “No, it’s not your fault. I’m the one who should say I’m sorry. It’s just - I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my parents.”

“Go on,” Dani encouraged as she leaned closer.