Scaretastic and Sci-fi Stories E-Book

Kris Maze

• Herausgeber: Maze Publications
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 237

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Scaretastic and Sci-fi Stories is a collection of short fiction intended to mystify and frighten readers to their delight. Written under the pen names Kris Maze and Krissy Knoxx, these stories span the speculative subgenres of science fiction and light horror.  Includes award-winning stories and a preview of a YA science fiction series.

Leseprobe

Scaretastic and Sci-fi Stories

Copyright © 2024 by Kris Maze

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

Maze Publications129 Pendleton Way #665Washougal, WA 98671http://KrisMaze.com

LCCN: 2023916801ISBN: 978-1-957944-02-9

For my family, for watching lots of Twilight Zone,MST3K, and Son of Svengoolie with mewhen we were kids. It explains a lot.

CONTENTS

Blue Foot

BY KRIS MAZE

Death Before Delivery

BY KRISSY KNOXX

Detour

BY KRISSY KNOXX

Star Tracker: A New Beginning

BY KRIS MAZE

The Regeneration of Tomas Renell

(A.K.A. Sylvie’s Summer of Scary Sh*t)

BY KRISSY KNOXX

Corn Roast Queen

BY KRIS MAZE

Vital Investments

BY KRISSY KNOXX

Seed Rebels: Book

Athena and the Apocalypse

BY KRIS MAZE

About the Author

BLUE FOOT

BY KRIS MAZE

Blue Foot—Chapter 1

Ernestina Après stood before the Tribunal, her shoulders wrenched firmly back into their sockets and her chin aligned parallel to the stony ground. She felt certain of her banishment from the Dome, her only home and the place where she raised her family—at least what remained of them after the latest brutal tragedy.

The Tribunal consisted of members of the Council with whom she had spent her whole life. This made her sentence even more bitter to acknowledge. The Tribunal could only accept a guilty plea from her, even though she was hardly responsible for the accident. Even though their shared history bound them together in this tightly woven community, she would be forced to take the punishment. Exiled, even though she held the keys to the community’s survival.

Ernestina studied the face of the central figure, Etienne Monteneige. Her eyes bore into him, and she willed for him to remember her place in the Cercle Bleu, to soften his position, and to have mercy.

As children, they had skipped stones across the same silver streams. They had celebrated each other’s weddings and new births. They had also mourned the untimely death of her husband Philippe, and even though she had held a leadership role in the Council for years, someone had to be held accountable. Accountability, they said. But I know that getting rid of me solves their bigger problems, too. I never really had a choice. Somehow, it’s my fault my son slipped from the barn’s rafters and fell onto an unfortunately placed pitchfork.

The Tribunal heard the workers’ testimony and felt benevolent, giving her an option of who would take the punishment. Who would reduce their population problem? Ernestina could decide which of her family members would face banishment.

The choice itself was a joke, a twisted reaction to her reports that the Council couldn’t provide for the citizens of Cercle Bleu. She had already suffered many losses, but other Council members always averted harm and discomfort. Members who failed to acknowledge their part in the Dome’s downfall. Failing to acknowledge the downfall at all. The Council, in her opinion, had a bigger responsibility that they hid from the community. Someone should hold them accountable too, for their negligence, their inability to act, their complacency in their comfortable standing in Cercle Bleu.

The vision of Byron, her son, tall, lean, with a flawlessly blue muscular back, haunted her. She couldn’t focus as the memory intruded, of him falling, landing with a thud that sounded like a knife slicing soundly through clay. She had rushed to his side to hold him, his turned head, with an open mouth and eyes strained and popping with pain. Shouting to the workers to fetch the medic, she held his shoulders to raise his listless body from the tines of the pitchfork. Four trails of dark, sticky blood poured from the sharp edges that ran through her son’s chest.

The Tribunal had a hush-hush meeting at her home to go over her wishes before her public trial. My wishes.How considerate. They wanted to assure her they would provide for her grandson.

Etienne, the head Tribunal member, spoke first. While he talked, she could only think of their time in grade school. Her stomach twisted, a sour taste reached her soft palate, and she felt a rising ball of anger churning slowly below her rib cage.

“As an orphan, he could receive the best care and education,” he said.

She wanted to gag but resisted, pushing back the nausea, and leaning into the tops of her thighs, “Do you remember taking spice-cakes from my mother’s window? She used to cool them off there and never reported the missing cakes to your parents. It flattered her you waited for more each week. She said you were just some hungry boy, and she wished you would come to the door and ask.”

“Your mother was an excellent cook. And I always appreciated her kindness.” He folded his hands and examined them.

“Is there any other way?”

“This is the way.” He stood. “And if your reports are correct, we will not have enough food and water within a couple of years.”

“Then do something about it!” She stood and walked around the chair and clenched a fist at the top of it.

“I wish we could do something about it faster. But we need time. And tradition holds our society together. You, of all people, understand this.” His voice was too-loud-too-quick, the loud that you let out by accident, the kind that gives away your own anxiety.

“And your solution for Ozzie is to make him an orphan? To give him a great education and feed him from what remains of the food?” She leaned into both palms on top of the chair facing him. “I expect more from you.”

“This is extremely difficult for everyone. Especially after the recent death of Byron. We all appreciated his good sense of humor and attention to detail.” He coughed, clearing his throat, and checking the door behind him for the other Tribunal member.

“Damn you. He’s the reason you are sending me away. Sending me out there. As sure a death sentence as there ever was.” She was gripping the chair now, her nails digging into the soft finish of the wood, her anger unleashed, ramping up her chest and shaking her shoulders as she shouted, “Damn your condolences and platitudes. Damn you that you are destroying my family, my reputation, my life. Damn you, Etienne Monteneige.”

He rose from the seat he had taken at the table and straightened out his silver, embroidered blue cassock with a flick of his wrist. “I assure you that Ozzie will be my personal apprentice and will always have the best care and resources.”

“Damn you. You’re sending me to the Outer Lands to cover up your ineptitudes. You’ve just sent the whole Dome to destruction.”

The words he said next still floated between her ears, “I’m deeply sorry, Ernestina, but there’s no one else to take your place for this atonement, and no one can undo the gruesome accident. I recommend you accept your fate.”

Blue Foot—Chapter 2

That was yesterday. And three days since they composted her son’s busted and bloody body. The days had been exhausting, void of tears after sleepless evenings of planning, a hopeless exercise of emotions. She envisioned various scenarios to devise a way to stay with her grandson, a way to save the people in the Dome. Without success.

Ernestina had overseen the harvest for years and understood that the Dome faced unprecedented problems. Once again, we didn’t reap enough to sustain our growing population. My son’s accident gave the Council an excuse to send me away before I shared terrible, but true news that the Dome was doomed. They blamed the poor harvest on her, and the Silver Spirits that fated the tragedy. And the Spirits needed to be appeased.

It was the way of keeping order in Cercle Bleu, but the Council’s sudden lack of compassion with the timing of writing her report couldn’t be a correlational coincidence. The streams were over-fished, drained by feeding into too many irrigation plots, and contaminant-ridden runoff that leached into their water. “Let’s not share this report with the community and cause a public panic. We’ll handle it with urgency and fix the problem.”

Today, the Dome’s residents stood dotted around a compacted circle of earth for her trial, her small platform faced the Tribunal, which was seated on stone slabs. Their long silver dreadlocks hung with authority, the length of their hair representing the length of their rule over this land. Etienne Monteneige, sitting on the most central stone, rose to address the crowd of their neighbors, their friends.

“Ernestina, you have been a Dome resident since birth. As a respected member of our society, you oversaw the storage of crops into the harvest barn, assuring us that the equipment was in good repair. But under your watch, your son, Byron Après, slipped from the rafters to his death.” He paused, coughing with a slight airy snort, as if to clear away his words and find others that agreed better with his mind. He stroked the strands of hair falling to his mid-chest and continued, “As is our tradition, there must be a sacrifice to the Outer Lands.”

He walked the perimeter of the townspeople, looking into individuals’ strained faces and watery blue eyes before standing directly in front of Ernestina. “Your carelessness in oversight has caused a disruption for our peaceful community, and we must atone for an imbalance and unrest among the Silver Spirits.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Ernestina, I celebrate your long-standing contribution to our domed society and wish there was another way. But we have a careful balance under the Dome and the slightest change of equilibrium can destroy us all.”

Ernestina didn’t even try to hold back her scoff.

Etienne Monteneige spun to address the crowd, ignoring her. “Who remembers the droughts of the 1800s? The chestnut trees that stopped producing? Or the blight to our soy that nearly brought our staple food source to a halt?” One young man raised his hand. His mother glared at him. “Or the low fish count, which we discovered just last week, shows our food source is dwindling.”

He glanced sideways at Ernestina, who kept her eyes forward, and walked in a small circle looking at the translucent Dome above. It reflected light from outside with a soft, dim glow at the brightest. “The balance has been teetering for months and we must make an atonement, or we will all suffer the consequences.”

Ernestina watched her grandson as he wiggled, seated on a stone on the far edge and wearing an ornate blue smock with silver trim. Poor Ozzie. He lost his father andgrandmother in one week.

“Ernestina, are you in sound mind?”

She huffed, inhaled, and blinked several times to push back the memories of her once happy family, and agreed with a nod.

“What plea do you enter before the citizens of the Cercle Bleu?” He wrapped his arm in an arc, pointing around the crowd. A woman whimpered from the back.

Ernestina shifted her weight and glanced at her bare feet. They used the simple corded restraint since she wasn’t a violent criminal. It jingled slightly above her confined blue heels. She folded her hands and peered into the faces of her elders, most the same age as herself, a futile search for compassion. She looked back to Ozzie, now playing with a flower poorly hidden in the front pocket of his smock. There had to be another way.

But she knew the facts as well as the Tribunal. She had attended each meeting of the Council. The colony numbers were near the capacity of the Dome, and her banishment aided the Counsel’s elimination decisions later that season. Her departure would keep others from having the same fate of removal. Others, including Ozzie, would be safe. If only for a short while.

Her words tumbled like pebbles falling from her mouth to the dry ground around her. “I say that I agree with the Tribunal.”

Ernestina faced forward, refusing an ounce of emotion, although her hands trembled, and her chin betrayed her with a quiver. She had heard stories of the terrors beyond the Dome. Throwing one’s fate on the mercy of the court may work for the younger ones, but not for her. She was expendable, dangerous even, and grieving the death of her adult son, a disturbance to the Dome’s delicate balance. Compliance and her agreement with the Tribunal was her only chance. They could still change their minds. They need me to oversee the harvest. Maybe I got through to Etienne after all.

The elders convened, nodding over whispers, while she waited. Ozzie sat at the edge of his stone, swinging his sandaled feet as he waved at her. He showed her the flowers from his pocket, oblivious and delighted to be what he thought was the center of attention.

The boy was not on trial, but his fate to become a ward of the Cercle Blue loomed over her heart. Will they honor their promise? Or abandon him too once I’m gone? She stared, memorizing the expression of his face, twinkling blue pupils within his pale-blue eyes, a pudgy baby-fat face, a dimpled chin. Ozzie shifted in his seat, trying to overhear the Tribunal members speaking. She noticed he guarded another concealed plant beneath his tunic. Something medicinal she kept near the side of their home. He always loved the striking yellow petals.

Etienne Monteneige pushed back his shoulders to address the crowd and returned to the circle. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the frail version of Ernestina in front of him. He picked up his long dreadlock and placed it ceremoniously over his heart.

“The Tribunal declares Ernestina Après is guilty of endangerment and negligence.” The Cercle citizens reacted with gasps, and hushed exclamations buzzed, echoing around the Dome. Heads of households quickly silenced mumblings and outbursts, afraid that their families could be next.

“Remove her from the Dome immediately. May peace follow her soul.” The elder winced as the crowd responded with weak, obligatory applause. Two guards encroached on her and removed the thin shackles from her feet and wrists. They pointed her toward the only functioning exit from the Dome, sealed for all their protection, and ushered her to the anteroom.

Blue Foot—Chapter 3

“Ernestina, once the door opens and seals behind you, we cannot open it again. Thank you for your contribution to Cercle Bleu. We honor you with this pack of food and a copy of the sacred agreements.”

Ernestina dropped the bag to the ground. “Sacred Agreements? What good will those do me in the Outer Lands?” She pushed out, an airy, shaky breath. “Keep the food. You’ll all need it.” She looked over her shoulder at her grandson’s face once more, wanting the memory of his smile, of him playing with a flower from her home. That was more valuable than a bag of food from Cercle Bleu. And certainly more important than any agreements. Agreements that did not serve her best interests. Nor the best interest of the Dome citizens. Ozzie’s cheerful face would bolster her spirits when facing her banishment for what remained of her life. His smile could give her courage to face the Outer Lands.

Ozzie flashed a wink at her, and a worrisome mischievous smile crept across his face. A smile she had often seen before when he was trying one of his little pranks. No, Ozzie. Stay up there and stay safe.

He patted the vine beneath his shirt and bolted from the slab seat towards her. Sprinting to the exit after her, he averted the grasp of the confused guards, weaving between their bulky legs. The seal of the Dome entrance separated from its base and a cool mix of heat and moisture combined in the chamber leading to the Outer Lands. The guards groped to reach Ozzie, rushing into the chamber, trying to pull him back, but retreating as the door dropped behind the exiles.

“Wait! Let him back in!” she shouted, pounding from the outside of the nearly closed door. Ozzie stood behind her, pleased with his little stunt and holding out the plants, one in each hand.

Ernestina crouched to face him, turning him towards the door, open barely a crack. A spinning ball of panic tore through her ribcage and spun to her throat, “Ozzie, it’s safer for you inside.” She stood to pound on the door, facing a small glass viewing pane. The door clunked into its base and a suction of the sealing mechanism began to whir and whoosh.

“Stop! He’s just a child! He didn’t mean to do that! Let him back in! You PROMISED!” She dropped to the base of the door, her head sliding to the spot above her slumped shoulders. “You promised.” She repeated with a wispy thread of her voice. The metallic window dropped over the viewing pane, sealing their fate.

Ozzie stood in front of her, glancing at his foot as he pushed around pebbles in a semicircle with his toe.

“Why did you do that?” she said, a tremble of fear taking over her thready vocal cords. “You should have stayed. Stayed where it’s safe.”

His pale eyes opened wide, his blue-dotted pools filled slightly with tears. Gently lifting the yellow lilies, he held them for her to take, complete with muddied roots straggling beneath his chubby fist. “This is for you. I don’t want you to take the long trip. And these would make you come back home.”

She held him, bending to his level, and wrapping her arms around him. “Ozzie, what have you done?” she whispered, her cheek buried into his fine, wavy hair. It still smelled sweet and metallic, like the hot spring he had bathed in that morning.

“Those people in there. They are not my family,” Ozzie shared, as blunt as the fact itself. A yellow petal, crumpled and browning, fell to the chamber floor. He pointed at her. “You are.”

Kneeling, she held him at shoulder distance and inspected him head to toe. “What have you done, my adventurous child?” His smile melted her immediate flash of anger and replaced it with a duty to show courage. She could face the Outer Lands with strength, if only for him, and one tear spilled from the boy’s eye. We’ve got to make the best of this. No good will come from crying. It’s just him and me now. “Come, child. The outer door will open soon. Let’s see what’s on the other side.”

The seal to the Outer Lands opened from the other side of the anteroom. It was less dramatic than the abrupt closure of the Dome, a slow ascension of a person-sized door, not big enough to send through even a cart of melons.

Birds cawed through the thick overgrowth, signaling their banishment. Massive trees, so tall that they couldn’t see where they stopped. Except for the dots of sun that poked through the bright Outer Lands sky, foliage covered the spans above them. Ozzie lifted his hand to hers and announced flatly, full of sincere hope, “We have a new home now.”

“I hope so, Ozzie. I hope so.”

Blue Foot—Chapter 4

The broken petal caught an updraft and flitted into the jungle undergrowth surrounding the Dome. They stepped out of the anteroom and the steel door began its drop, a whirring of gears grinding when the door adjusted into place. They looked at the Dome from the outside, noting that a breeze caused the many vines and branches to rub against the blue-tinted, translucent surface. Nothing inside was visible to them anymore. The dirt and mold from the outside had stained the Dome’s surface.

Ozzie took in the biggest deep breath, pulling his shoulders up to his ears. “This air tastes good, Grandma!”

“It seems different. Lacking something, maybe.” She took his hand and started away from the Dome. “Let’s go find our new home, okay?” Ozzie nodded and looked at the Dome behind them as they stumbled along an overgrown path marked with silver-streaked stones.

“Will you hold my plants? I want them safe for our new home.”

She took the plants and tore off a piece of her long tunic to wrap around them. With the swath of her skirt protecting the stems and roots, she opened her dress to set the greenery gently above where her belt cinched to her waist. The wrapped greens nestled against her heart, and she felt warmth from a calm sensation and child-inspired optimism.

Ozzie stayed close to his grandmother but fell out of step often to examine strange new flowers, and once to poke at a slow-moving, green beetle. While they walked, Ernestina shared the history of the Dome with the young boy, more to keep her mind off the dangers they faced, than to teach him their history. It was a story her grandmother repeated often while they worked together on fine embroidery. She looked at the smock Ozzie wore and noted the meanings of the silver designs woven into his tunic: health, sustenance, spiritual cleansing. All the things the Silver Spirits helped them achieve. The background was always a shade of blue, like the color of their skin.

Ozzie didn’t seem to listen to the story as he scanned the jungle for new flowers, pointing to a dandelion with a puff the size of his full open hand. “Look, Grandma.”

“That’s very interesting. Stay close to Grandma. Stay on the path, okay?”

Ernestina repeated facts about the Dome, monitoring where Ozzie wandered. “The Dome was created a century ago. That’s one hundred years ago. The Council formed it to protect their families from climate toxicity, icky stuff in the air, and water we didn’t want in our bodies. When we discovered the secrets of the silver streams, we wanted to protect them. We needed to respect the source of our food and the waters that gave us strength and health.” Ernestina realized she was already speaking of their home in past tense. It gave her a chill as the branches full of dark leaves dropped around the path and they walked further into the unknown.

“Will we have silver streams out here?” Ozzie picked up a speckled rock and threw it.

“Probably.” Ernestina felt the humid air envelope her, sticking to her like a damp cloth. “Listen closely and let me know if you hear water, okay?”

“Got it. You can count on me!”

She and the boy walked towards the jungle on the stony path and Ozzie hummed a marching song about ants. Ernestina reluctantly sang along with the repetitive children’s chant.

“That’s great, Ozzie.” She scanned the area, checking for unknown predators, and continued her facts about life in the Dome. “They built three Domes at first, a different Council in each. We had a market where other Domes would come to ours, where we sold our fish and fruits. Did you know we had tunnels big enough that we could take a cart to another Dome?”

“Yeah. I heard that. The big kids used to scare us and say they would lock us away in them.”

Ernestina pulled him towards her for a side hug and ruffled his hair. “Well, they couldn’t do that because the tunnels fell in decades ago.”

“I know,” he said and pointed to a long-tailed butterfly in vibrant yellow and green.

Ernestina decided it would be better to not mention that those kids would not—could not—bother him anymore. “Over time, the different Domes lost communication as the radio tower stopped working and must have fallen over. We believed after years and years without contact that the other colonies didn’t survive.”

“Look at that dandelion! It’s bigger than the last one.” He trotted over to the top of a germinated puff the size of his smiling face. Giggling, he huffed and puffed, causing the seeds to float into the soft breeze. The seeds took flight, and Ozzie followed them. Ernestina was grateful he didn’t worry about leaving the Dome, but worried about his lack of fear in their new world. I’m trying to keep this little guy alive, but it may do me some good to enjoy his excitement, too. She rushed after him, but her dress had gotten stuck in a branch, and she had to yank at it to free herself.

“Be careful! Come back here!” She lifted her dress and tucked it under an arm. She ran across the silver stones, wincing at the sharp edges. “Ozzie, stop!” she urged. She moved from the stones to follow him gingerly, taking the mossy sides of the path. It kept her bare feet from scratches.

He was now beyond her sight, and she looked for signs of where he had run. She called out and whistled a sharp tweet she had used when working in the fields. Sticking to the path, she ignored the pain in her feet, the burning in her chest as she ran, and the extra energy from the oxygen-rich air that pumped through her veins. It enhanced her senses to take in her new, raw environment and overwhelmed her with large smells, creaky sounds, and deep shadows.

She scanned the edges of the path for signs of Ozzie, shoving aside larger branches, scratching her delicate, pale-blue skin. I can’t lose him too. “Ozzie!”

“Grandma! Come look at these bright-red butterflies!” she heard from further down the path. She hurried along the soft moss, tucking the fringe of her skirt into her waistband to avoid getting caught in a thorny plant that thrived here. Across the path, she noticed a pillar, mostly covered by overgrown vines, but something etched the smooth face of the stone with symbols stood out to her. The old language? This was only from the legends. She leaned closer to examine the message, but then heard a squeal from Ozzie. Ernestina moved towards the shouting boy.

Blue Foot—Chapter 5

“What? What is it?” she asked, her heart pounding against her breastbone, and her head buzzing with panicked thoughts as she finally caught up to him. He held out his hand where a large iridescent moth rested, slowly opening and closing its deep-red wings.

“A friend!”

Ernestina looked closer at the seemingly harmless bug. “It’s a nice moth.” She crouched, tucking her knees up to her belly as she faced the young boy. “Ozzie, please don’t run away like that again. We don’t know if there are other animals in this area. Animals who are not friendly. Ones that may want to eat people.”

“Why would they want to eat us?”

“You’re right, we are probably nothing more than a snack.” She looked at her thin arms holding tight to Ozzie’s shoulders. “But you would be a sweet little snack. And I love you too much to let that happen. Please stay where you can always see me.”

“Okay.” Ozzie pointed to where the moth landed in a tree with ruby-colored fruits, ones that reminded her of the pulp-fruits she grew on her plot behind the house. The house I used to live in. “Grandma? Can we eat those?”

“I don’t know. Let me do a test first.” She walked to a low branch and twisted at the soft fruit. It snapped away easily from the branch. A drop of juice trickled to her wrist, and she touched her tongue to the liquid. It tasted like pulp-fruits, but with more tang and tartness. More savage and wild than ones from her carefully cared for tree in her backyard. We can make a meal of these.

Ernestina bit from the fruit, realizing how hungry she had become, her mouth dampening, salivating from under her tongue. She swallowed the juicy food. She quickly pulled three more fruits from the low branch and put them in a fold of her skirt. Then she handed one over to the boy. “Here, Ozzie. Try this.”