Ten Collected Stories of Supernatural Adventure, Science Fiction, and Literary Fantasy

Ten Short Stories of Supernatural Adventure, Science Fiction, and Literary Fantasy

by

S. E. Lee

Ten Short Stories of Supernatural Adventure, Science Fiction, and Literary Fantasy

Copyright © 2012 by S. E. Lee

Cover Copyright © 2012 by S. E. Lee

SMASHWORDS EDITION Published by Crescere Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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One Last Look - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

The City in the Desert - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Fray - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Spider-Cursed - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Le Fay - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Black Magic Money - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Death Angel - Copyright © 2012 by S. E. Lee

Do-Over - Copyright © 2012 by S. E. Lee

The Ghost Girl - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

Outrunning Zombies - Copyright © 2011 by S. E. Lee

(complete rights information available at end)

Table of Contents

1. One Last Look: science fiction

2. The City in the Desert: military science fiction

3. Fray: literary fantasy

4. Spider-Cursed: a supernatural suspense tale

5. Le Fay: literary fantasy

6. Black Magic Money: a supernatural suspense tale

7. Death Angel: literary fantasy

8. Do-Over: literary fantasy

9. Ghost Girl: supernatural suspense

10. Outrunning Zombies: supernatural thriller with romance, part 1 of a serial story

Preface to this Collection:

Dear Readers,

Reading widely gets you in trouble when you start to write widely, too. Far from being content to inhabit any genre ghettos, think of this as the traveling peddler's notes from traveling through the ghettos of genreland. (Note: said with tongue firmly in cheek!)

From science fiction to horror and the supernatural, to the literary and the fantastic, here are ten stories of action, adventure, and the fantastic, as well as experiments with literary devices and forms.

At the core of each story is that eternal storyteller's prod: What if...?

I hope you enjoy your forays into where asking that sort of question in those neighborhoods can get you.

If you would like to see more of any of the stories to follow, or if you like a certain type of story, please do not hesitate to write and let us know. We'll do our best to see what we can come up with next, or least, pass on a note to the Muse.

As always, happy reading, and fantastic dreaming.

S. E. Lee

One Last Look

by

S. E. Lee

Johnny hated the bunker. Would it kill his dad to just let him be like any other kid? Or at least treat it like a nutty hobby instead of dragging him into it, too? His father had been working on the project for what seemed like since before Johnny had been born, and all Johnny wanted was a normal teen life. Playing games, hanging out with his friends, just even having free time to goof around, getting to follow some girls around.

Other kids got to spend their summer vacations lazing away, or in camp, or even on vacations to Europe and Asia and beyond.

No, John Matheson Smith, Jr. got to spend it building and expanding his dad's monument to delusions of disaster, as if a stupid underground building would be enough to save them if a really big one hit the fan. Like an asteroid, Johnny thought darkly. Dead center. When he wasn't doing that, he was drilling evacuation procedures and test-running the bunker's facilities on a regular enough basis he could do it in his sleep. Because his dad had been the kind of crazy that had gotten his family up in the middle of the night for realistic drilling.

He'd managed to talk his dad into letting him get a summer job, and with that he'd bought a smartphone and managed to do a lot of surfing while he was out fishing for the day or hunting, but the minute the job let out, his dad commandeered him for yet another project or improvement for the bunker, or studying the college-level textbooks on history, physics, civil engineering, nuclear engineering, medical texts, and bioscience engineering that he secretly loved and felt it his duty to bitch about studying because his school friends were still learning what DNA stood for. Then it would be time for shooting practice and gun-making, basic iron smithing, and the other fine arts of survival without civilization's little conveniences.

He was eminently prepared, Johnny thought as he worked the manual wheel pump for the water purifying cycler. For a return of the Dark Ages.

His mother seemed oblivious, just going with his dad's plans, even canning and drying and storing food and water and getting gung-ho with other people who shared the delusions of the imminent end of the world, and eying several of the girls in the other families' in a totally uncool matchmaker way and embarrassing the life out of him when she talked to their parents about him—in front of the girl!—half-bragging and half-horse trading. Now he had a taste of what slaves felt like. Oh, here is this male child of mine, I'll take two bits and a plow for him.

She was living in the Dark Ages in her own way, he guessed. Asking about any genetic illnesses and what people died of, under the guise of studying genealogy.

He made sure to sneak out as much as possible when his mom had given him a BS chore to do and caught local movies.

His parents weren't as bad as some of the others, he had to admit. There were kids who were never allowed to go to the movies or off property. His parents let him go to school and go on trips and visit the city. They just added a whole bunch of extra things that left him with no free time. Extra, crazy, freaky things.

His father had even started to expand and build connections to the bunkers nearby, because as if one crazy per acre weren't enough, apparently, there were people who shared his paranoia and were even setting up hydroponic farms and miniature water treatment centers and even figuring out how to grow livestock and crops underground. They had kids, too, and he'd seen the same miserably embarrassed and resigned look on their faces as they trudged along beside their parents as free labor. Like his parents, they were completely mental, and he and the other kids were just hostages.

It would be one thing if they lived in the back of nowhere, like Montana, or in the mountains, but no, his father had to do it in the edges of the suburbs where there were no housing and subdivision covenants or ordinances against doing crazy things like building nuclear bunkers a century after the end of the Cold War, because, he and his mother claimed, they wanted the kids to have as normal a childhood as possible, other than the bunker.

Yeah, right. Normal. Because every kid grew up building an underground bunker in the backyard and then built connections and an entire underground compound, waiting for the end of the world that wasn't going to come in their lifetime.

The bomb changed everything.

It had been a normal day until the announcement came over his father's ham radio that New York City had been hit. Suicide bombers had blown the bridges in and out of the city, and had exploded cars, buses, trains, and subways in a massive coordinated attack at the height of the work day, when the city was bursting at the seams. Then a dirty nuke, set loose in the heart of the city, set off an EMP blast that paralyzed the city and then set off the terrible radioactive cloud. The National Guard was being deployed, and people were advised to take cover where they were. The people who survived the initial blast, in the heart of the financial district, were in a panic as they tried to leave the city—by car, train, bus, taxi, on foot, by ship—and all the ineffectual mayor could do was go on the air and plead, cajole, and later try to command that everyone stay calm. No one paid him any attention. Those who could hear him were too far away to care. Those near him couldn't even use their telephones. They were too busy trying to stay alive.

Johnny wasn't home that day. Not that there was much to worry about in the suburbs of Dickinsonville, Tennessee, but he'd snuck out to the mall, to see a movie and to hang out with some of the other kids from the neighborhood as well as some of the more tolerant or uncaring kids in the regular school crowd. The news channel screen bleeped madly for a second, and then all the displays in the mall were showing the same thing: an explosion, the camera wildly scanning and then focusing, and then people running, screaming, dying. He and his friends checked their phones and tablets to see for themselves, and his dad had texted him to come home ASAP. Code Red. and Johnny tried to find out what was going on but the internet was lagging out, and calls weren't getting through.

Someone, or the someone on the news, said, It's a nuke!

Goosebumps and chills ran through Johnny's body and every single warning his father had ever uttered on the worst case scenarios thundered through his head in the space of a millisecond.

Johnny and the other neighborhood weirdo kids stared at each other, and then ran for the cars, their training screaming for them to get to safety.

He rode home in a tense silence, staring at the blank and white faces of the kids around him, listening to the whispered prayers, a litany of repeated Oh, Gods. He was too shocked to think about what could happen next. All he could think of was: get home. Fear for his parents. Worry that he didn't know what was going on, whether this was a hoax or the real deal. Terror that he didn't know if he would make it in time.

His dad's oft-repeated drills made him itch to be carrying out the steps to evac the house, get inside the bunker, secure it.

Memories flashed in his mind's eye as he stared unseeing through the windshield and the blurred scenery. He was five, or eight, and it had been a sweltering summer day.

Little Johnny squatted on top of the embankment and peered down at the large lot of concrete curing under the hot southern sun. Daddy, are you building something?

His father squinted up at him, and hollered, Son, either come down or back away from that edge!

Johnny cocked his head and then scampered down the incline, half-skidding on his bottom, and came to rest in a tumble of dust and grit before his father's feet. Can I help?

His father looked a little like he was mad, then he shook his head and smiled, reaching out his big hand to ruffle Johnny's hair. Not today, son. He kept his hand on Johnny's head and pulled him close as he surveyed what he'd done so far.

Johnny took a look around, too, puzzling over what his eyes were telling him. Are you making a building, Daddy? Why is it in the ground?

His father, the tallest and strongest and bravest man in the world, knelt in front of him and placed a big hand on Johnny's shoulder.

Yes, it is, son. Part of being a man, son, is protecting your family. I hope we never have to use it, but in case we do, it'll be ready for us. There are some bad men out there, bad crazy men. They want to hurt everyone else and don't care if they die, and make the world poison for everyone else. His father paused for thought. You know what poison is, son?

Johnny nodded, his eyes big. Mommy put the scary bones stickers on the big bottles under the kitchen sink.

His father smiled ruefully. Yes, well, these men, if they can, would like to make the world full of poison, from the air we breathe to the water we drink. I'm building this shelter for us because that's what a man does, son. He gets ready for the worst. Once it's built and ready, we may only have a matter of hours, or minutes, to get inside. We'll drill and practice as much as possible, but remember, you may have to be the man of the house if I'm not here, Johnny. Can you be brave for me and Mommy and little Sarah, and make sure to lock the bunker down?

Johnny worried his lip and then looked up and nodded, unable to imagine a world without his father and yet willing to do as his father asked. I can, Daddy. He stopped to think, and put his hand out, as he'd seen his father do.

I agree, son. He stood and held out his hand. Let's shake on it.

Johnny shook hands solemnly, and his father gripped his hand almost too hard, and then looked up and around, blinking fast, and Johnny's stomach felt a little funny, like he'd fallen and scraped his knee. Then his father looked down, picked him up and hugged him, and then set him on his shoulders, and all was well with the world again as he laughed and giggled and directed his father up the steps and into the house for supper.

That seemed like an impossibly long time ago.

The first of the neighborhood homes came into view, and it was swarming with activity. Some people were panicking, carrying out papers and pets and jewelry, and others were honking their car horns and snarled, trying to get their cars out past the people who had driven into mailboxes or garages and gardens. Still more people were standing and talking, gesturing wildly in small groups, and several had floppy books with gold leaf on the edges. Johnny was pretty sure they were Bibles.

The driver must have lived close by, because