"Police" for /x/

Police.

They are there to protect and serve.

Some are good, some are bad, but in the end, you know you can trust the police.

Some time ago, I used to think so, after all I lived my whole life in a small town, where everyone knew each other, like a big extended family. Then I had to move over sea.

Working for a mining company digging up gold from the middle of Guyana was not really my first option, but I had ran out of those, so I took it.

I arrived in a late flight and the airport was almost empty, not much worth recalling. A man from the company came pick me up in a off road truck, a old one, not the kind you would hop in happily.

He was quite happy having someone to chat, we were both from the same country, shared the same idiom, and we spoke almost the entire travel, that took hours.

When we were reaching a small village, neighbor to the mine, he went silent, he looked scared.

-“look, this is the closest town to our mine site. But this is not a good place. You can go anywhere you want to when you are not working, but never come to this place.”

I tried to laugh it off, sure he was pulling my leg, the new guy and all, but he kept serious and silent till we left the village.

After that, I started working, and soon I discovery that the rule among all employees, local or not, was to not go to the village, and don’t talk about it, never.

As time went by, I kinda forgot it. When people went to have fun, we all took a van and went to a small city a couple miles further down the road, we had our fun, drink, and returned the next morning.

One day, a new guy came along. Big, built like a bull, and some of a trouble maker:

He was the type of guy who was not only stubborn, no, he had this NEED to challenge people.

And if you told him not to do something… he would do it for sure, just to upset you.

At the end of his first month, he got himself free time, and as anyone could expect, but not quite believe, he decided to go visit the “forbidden village”. That really caused lots of confusion, honestly I did not understand why suddenly EVERYONE went ballistic over it.

In the end, no one explained why he wasn’t supposed to go there, and he, stubborn as ever, decided to go anyway, when the manager came along and told him that if he did that, he was fired immediately, and they would drag his arse back to the airport PRONTO.

The guy got pale, then bright red. You could see he was mad, but also he wanted to keep his job, and in the end he yield.

That night, we all went to take some drinks on the “safe town”, most of the guys just to keep an eye on the stubborn fool.

As the night went by, we all got drinks and girls, and we relaxed, forgetting the simplest fact about that guy: He lived for the only purpose of challenging people.

Some time around what we all imagined to be two on the morning, he disappeared with our ride.

I got pissed and joked about “killing the guy” next morning, when I noticed the other guys were pale and silent.

It was unnerving, and fueled by the booze, I pinned one of them down and asked him why was so fucking important not to go to that village.

-“is the people who live there dangerous or something? Like gangs, drug lords?”

-“no. the people is… fine. The police there… they are… dangerous.”

And they said anything else.

Two days went and no one heard about the new guy….Worst, no one asked.

Once they knew he took the van and disappeared, they just said they hoped he ran to anywhere but that village, and pretend he never existed.

I worked there for a couple months more, then I found something better back home and returned to my old town.

In the way back to the airport, I beg for answers. And the driver told me to keep quiet, eyes peeled, that we would pass in front of the police station, and I would finally get my answers.

Not sure of what to look for, I turn to the police station:

There I saw our van, the one that the guy took that night, months ago.

The whole the driver’s side was completely full of bullet holes.

The unusual thing is that the van wasn’t toed to where it was. It was parked there.

ion-manns

FROM THE DESK OF FIELD-MARSHAL SAMSON.

RE: PERSONAL DOCS FROM THE OKRAN RULING PARTY.

LEVEL OF CONFIDENTIALITY:SECRET-EYES ONLY.

Hello Mark, I hope things on Earth are going smoothly, I heard that the memorial day in Boston was a beautiful event, with all those new Federation Representatives and war veterans.

We are still rebuilding the Okran home-world, and seriously, they are stubborn. I may finally discovered why they only show us respect when we are wearing our combat suits, but damn, it's a crazy, crazy story.

Seriously, those okrans have problems, I have to get out of this loony bin of a planet! 

"Ioon-manns, is how they call themselves, puny, soft-skin creatures with squeaky annoying voices and harmless claws, and blunt teeth, that wander around the space not in search of slaves and iridium, but in search of trade, knowledge and friendship, as fool as it may sound. And to my people, warriors and slavers of lesser species, that sounded fool as it could be.

At first we amused ourselves, playing the silly “diplomatic” game with them, who would go head over heels over the most silly, empty, promises of friendship and mutual respect, as we laugh behind their back and called them gullible mammals.

We even profit from it, giving them obsolete technologies we had in store, pure garbage, and in exchange demanding…no, “politely asking” for “fair compensation”. And with great surprise we saw that they agreed happily, and paid us tributes in valuable iridium!

Fools…

With time, we grow tired of them, as they become less entertaining, questioning the ethics of our slaving polices and our lack of respect for the “rights of all sentient beings to freedom and dignity”.  We even considered slaving or exterminating them, but they were deemed too weak and stupid to serve and too worthless to justify a expensive purging. After all we just have conquered Baops, and we had to select slaves from the local populace before terminating the weak and ill, a time-consuming task.

So we did the reasonable thing: we blew their embassy, killed all ion-manns in our territories and bombed their home-world, Earff, hoping that the death of a mere two billion individuals would teach them “who was the boss”.

We lived to regret that, because one week after our attack, and unknown force struck our blood-forged empire with uncanny power. Black and green creatures, insect like, with a single large glass visor as eye, armed with dreadful portable-mass-acceleration rifles and backed by thousand of battle ships, each one two kilometers from bow to stern, who swarmed us with lightning attacks of surgical precision.

We didn’t even saw them coming, until they were unloading their guns on our elite troops.

Each planet we conquered, they returned to the natives, and  armed them, and asked them for help, and soon we were overwhelmed by billions of enemy soldiers!!! They never pillage, nor executed randomly, nor forced the locals to cooperate. They just…talk. Talk nonsense of fraternity and freedom… Like the ion-manns. Now we realized who orchestrated such precise attack. No one but the puny mammals of Earff, somehow the little warm-blood, milk-sucking, two legged animals found a powerful race of warriors to avenge them! A cunning plan, from a species so weak: find an powerful hand to lay down vengeance over the unsuspecting enemy.

If we still had the resources, we would glass their planet…But we did not have them anymore.

Less than a year after the attack to Earff, ion-manns messaged us demanding our surrender to the newly formed Federation of Sentient Races, our “basic rights” guarantee to be respected, and whatever that meant to be.

 Cornered and utterly defeated, we choose surrender to them. Not to the weak ion-manns, but to those strange and powerful creatures, allied to them in ways we never dared to ask.

We surrender to our conquerors, Earff For-see Sshp-ace Muh-rinnes, EFSM."

LIZARDS

Wilson drop of his cab in front of the old building. The rain, cold and unmerciful hit against his face, making him use his brief case as a makeup umbrella. Horrible weather, he thought, in a horrible coast town in the middle of nowhere.

He was a short, unpleasant and arrogant man, and his mood, usually nasty, was beyond terrible. How dare those small little researchers, to make him come all the way from Michigan to this dumpster? Oh they would regret not picking the phone and not delivering the reports as scheduled. Who they think they were, to take federal research money and don’t account for it? Oh he would cut them off, and tell them what he think about their freaking lizard experiments…

He knocked on the metal door, already furious, and waited, soaking in the rain, for almost five minutes, until a soft, dragged voice spoke through the intercom.

-This is a research center, we aren’t buying anything…go away…

-Look you son of a Bitch, here is Wilson Mitchels, I’m here for the reports. Now open it or I next time I will come with the cops! Dammit!

He Kicked the door, but only silence come from the other side of the intercom.

Five minutes later, when he was already dialing his cell phone after a taxi, the door opened behind him. A tall, thin figure, stared at him. The figure, that could be a man or woman, was wearing a biosafety suit, covering his (or her) entire body, the visor was a dark mirror that wouldn’t slip any hint of the identity of the user. A little startled, he spoke mildly.

-So you decided to open the door? Very nice of you…what’s with the outfit?

*

The tall figure answered slowly, as if he just woke from a deep slumber:

-…We were…conducting… a …experiment. Sorry we took sooo…. So long to open the door… Please… follow me…

Was the same apathetic voice from before. Damn, experiments? You were sleeping you lazy asshole!

-I suppose it was a experiment involving sleep?!

-…No… Genetic Engineering and chimerization… experiments…

His sarcasm was totally deflected, what made him even more angry.

-I heard about that crap before, but I am here to see the results! And you better have some good ones!

The man in the biosafety suit, just nodded and guided him to a laboratory, two floors above. The entire building was hot, humid and dark, the lab was no exception. Even worst, it was hotter and carried a mix of nasty chemical smells and something that remind him of rotten flesh.

-Damn, would kill you freaks to open a window here? What is that smell?

-…The animals… we feed to the test subjects… some must fester before feeding…

-Disgusting…

He covered his nose with his handkerchief, and brushed his sweat with the other hand. For the first time he noticed the metal cages in the center of the laboratory.

*

-What in the name of god…?

Four large cages, and eight smaller ones, each one occupied with one or two grotesque figures, a deformed mix of man and beast, part human and part reptile.

The figure beside him calmly took a clipboard with some data and pointing to the disgusting creatures start his report:

-Our…initial goal was… to develop chimeras through genetic engineering of test subjects… test subjects already fully developed, not embryos… using changed steam cells…cells directly injected on the organs that could be of… military… interest.

-God, those thinks… what are they?!?

He hold the vomit in the throat.

-those are… the test subjects…

-The lizards? The LIZARDS become those… things?!

-Not… things. Chimeras… a Living organism holding, producing…keeping… organs that have…the desired aspects… and are eligible to transplant…As planned in the…original…original plan.

-No way… explain this to me…!

-As you…wish.

*

-In…the…the first cage…test subject zero-one…Female. External characteristics are… human torso, gila monster’s lizard head… Arms…both amputated…but re-growing one centimeter per hour…where crossed with Japanese giant salamander gene…resembling… human arms perfectly… the rest of the body become a huge tumor…with teeth, hair, eyes, etc… a large group of teratomas. Objective… a donor that could produce limbs… to replace soldier limb’s lost in action…successful…

-So..this animal…can produce people arm’s?

Suddenly he look at it, the human eyes…but he saw nothing but a very profitable medical product…

-And the others?

-Test…subject…zero-two…upper body become a single teratoma…lower part is part human, part newt… He generate…over forty…forty harvestable human hearts…per week…

-Impressive!!! And the others?

*

And the figure went on. Every single aberration had a very profitable end… and he was marveled at the results. While his tour guide went up to get some copies of the reports, reports he would use to double the funding to such wondrous research, something flew and hit his leg, a small, dirty, piece of paper.

-What?

He looked behind him, and to his horror, one of the creatures was waving to him, and pointing desperate to the paper, where he could read, in blood, the following:

-“HELP! HE ARE NOT LIZARDS, WE ARE THE RESEARCHERS. THE LIZARDS SCAPED AND MADE US THEIR PRISIONERS!”

The Dark Cell part 3 of 5.

3 of 5.

DK destroyed the last enemy tank, now a pile of molten metal and burning flesh. The dark miasma had lift under the heat of the main energy canon. The battle field was his, and DK stood there, calm like a lion over the dead remains of his pray. Glorious. The men in the room were dazzled and soon, when the fine and extremely expensive champagne started to be served, was clear that the United Nations Military Defense Force just become another happy costumer of the Odin Arms Industry, the largest and now the most powerful corporation on the face of the Earth. She watched the powerful men drinking the champagne and laughing and she felt a dark cold rage inside her: Do they even care about the fact that the people who bottled such fancy drinks in France were all dead? A entire country? And you Frederick? Did you remember Francine? Oh, don’t worry, she whispered to herself with a mischievous, malicious smile: I will make sure you remember.

Back to memory lane, nine months after the alien attack. Was strange, Alien attack sounded too eerie, to absurd to be serious, but it was. She and Francine started to work directly under the command of one of largest arms manufacturer of the world, the Odin Arms Corporation.

-Dear, you have to look this new data from the field… It’s WAY worst than we believed…

-Fran, don’t scare me. How bad can it be?

-The alien… organisms simply grow up around and inside machinery like tanks and war ships, but… Well, just take a look…

She grab the tablet, and browse over the raw data.

-Fuck…? The damn tank becomes a living thing?!? Organic metallic and ceramic armor? Organic engines? Oh shit. No wonder they can take so much punishment, they can heal, HEAL damage!

-Oh yeah, at a stupidly dreadful rate: they heal at least five to eight times faster than humans, without feeding or refueling, as far as we know. Fuck physics, I guess. Fred said it will be on the news tomorrow. Hasty decision if you ask me…

-Francine… Still having this…after work relationship with Frederick?

-Yes… But it’s just for fun. I don’t know why you become so afraid of him in the last months, he is just the same corporation hotshot as before.

She gulped, remembering not only the satisfaction on Frederick’s face in euthanizing her cats, but to force her to implant similar chips on the brains of humans. Volunteers, he said. But they looked more like hostages, hostages that feared the young man to the point to let him implant chips on their brains and… mess with their mind architecture, causing…

-It’s nothing…really. Look Fran, just… don’t get too close. He isn’t a nice guy.

Fran raised a eyebrow, at first to mock, but the stern look on Michele face, silent her.

-…You know what, mon cher? I can find better man! Now come here!

Francine hugged Michele tenderly. In the last months, Michele lost everything that resembled a family in the endless wars that erupted around the world. Fran was now her sister, mother, her best and only friend, and Francine treasured it.

-Look mon cher, let’s put a lid on it, d’accord?

-Right…! Look… tomorrow is…

-Your birthday! Yay! Excited?

-Not much…

-You better be! I arranged a party, lot’s of those nerds from chaos mathematic analytic research, you know, the adorable ones!

-You…

-Of course I will, silly. You think I would miss my  besty’s birthday party?!

The harshness of the memories forced Michele back to the present. Francine never went to that party. She remember how people told her that she probably lost the time or got caught on another appointment, but she insisted that something was wrong. They won’t listen to her, even after they found out that her cell-phone was off-line, and that no one saw her leaving the laboratory that night. When two policemen entered and asked for her attention, she already knew what happened.

She got up, brushed the hair and walked to a large armored door, which opened to her without any need for commands or passwords: BK, Bee Kay, DK older “sister”, a AI, took care of that part of the complex, and BK like all Michelle’s “babies” knew who her mommy was.

-Bee?

-Yes mom?

-Things went as expected, and considering that money to buy guns was never an issue to those fine gentlemen, I think is safe to say we will soon start the mass production of DK-129 sentient tanks. How we are on that?

-Mom, twelve of our 45 large heavy assembly lines are already prepared. We have 80 units, the mass production model, ready for deployment. We will have another 62 ready by the end of the week. Once we start the production at full capacity, we will be able to deliver 12 new units every two weeks. More, if another large assembly lines are designated to this project. All material, ammo and other surplus are already safeguarded.

-Bunch of idiots. If you were on the helm we would deliver 12 new units per day…!

-Thank you mother, but I must disagree. My analysis says that my top production would be of only 9 units per week.

-Ah Bee, you are my very special girl… And the OS? Any problems?

-No, the latest version you designed has the same performance than the last, plus more stability when facing logic paradoxes.

-Good, that wraps everything with a big ribbon…

She walked away. Part of her felt guilt, but then the rage, the cold discrete rage, came and murdered any possible regret she could still have. OS.DKVs7… It was her gift, to all of them, those bloody, murderous bastards.  

Porcelain dolls

one more short tale i wrote for /x/

PORCELAIN DOLLS.

Fred woke up from his uncomfortable sleep. Not that the first class was bad, but the dreams, oh, those were dreadful. His grandmother house, old and scary, and all those dolls…

-Fuck, my head is killing me…

He press the button to call the flight attendant, he really need a aspirin… and something strong to drink.

As he straight up in his chair, he notice something eerie next to him: In the chair close to the window, at his left, a small blanket cover something.

-Strange- He think- I bought both seats… what could be it?

Curious, he pull the blanket. Underneath, a beautifully crafted porcelain doll, with long curly hair, white face and red lips.

He jump in his chair. Oh he hated those! In his mind the voice of his grandmother, proud full owner of hundreds of those creepy things:

-Freddy-She would say- pay attention to the quality of the hair! It’s the real thing. Sometimes they took the hair of dead little girls, that’s how things were back then.

Repulsing, unfunny and undeserved. He don’t bothered anyone aboard, so why would anyone pull such prank…

-Calm down… It’s just a doll. I bet a little girl left it there by mistake…

For the first time, he gave a good look around the first class: Everything was dark and quiet. Few lights were still on. He found no one sitting close to him, strange, well someone changed chairs, right. He got up and walked to one of the places where the light was on.

He bent over to start a conversation, but he almost felt backwards: A doll, a porcelain doll, sit on the chair, a book open over her frilly dress, and a cryptic look in her eyes.

Oh yes, the eyes, she was looking at him.

He went back to his seat with the heart pounding. Once there, he covered the doll, and pressed the button like mad.

-Cmmon where are the damn flight attendant?

-Excuse me sir, did you call?

Finally, she was there. He begun to turn to the voice, but what he saw hit him like a punch in the stomach. He let go a laud cry of fear: A doll, another damned porcelain doll, over the flight attendant cart. Talking to him.

--Sir!? Please, you will wake up the other passengers! What’s wrong?

He raced through the corridor, looking in every chair. And in every single one, a damned doll, looking at him, like little demons with glass eyes and wicked smiles.

Suddenly one reach and touch his shoulder, he cry and slap it away.

-NOO, get away from me! Dolls…Dolls! Everywhere!!

His only chance is to go forward, the cabin, it may be locked…but… he have to try.

Desperate, he run and see the door opening slowly.

No time to explain, he must enter!

He throw himself against the door and enter the pilots cabin:

-HELP, HELP THE…

His voice dies, as he look and see…

Dolls, Porcelain dolls, everywhere.

Hours later, a man is taken away in a straight jacket in a busy airport. A pilot talk to a flight attendant:

-What the hell was that?

-I don’t know… he just kept talking about dolls…

FIN 

RAT MAN.

Lurking on /x/, i made this short tale, please, enjoy!

RAT MAN.

Craven woke up with the burning Sun on his tiny rat eyes. Small and scared eyes, constantly seeking food or danger, like everything else on Craven, they looked more suitable to a rodent than for a man. But maybe because he was such a “man-rat” he was alive.

When all the rest where dead.

Every single one, dead. Dead. Dead.

He felt sorry for himself, was horrible to be alone in such horrible world, cursed the others for dying, and enjoyed a cruel pleasure thinking that his “enemies” were all dead too, from bullies to bosses. Scum.

Scum.

He dragged his tiny thin body to the ledge and looked down: His “rat nest” was nothing but a concrete slab, unreachable to most, dangling over the ruined city.

Cowering like a vermin, he peeked: No movement, everything clear.

They could be awaiting down there.

With great dexterity he slipped his body all the way down to the street, and without a noise landed on the cracked sidewalk.

Then he runned, from shadow to shadow, corner to corner, playinga one-man hide and seek, till he found a store: Global HiperMarket.

After hours gathering cans of food he decided to run back home, when he heard a noise: someone dragging foots outside the store.

*

A coward, Craven decided not to investigate. Better run, he thought with his tiny rat brain, and sprinted to the back door.

Again on the dead streets, he saw them. They found him, again.

Half a dozen of decaying, stiff corpses, some grayish, others dark, all dragging their bodies... in his direction. Tall and short, man and women, even child, they were there, monsters hunting him.

-NOOO! S..Stay away!

Stuttering curses and tripping on his own feet he tried to fled, with the undead on his heels.

One was a woman, with a rotting round face, fat, using a apron and spiting a dark mucus from her mouth as she tried to scream something:

-Ungrateful...

-No! You monster, I... I am not ungrateful!

Other zombie, older, decrepit, his lower jaw nothing more than bones and maggots growled with anger:

-You coward, you sissy...

-Shut up,  SHUT THE FUCK UP NOW! YOU ARE DEAD I AM NOT!

He trip on a rock and felt, twisting his ankle and dropping the cans he gathered before. Hands and knees bleeding, unable to stand, he scream and cry.

*

-Wimp, always...crying...-A tall strong undead mocked with a grin.

Ashamed of his own tears, furious with the mockery, he try to reach one of the cans, but instead he grab something soft, dead, rot. A little girl’s ankle. She stand there, with piercing eyes, at her side a woman, her mother. He know it.

-Liar. And assassin.

He gasp losing any control he had over himself:

-No! No! I just wanted to stay alive! I had to do it...!I’TS NOT MY FAULT!

He feels the strong cold grasp of two large hands on his shoulders, and as he look up to his capturer, he recognize a man from his past.

-Craven, you always try to dodge responsibility. Craven, the Rat Man.

The sinister mob repeats:

-Craven! The RAT man! RAT man!

The old woman talk again:

-Ungrateful son, I feed you, I lived for you, but when you got big enough, you did nothing but stealing and beating me. In the end, you thrown me from the stairs, all to sell the house I lived in.

Again the mob cried in one voice:

-Craven! Ungrateful rat man!! RAT man!

The other zombie looked at him with disgust:

-Wimp...Coward... and a Sissy. That’s what you are. No, not my grandson, since small, only stealing, only backstabbing. You are no good!

-Craven! You are no good! RAT man!

*

-Wimp... Never accomplished nothing, always afraid of everything... pretending to be a poor nice person, before biting the hand that helps you. I remember those false tears. I saved you that day, took care of your lazy ass, and during my sleep, you cut my throat...Traitor!

-Craven! Traitor! Rat man!!!

He tried to brake free, but only felt on the middle of the group of undead, dozens of them. Now was the woman with the little girl who spoke:

-Liar. And assassin. We found you in the waste lands, and we brought you to our house. But how you paid us back? You put rat poison in our food. Treacherous murder...Killed for nothing more than a blanket and a gallon of rain water. Scum!

-CRAVEEEN!!! SSSSCUM!! RAT MAN SCUM!!!

-NO!!

The last zombie, the taller and stronger of them all picked one of the cans that were laying on the floor:

-You are like a rat carrying the plague, kill everyone you touch. A liar, a coward, a murderer. The last man on earth. Night and day you give yourself a little tap on the back, because you outlived society, and even justice. But deep inside, you know that no one can escape justice.

And the large zombie throw the can in his head, cutting his scalp.

-That’s why you create us: Your past, back from the dead, to haunt you. To punish you. To make justice to the last man on Earth.

Some zombies threw rocks, other cans, other delivered kicks, punches, bites. As the day become night, he screamed, in the dark, were his mind gave him...a death worth of a rat.

Fin.

last ghouls galore submission.

My last ghouls galore submission, was a fun ride, please enjoy!

She stood with the letter opener in her hands; wearing the silk nightdress. She woke up, unsure if the crashing noise was real or just a bad dream, when the footsteps begun: in the kitchen. When the foot steps start climbing the stairs, she jumped and locked her door. Strange gurgling sounds come from the bathroom. She weighted her options: her bedroom was too high to jump, and no one would come in the next couple days. Unlocking the door, she walked toward the stairs. To get there, she had to cross the bathroom, the door wide open, lights lit, as if waiting for her. She decided to run. She was the fastest runner in the town. But a dark figure eclipsed her plans: A creature, tall, covered with long brown fur and sharp claws, left the bathroom looking at her, and with imperative commanded: GIRL! Where you keep the damn antacids?!

Stunned, she answered automatically: B...bottom, left drawer!!

It turned around, into the bathroom. Oblivious to what his appearance caused, it kept talking: My bowels are killing me! This borborygmic noises, why I ate so much? Damn kids!

She whispered: it...ate kids?

She got up and ran away, down the stairs and into the night. Probably breaking a couple records. The monster kept on: ... Kids! They say: “try this one! And this!” But I’m not young! I can’t eat so much candy...Where are you girl? Eh, no respect for the elderly! What a thing leaving without saying goodbye!