Marcy

It was a bright, sunny, beautiful day outside, and Marcy was just glad to be alive. She woke up, stretched, and poked at the cat through the bed sheets with her feet. He gave her an evil, half asleep glare and curled up again, just out of reach of her toes. Marcy giggled a bit at their daily game, then pulled herself out of bed and threw the curtains open. Yes, today was a fantastic day, and she was looking forward to everything it would bring.

After a quick shower, Marcy walked down her apartment stairs in a bathrobe to retrieve the newspaper. For the first time in a long time, the delivery guy had actually hit the steps with his throw. Marcy was lucky; she’d forgotten to slip on a pair of sandals before heading down the stairs and wouldn’t have to walk on the muddy sidewalk to retrieve the paper.

She skimmed the headlines while she walked back up the stairs. Gloom this. Doom that. A typical Friday morning breakfast of contemporary news. She tried her best to shake off the dark mood reading the paper always put her in and instead donned a bright summer outfit for the office. It might only be a sunny day in winter, but no one ever seemed to mind when she dressed for warmer weather – particularly not her boss, Jason.

Marcy smiled as she thought of her too-flirty supervisor while she absentmindedly packed her bag. Typically, she’d pack a lunch, too. But today felt like such a good day, she wanted to splurge and treat herself to a lunch out with her coworkers. Diet be damned, she wanted to have fun.

The cat strolled lazily out of the bedroom and nuzzled up against her ankle, his morning frustrations forgotten as his stomach began to purr on its own. Marcy quickly poured him some breakfast and grabbed a yogurt out of the refrigerator for herself. If she was going to fall off the wagon at lunch, she might as well stick to the healthful plan for breakfast.

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I

The Earth trembled as if burdened by a sudden mass too large to be held upon its shoulders. A great trumpeting sounded forth from the forest midst as balls of fire were slung away from the tree line to collide against the city walls, setting them ablaze and blinding the archers who defended them. A mighty flood of clanking armor and ferocious cries was loosed from the underbrush and advanced towards the city gates as if directed by an invisible yet inexorable force. The soldiers poured over the measly front lines and squashed the secondary forces that were guarding the still-open drawbridge.

The first of their adversaries vanquished, the soldiers continued through the city’s entrance, shutting the barred gate behind them. The seemingly invincible battalion stormed forward into the parade grounds and stopped, as there were no forces to oppose them. A soldier looked up and screamed, not out of horror but out of the sudden realization of the inevitability of his fate. His chest instantly became a pincushion of arrows as the city’s archers began to fire down onto the soldiers.

Upon his mount in the forest, Lord Julius Antony heard the tortured screams coming from Momes. He raised then forcefully dropped his right arm, signaling the advance of the larger mass of his army. His mighty siege engines once again began to hurl crock upon crock of ‘Greek Fire’ at the city as engineers hurried from their hiding places to assemble ballistas and trebuchets along the siege lines.

Inside the city, Antony’s remaining soldiers had fought their way into the castle and had thoroughly entrenched themselves within and around its keep. Nearly half had fallen from the archers’ accurate shots, and half of the survivors had fallen to another evil, but an expected and welcomed fate; two days prior to the assault, the battalion had been separated from the remainder of the army and infected with plague out of hopes that it would shorten the coming siege.

King Marcus Packard looked out a slit in the wall of his tower apartment and saw the thickening circle of Antony’s forces. He sighed out of ignorance of Antony’s plan, in expectance of the insetting of a long siege. He went back to his chest of drawers and sighed once more. He was aware of the fact that Antony’s forces were greater than his own and knew that he would be tortured and executed as soon as his army had fallen. He removed his dagger from its sheath on his belt and placed it within the folds of cloth upon his chest. Read the rest of this story »

Richard was furious. Alan had lied to him. The next time he saw Alan, he knew he’d kill him. Wait. Richard stopped and analyzed that last thought. It wasn’t his. IT was roaming more freely now, pulling against ITs weakening chains and trying to assert control. Richard’s momentary lapse into anger gave IT just what IT needed to rear ITs ugly head and plant the murderous thought.

Richard was angry, true, but he didn’t want to kill his friend. Alan had been the only one to believe him. The only one who really understood what was going on in Richard’s head. To kill Alan would be to lose himself to IT. To give himself over to the pure animal rage that fueled ITs bloodlust.

No, Richard didn’t want to kill Alan, but he certainly was upset with him.

Richard cleared the office as quickly as he could. It was easy. There were three guards in the room, one watching security feeds, the other two playing cards in the back. Richard walked in the room and reached out into their minds. It was easy enough, no one’s thoughts were very guarded. He placed a thought in the back of their minds, small, like a seed.

Then he pushed on the rest of their minds, making the seeded thought grow until it became their own. Suddenly, all three needed to use the bathroom. It was the sudden, urgent need that comes after eating too many chili dogs or drinking too much during a football game. The three guards forgot themselves, given over to pure biological necessity, and fought their way out of the room.

Richard smiled and locked the door behind them. He had the office to himself. Free to search the computer for mention of Cari’s name and location. He sat down at the computer and hit the space bar a few times to wake it up. Then he started his search, the old-fashioned way. Read the rest of this story »