Tag Archive | verse: misc: urban

Creep – Giraffe Call

Oct16

For [personal profile] bubbleblower‘s prompt, after In the Shadows (LJ) and directly after Shadow of a Doubt (LJ).

Commenters:6

It wasn’t until a week later – when I was certain I wasn’t the only one seeing the shadows and ghosts, and when we’d determined that they were all over the City but, so far, nowhere else in America and, as far as we could tell, nowhere else in the world, either – that we really started noticing the other things.

Shadows, okay, it’s pretty obvious when a shadow points back at you. Ghosts, same thing. When they’re stealing the laundry off the line and the hot dogs out of the street vendors’ hands, obviously there’s something there doing something.

The old lights made them go away, but the old fluorescents were making people call-it-sick-we-can’t-say-crazy, and those of us who got paid to do those things made a unilateral decision that shadows pointing at people weren’t as bad as shooting sprees, and left the daylight bulbs in. We were starting to get used to the shadows and ghosts – except when they were stealing our lunch – by the time we noticed the statue.

The street-vendors were really corridor-vendors (but that sounded stupid), gathered in courtyards in the ‘plexes. Eight of us electricians met for our lunch-meetings in the same courtyard, hanging around the base of some famous chick. It wasn’t me, this time, thank god; it was Andy who noticed that the chick, who had been standing reading a book, was now writing in the same book.

Once we noticed that, well, we started looking at other statues. The ‘plexes were dotted with the things like sprinkles on cookies, and when we started asking the locals, it turned out, yeah. No-one had noticed, but they’d all started creeping, changing position. Must have taken weeks – in the week while we were asking around, the famous chick’s finger moved an inch.

They moved so damn slowly, it took us another month to realize they were trying to tell us something.

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Shadow of a Doubt – Giraffe Call

Oct16

For [personal profile] jjhunter‘s image prompt, directly after In the Shadows (LJ).

Commenters: 4

I gotta tell you, I got out of the city as soon as I could. No overtime for me; it was time for me to go where the sun shone and the people knew my name.

But driving out of the city nearly killed me. I don’t like the drive-by-wire roads, so I take the back streets when I can, the ghettos, the old high-rises where people who can’t afford the ‘plexes or just don’t want to move still live. The roads there are still plain asphalt; too expensive to wire for too little payback.

And there I was, driving through a once-proud neighborhood, looking up at the shoes on the line. Old shoes, shoes with holes in the soles. Shoes made out of canvas and rubber, saying “we’re still here. We’re still living here in the shadow of the ‘plexes.”

And shadows. I didn’t want to think about shadows, but there in the wires, there was a flash of white. A shimmering shape against the sun. I blinked, and it was still there – a silhouette, a human shape, a shadows done in white instead of grey. Walking on the shoes. Walking down the wire, with nothing to cast the shadow, nothing to project some sort of holograph. Not here in the neighborhood, where they didn’t need daylight bulbs because they could still see the real sun.

I stopped the car – and a good thing, too; I wasn’t the only one staring. The shadow, the apparition, I guess, walked over the shoes until it found a pair it wanted – the holiest pair, the oldest pair. The ones that were barely held together by the stitching.

And that ghost slipped right into those shoes and walked off in them, not seeming to care the laces were still tied together.

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In the Shadows – for Giraffe Call

Oct16

For ZiaNuray‘s prompt.

Commenters: 3

The shadows were the first thing to go weird.

I was working on one of the new mega-complexes when I first noticed it, installing the daylight bulbs those things needed on the inner corridors, to keep people from going nuts and killing everyone (I kid you not. It had happened three time. THREE TIMES! before they figured out it was the light that was doing it, people who lived and worked and shopped all deep in the ‘plex and never got out into the real sun), when the shadows started going funny.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that it had been almost a week since I’d seen the sun myself – I rented a capsule deep in a ‘plex, worked in the city all week and drove home to Fredonia on the weekends to see the wife and kids – but I wasn’t feeling like killing anyone except the manufacturer of the damn fixtures. And then shadows, well, the first thing I noticed was that there was a shadow coming towards me with no person attached.

Okay, that was a bit weird, so I hurried up and got that bank of lights installed, flipped the breaker, checked them out. The shadow was gone, but, for a moment, ALL the shadows were gone. Even mine. I flipped the switch again, and looked at my shadow.

It was looking at me. Well, not “looking,” I guess, but it was reaching towards me. Sort of like it was pleading, I guess. And the longer those daylight bulbs glowed on it, the darker it got.

And like I said… that was the FIRST thing that went weird.

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30 Days Second Semester: 11, Remember the Tale

Aug16

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “13) re-write a story that everyone knows.”

Misc-urban-fantasy, maybe misc-post-apoc.

The streets between Roana’s house and her grandmother’s weren’t safe anymore, and everyone knew it. The Wolves had marked their territory, eight blocks of wasteland surrounding what had once been a pretty park. Anyone caught in there was fair game, especially not wearing their colors. And no-one wore the Wolves colors they hadn’t marked themselves.

But going around added an extra hour to her trip, an hour which went through only nominally safer territory. After all, the Wolves at least showed you their teeth. So she put on red – nobody wore Red in this city, Red was passé – her kerchief and her coat. It was supposed to snow, but she hadn’t seen her grandmother in weeks.

The first couple blocks were fine. Neutral territory, what people called The Mother-Land. Mothers with big guns and bigger voices kept this area clear of violence.

She knew the moment she stepped into the Wolves’ territory. The stink was unmistakable, even without the tagging, even without the gloom and the way the world seemed to twist in the shadows. She kept her chin high and kept walking.

Where do you go, little Red? Go home.
The streets here aren’t safe, and you’re all alone.

The streets whispered to her, taunted her, called to her. She kept walking.

What’s in the bag, little Red? Turn around
Scurry on home, now, don’t make a sound.

She could hear their voices, calling from the ruined fire escapes, calling from the windows, whispering from the alleys. She knew no one would be there if she turned, so she kept walking, chin up, determined.

Under your coat, little Red, let us in,
We want to taste that pretty white skin.

The park was the worst, the barking yaps of the Wolves following her in there. Every shadow could hide a monster, but she kept on. The brambles grabbed her jacket, but she kept going. The roots tried to trip her, but she kept on.

Such pretty eyes, little Red, can’t you see?
How hot our hunger is, how big our teeth?

She tugged her coat a little tighter, knowing it was coming. Knowing that they’d strike at the old fountain. Knowing that they wouldn’t remember they myth, remember why she wore red.

“Run away girl, pretty Red, run away.” The Wolf that stepped out of the shadows would be their alpha, biggest of the batch. None of the others would bother them until he was done.

“Hurry home now, and be safe, safely stay,” he sang. He remembered the words, at least. Did he remember the rest.

“I’m just going to my Grandmother’s,” she told him. “Through the woods and o’er the fountain.”

“But there are wolves in the woods, little Red, aren’t you scared?” he leered. His teeth were big, and sharp, and yellow.

“I don’t worry, Wolf, that I’ll be spared.” The myth had a life of its own, here in the dark, here on the edge of the bridged fountain. “And you’ve forgotten the end of the story.”

“What’s in the bag, little Red? Run and run,” he crooned, “Or stay right here, leave me my fun.”

She reached into the bag for the first time, stepping towards him. Here, right here, yes. He crossed the bridge towards her, ready to leap. He couldn’t turn this down, not a Wolf, not in the Woods, not with her red hood.

“Under your coat, little Red, let me in. I want to taste that pretty white skin.” At “skin,” he lept, and she swung, reversing the axe, hitting him in the stomach with the butt end. He went flying, and she stepped delicately down off the fountain, to eye the crumbled man. She set her axe to his throat, letting him feel how sharp it was.

“Don’t you remember?” she smiled at him, “How the story ends?”

“The woodcutter…” he gasped.

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The Grove – a Sponsored Story

Aug12

In the Northeast, every city, every town, every blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village has at least one, a grove of trees that will never know the cut of a saw. Syracuse has an extra-wide median full of them, shading the Thruway from one end of the city to the other. Rochester has verdant blocks interspersed with new construction in areas that used to be full of abandoned factories and crack houses.

In Brockport, the grove stands in and around the cemetery, so that the gravestones snuggle up next to the trees. It makes a sort of sense, I suppose, but sometimes it confuses the girls.

We go there, to Brockport’s grove, every Sunday from first thaw until mid-autumn, my daughters and I. I try to make it a fun thing, a family bonding, though I know as they get older, they won’t want to bond, will want less and less to do with their old man. We take a picnic, trying to avoid the mourners, not wanting to diminish their grief, park at the bottom and walk up the long stone-paved path to the top of the hill.

Zel waits for us up there, where the sun shines first in the morning, where the dirt is good and rich, where the big old oak tree shelters her from the bulk of the wind. She’s always waiting, of course, has been for the last five years. She will be as long as I can take the girls up that hill, and for a long time after that, long after the girls are dead, or have joined her there, in the grove.

Today is special. It’s a Sunday, much like any other Sunday, but today the girls and I have decided it’s time for Zel to meet Thea.

It’s legal, of course. Even the Church sanctions it, after a certain appropriate time of solemnities. Zel may have moved on, but the girls still need a mother around, and I, after these long years, find the bed is too empty at night, the breakfast table too quiet in the morning. No-one will fault me for it, not my first wife, not the good people of the town, not the law. Still, it seems awkward and uncomfortable to be walking with Thea up this hill, and I can’t bring myself to hold her hand.

She understands. It was a month ago – on a Saturday – that we walked down the Syracuse median together, her and I and her son Jacob, and talked to Jeremy. I pass, I’ve been told, at least conditionally, but she didn’t hold my hand then, either.

As I said, Zel is planted just leeward of an ancient oak, so old his name has been forgotten by time. The girls always hug him when we visit, and today is no different. He waves to them, and a gentle breeze through his branches, whispering “hello, children.”

“Hello, Old Man Oak,” they say politely, but today they’re too excited about other things to play with him for long. He understands, I think, although it has been a very long time since he was young.

We step around him, and, as every time we do this, my breath catches. It’s not quite a sob; I have shed my tears for her long since, and what’s left can’t really even be called regret. But sometimes I forget, and I expect, because I know it’s her, to see my wife standing there, the lovely woman with the hair just starting to grey and the eyes that always seemed to know more than she told. And… that Zel is long gone.

The maple tree that stands there in the lee of Old Man Oak is, I notice again, growing bigger every year while never outpacing our daughters’ ability to reach all the way around her. That will change at some point, I’m sure, but by that point, the need to hug their mother will, I hope, be less pressing.

Her presence is with us almost immediately, a breeze that isn’t there brushing a hello through her leaves. It hurts, and is beautiful enough to make me sing for it, how much more alive she sounds now. When she chose to put down roots, the cancer and the treatments for it had sapped most of her energy. Now, she is healthy, strong, and beautiful. Now, nature willing, she will outlive the girls and me both, growing old and woody with the Old Man and the others here.

A branch brushes my cheek, and I can tell she’s looking over Thea. “A grove-widow,” the wind sighs. It shows, somehow. “Good, Josh.” A whirlybird, a little two-winged maple seed, lands in my new love’s outstretched hands.

“Take care of my family,” the wind whispers. Now, I do cry, though I try not to let the girls see it. I know what this blessing means. Zel has always been very talkative, very aware for a grove-tree. But we all knew it couldn’t last forever.

Thea cradles the little seed like the infant child it is. “I will,” she promises. There are tears in her eyes, too: she understands.

“Thank you.” A warm wind embraces us, and we lean against her trunk. This isn’t mourning: Zel lives, and will live on. But, even with Thea’s arm around me, even with my cheek against Zel’s bark, I find I still miss her embrace. And Thea understands that, too. There are worse things to build a second marriage on, I think, than an understanding of the cracks the grove trees leaves in one’s heart.

Sponsored from the general tips pool, chosen by poll. If you would like to sponsor another story, the list is here; the donor info page here

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