*****
Charley Cotton opened his eyes and found himself staring at a canvas ceiling. It was thick green canvas and, as he followed it down with his eyes, he saw the same material turn into walls. It's a tent, I'm definitely in a tent. The events of mere moments ago flashed to the surface and he gingerly checked his hand, it was still there. He rubbed his shoulder, it seemed intact and undamaged. He lifted himself into a sitting position, ruffling the white sheets that were laid over him. He was lying in a metal framed bed surrounded by identical metal framed beds. Three rows of ten and mostly empty. The few that were occupied were scattered randomly around the tent.
Charley lifted the sheets clear and swung his legs off the bed. A woman in a blue and white nurse's uniform stood in the centre of the tent next to a trolley with tin cups and an urn upon it. She looked over at Charley and smiled.
"A nice cup of Rosie?" She asked through her unwavering smile. Her eyes sparkled unnaturally, to hide their soulless gaze. Charley stared directly into her eyes and it felt like he was seeing her through an old television screen. There was nothing beyond the sparkle, just a cold emptiness.
Suddenly a man appeared in the bed next to Charley, he was dressed in a familiar khaki uniform.
"Damn it!" The new arrival cursed as he sat up and threw the sheets to one side. "So damn close I could almost taste the victory wine." Charley knew the feeling. In one way this wasn't his first taste of death either, but in another it was. Any brush with death was unpleasant. It was usually accompanied by a varying level of pain and anguish, but the first death always had the added sense of disappointment.
The recently resurrected British soldier looked over at Charley.
"Fresh from the world I see," the soldier said while pointing at Charlie's tunic, "still only a private." He then clicked his fingers and stood up from the bed.
"This is your first death," he chuckled, "how gutting. I bet you thought you'd last a lot longer, I know I did." The soldier tapped the two stripes that were emblazoned across the upper arms of his own tunic, "it took me seven deaths to get these." Charley had to agree. It was an unspoken hope to reach a high rank without succumbing to death's embrace. He had thought this one would be different, but that was how he had thought about them all at one time or another.
"Yes you guess right Sir." Charley flicked a weak salute in recognition of rank, but remained seated on the edge of the bed.
"A little advice Private," the soldier stepped closer to Charlie's bed and leaned over him. "Gung-ho and reckless will get you nowhere around here, it's just not the way this game is played."
The End
© 2015 Peter John
Ufburk: The Demoki (Part Two)
By Donny Swords
There was no trace of dazed pallor or any sign of incredulity on Ufburk's stern countenance. A day past now, the Barbarian's life had once more been irreparably altered. Looking back, none of it save Sefer and Danno's sheep seemed real to him at all.
The young Barbarian was a hunter. He knew nothing of the stars or constellations he hunted under, save for the sense of direction they provided. All of his new bout of adventuring had begun just after he'd stared at the same patch of stars he'd seen twinkling through a bright spot in Danno's field the prior evening. Though these stars were only beginning to show, they seemed markedly different too. Both Ufburk and those stars were light years from Danno's field now. And eons behind him was the corpse of the monster that destroyed his village. A cold shiver caressed his spine at the thought.
Ufburk had taken a strip of cloth from his shirt and used this to secure the Raygun to his back. Presently, he clung to a cliff, navigating cracks and crevices like a real mountain man. His thews bulged with his mighty effort, and his chest heaved to drink deep of the misty air.
The Barbarian had grown accustomed to thinking of the beam weapon as the source of all his troublesome adventuring. Whether he could use the blaster to solve issues or not, the weapon's very existence was problematic at best. His world was ill-fit for such a bringer of doom. Ufburk could understand the predators in Whispering Gully far better than the blaster, but he'd ended of few of them with the fiery brick-red beams the weapon fired just the same. Such acts left Ufburk feeling cold. He felt no pride, for the gun cut off threats of danger towards him to such a variable degree that his hunter's pride was offended by the Raygun's lack of sport. Only a single shot fired and lesser things were no more. One blast scattered ashes to the wind, and this detail brought Ufburk's mind back repeatedly to that creature and the pulsing twin lights, crimson and unified. His mind reeled with obsessive thoughts that lingered only on those flecks of red light, one on the Raygun, as there was now, and the other on the creature's heart.
The mystery the lights represented felt wholly bad enough to Ufburk, who was presently stretching to get a handhold upwards on the sheer cliff he continued to scale. That a light existed within that shelled creature had been crazy enough, but for it to flick in and out in unison with the one on the Raygun was insanity. Lunacy. Both lights had done what Ufburk recalled, and when the creature had died, and its light extinguished itself. The one on his Raygun stopped cold at that same moment.
The peculiar views had changed from greens to amber and traced patterns around the weapon before resuming that familiar crimson blip. Nothing surrounding the blaster had changed after that; that same crimson button still flashed on and off. In the back of his brain, Ufburk began to believe that those red blips likely meant another monstrosity to face. And that monster would have a red light on its beating heart to put out as well. In union with his belief, the strobe on the Raygun was growing brighter as if he fast approached danger.
This climb would end with a section of rock only the "foolish brave" as Danno called such folk, would dare scale. Ufburk fixed his dry eyes on the slab of granite. He'd soon be suspended in mid-air as he would have to hang underneath that ledge, clinging mostly to rocks, or wishfully, roots if the gods willed. The ridge's stony end pointed outwards, however, and Ufburk thought he could manage to hook his legs around the tip of the jutting rock to get on top of the stone. From there, the climb seemed possible.
After several shaky moments, and through iron-will, Ufburk did pull himself atop the stone. There he squatted to regain his breath before pressing upwards. The empty cavern his lungs left of his chest gasped for oxygen, and spots crawled near the edges of his sight. With his adrenaline faded after the alien threat in his village had passed Ufburk felt hollow somehow. Maybe he was just lonely; he'd sent his pup Sefer back to his cousin's sheep ranch. A dog could not climb cliffsides, and the Barbarian felt grateful for this. Ufburk wanted nothing else for Sefer but for the animal to live a long and natural life. Danno's sheep would keep the pup both happy and busy. Herding sheep even sounded vaguely appealing to Ufburk just then, but he was no fool, adventuring had infected his blood.
Up he went, digging his toes in here, squeezing his knees there while cramming his sore and bleeding fingertips into brutally tight crevices to provide tenuous grips that helped him climb. Up, always and steadily up.
The night went fully black. The low warm breezes from earlier that day had gone stiff and cold. Each time the red light on the Raygun flashed Ufburk used the radiance to gauge his next round of holds and then when the beacon flashed yet again, the Barbarian shifted his ascent upwards. His face burned wildly from the cold wind cutting at his colorless cheeks. Finally, and with much effort, Ufburk reached the peak of the jagged mountaintop he'd spied from Danno’s field the day before.
He could see nothing in the gullies below. All was pitch black. Not daring to go into such darkness just yet, Ufburk decided to wait. The stars did twinkle above, but nothing illuminated the canyons below him. It was best to wait. Perhaps things would come clearer with daybreak, but gods knew it would likely be dark on that canyon floor whether he went during the daytime or not.
The thought of waiting until first light agitated him. Still, no other alternative seemed plausibl
e. Going down into those gullies might spell death in the daytime, but evidently the act meant doom in full darkness.
The first few hours under a crescent moon and a bed full of stars crept by slowly, like visitors hesitant to take their leave. At some point, Ufburk heard something wail below and that scream getting cut off suddenly, as if by death. No doubt death lurked below, the hunter in him knew this well enough.
By the looks of the moon, cast lavender in the violet-dark sky night would slide away sufficiently if he could wait it out. The ridge he was on lasted for more than a mile, but for how far he couldn't say. Noting the slope he stood on was reasonably comprehensive and even had grassy meadowlands upon its dark soil, Ufburk surmised he'd reached the summit of an odyssey as mountains went. This mountain was sheer on three sides, and with terrible scaling involved, but the fourth slope, while steep, was fully negotiable.
All this Ufburk saw when pale sunlight began to appear behind him with the coming day.
His thoughts were interrupted by a series of shrieks, surely of a dying polecat, nearer than the last expirations he'd heard. The anguish of those cries found a place within Ufburk that was tender. It hurt to take part in the dying cat’s torment, to understand the creature's last. Then, as before, the meadow fell awkwardly silent.
Shaken slightly, Ufburk dusted off his square cut shaggy mane, looking again to the skies. His thoughts no longer lingered on the stars as they had, now he thought only of the cries from below him. What did they mean? But instinctually, Ufburk knew. Something strange and not of his world stalked the lower lands. And it was a hunter-killer, a foul thing from some far-reaching abyss Ufburk could not imagine.
Suddenly Ufburk became aware that a nearby flock of vultures had flown off in haste. Before he had time to register fully what the vultures were frightened by his ears heard a peculiar whirring sound. He'd tried to dive when something pliable but strong netted him. Heavy footsteps trotted up behind Ufburk's back, and he felt something round and cold between his shoulder blades. Then all went ebon.