Short story Daylight Robbery on Pulppusher.com

My short story 'Daylight Robbery' has just been pulped on the great crime fiction website. Pulppusher.com.

Please fellow the link to have a read and feel free to comment on it here: http://www.pulppusher.com/paulbarton/4525541972

Prometheus Now

Prometheus charged down the mountainside. His gift of heat and light danced atop the branch in his right hand. Behind him the pantheon was stirring, yet the titan cared not; this, he thought, would usher in the new age.

As he approached the stone walls of the village he was greeted with a curious sight. His entry was not blocked not by a gate, but by a mass of villages placards in hand.

He halted in front on the group and studied them. Each were clothed in gowns of fine cloth, their cheeks rosy with the juice of the finest grapes from the vineyards to the west of the town. Some, sitting at the back of the group, folded up their well worded gazettes and joined the throng.
One, a young student with confidence in her stride, approached, and spat in the face of poor Prometheus. Others rushed to restrain her. She was shouting “child killer” as she was dragged off.

Those at the back of the throng fixed their spectacles. They muttered a few mute words of disapproval, yet would latter gleefully recount her action.

Prometheus wiped the spit from his face. A man, slightly older than the student, stepped forward. He was dressed robes that displayed a wealth which he looked like he’d never strained to earn.

“I am spokesman for the citizens who are disgusted with your attempts to destroy us all,” he said in a carefully rehearsed voice, which appeared considered and earnest in tone.
“Excuse me?” Prometheus responded.

“Have you,” the young spokesman continued, “thought about the horror you are about to unleash? That thing,” he pointed to the flame, “will turn humanity to ashes!”

As Prometheus was thinking of an answer, a high priest shuffled out of the crowd. His garb was of warm and thick wools and silks; he fiddled with his long grey beard.

“My son,” began the priest, his voice giving the impression of learning and reason, “who are we to play gods? Seeking knowledge is divine, only if the ends are divine. That abomination which you would seek to let loose on us may profess to give us warmth, but at what cost?”

Before Prometheus could begin his argument the eagle swooped. It’s talons ripped into his back as it lifted him off to Olympus. The jealous gods would have their judgement. As Prometheus was carried skyward, the branch dropped from his hand. The flame extinguished as it fell to the ground.

Prometheus cast a last glance at the village. Well behind the now cheering protesters, he saw a child in rags. The poor infant was shivering and crying.

One Three Eight O

With shirt starched and razor like creases down my sleeves I strode into my new office. This is my first day and my face wore the mask of cool confidence. I was still unto sure of what brought me here. I had sent of my CV to an advert in the newspaper one day. The money was good, considering the few duties in the sparse little box of information. I was more interested about what it did not say. In fact, it hardly said anything. There wasn’t even a company name. Just an address, this address.

There had been no interview, just a phone call to say to turn up on this day and begin. I had told the few people interested that my skills were so impressive that my selection was obvious, I warranted no inspection.

The truth, I expected, was that this was like every place I had ever worked. Throw a dart into the open page of a phonebook and you could find a person who would perfectly fill the banality of the position. Perhaps they had used a similar selection process.

My new line manager approached me. She stood and inch or two taller than me. Her pale head topped by tightly tied back black her. Her dark eyes framed by thick framed glasses. My eyes tracked down her open necked white, tight blouse down to her black pencil skirt, further to equally dark stiletto heels. My mouth dried up as I struggled to find the words to introduce myself. She spared me the bother.

“You’re the new start,” she said curtly, a definite statement rather than an enquiry. “You’re over here.”

Ushered over to a desk I sat down.

“You’re one four five six,” she said pointing to the phone. Before I could think of my first question she turned and left. My eyes followed her to a door at the end of the office, I breathed in time with the movement of her hips.

The room itself was very bright. The strips of lighting on the ceiling illuminated a space which would have suited more a surgery than an office. Not a blemish or a visible dusty surface in the surroundings that I surveyed. White walls met white walls in this large windowless box. From my seat, the only door I could see was that which my line manager had exited.

I cast an eye over my new colleagues. They all wore well scrubbed, smiling faces. Hair neatly trimmed. Clothes immaculate and business like. A low hum of conversation lightly peppered the expanse of the office as the diligently looked at their computer screens or went over the papers in front of them.

Looking to my own desk I surveyed the tools of what I pretended was a trade. The generic PC sat on my desk at a right angle to my phone. A neat row of pens were placed next to a plain pad of paper. I looked on my desk for anything that resembled some work for me to do. There was nothing. I turned on my computer, hoping to find some clues but the only program of any worth was a game of solitaire. I loaded it up and turned over some cards. Looking round the room I found myself even more confused than when I first walked in.

There was no sign of my line manager. Even if she had nothing for me to do at least some stolen glances of her would give me a way to pass my day. Sighing I leaned back on my chair.

My second inspection of the room revealed the presence of a coffee machine. Sitting on the desk in front of it was a man who looked different from the other men and women around the room. His red hair seemed if it had not been brushed since he’d woken that morning. In fact, his clothes looked like he had slept in them. He slouched over his desk with a glumness plastered under his dropping brow.

I rose from my seat, and, under the guise of a want of coffee, I approached him. With my prop coffee cup in my hand I said hello. There was no answer from him. Again I tried an introduction, explaining that I was new, but his head hung still silent as if oblivious to my presence.
Irked by his ignorance I turned on my heels. Within one step I heard his low voice emanated from behind me.

“What are you doing?”, came his enquiry.

I explained I wasn’t quite sure, I had turned up and been left stranded at my desk, hoping for the best. I even know what the company did.

“We keep things ticking over,” he said. “They like things to run smoothly. If there is any hint of a complaint the staff here deals with it.”

“How do we deal with it?”

“Just refer it to One Three Eight O,” he snorted. “Remember, we are the ones who deal with the complaints, we are not here to make them. You mark that”.

He hung his head over his desk again. I guess that this ended our small burst of interaction. I returned to my desk.

Just as I was taking the first sip of my coffee the voice of my line manager startled me from behind my seat.

“I do hope you are settling in,” she said in a tone that was more an order than an aspiration of my well being.

Turning I realised a few seconds too late that I was staring at the bulge of that blouse. My eyes rose from her chest to meet her dark eyes. She appeared not to notice my momentary perversion. Her ruby painted lips issued forth her next comment.

“Do try not to associate with those in here who have funny ideas,” her eyes flashed at the red haired man, his forehead now pressed on the desk. “There are those who are never happy. Sadly we cannot deal with some of those people in the way we would like to.”

On her first stride I asked, with a slightly stuttered voice, what it was I was supposed to be doing. Fortunately she never turned, lest she would have caught my gaze at the swell of her hips, idly wondering what lay under that dark fabric wound around them.

“You are here to handle any problems that arise,” she said with a snort.

I interrupted her stride once more with another question, “how do I handle the problems?”
Her back still to me she sighed, as if bored of my stupidity, “just refer it to One Three Eight O.”
My eyes followed those long legs as they left the room. Each of her admonishments had made my heart beat just that bit faster. Each sentence caused my mouth to grow more arid. I swilled the rest of my coffee down my throat.

One of the happy faces across the room me focuses his attention to open newspapers. Flicking through the pages him, he would stop occasionally, cut out a story, the stuff it into an envelope. Once he had been through the papers in their entirety, he sealed the envelope, crossed the room, and put in a tray mounted on the wall to my left.

“A few there for One Three Eight O,” I heard him say to a close by colleague when he returned to his seat.

Occasionally I lifted my eyes from watching time tick by on my watch. Something occurred to me. Apart from the man who had tidily chopped offending stories from the newspapers, no one was doing any work. Of course, they gave the appearance of working, except for the red haired man, whose head remained flat on the desk, but on my closer inspection I noticed that men and women were shuffling blank pieces of paper or typing long imaginary works whilst looking at blank computer screens.

I looked from face to face and not one of them looked perturbed. In fact, the only face which would probably register any dissatisfaction was connected flush to the desk, with just a mop of red hair for me to view.

Following the example of my contented co-workers, I began to perform the mime of a busy administrator. Keys were tapped, pens were rearranged, pages thoroughly examined as if holding the secrets of the cosmos.

Time seemed to come to a near halt as I conducted this grand performance. The second hand on my watch lazy crept around the face; the minute hand appeared to be on holiday. This was purgatory.

I stood up and stretched the seizing muscles on make back. I massaged a dull throb in my temples. I tip-toed across to the coffee machine. The others in the room did not seem to notice me, so I spoke to the messy crop of red hair that was on the desk. A grown emerged from underneath it, as if I had awoken a small mammal from hibernation.

I half garbled an apology and asked what the company did. He lifted his head slightly form the desk.

“We handle a contract,” he said.

“What for?”

“Complaints come in from different places. It’s all quite hush-hush. When people are happy you do nothing. When they are you happy you refer them to One Three Eight O.”
“But what does One Three Eight O do?”

“That is not your department,” his head shot up from the desk, he shot me a wild stare, “concentrate on your own work.” He settled back into his slumber.

Slightly shaken I return to my seat. Suddenly, interrupting my sips of coffee my phone rang. I picked it up and listened to a distorted voice said, “just to let you know everything is great.” The line then went dead.

Hanging up the phone I noticed a young man walk in with a mail cart. Without speaking he placed an envelope on my desk and one on each desk of the happy looking faces. The young man then walked to the shelf mounted on the left wall, pick up the envelope which had been placed in it, the put it on the desk of the sleeping red haired man.

I opened my envelope and inspected what was inside. It was a yellowing piece of paper with three words printed on it: Everything is great.

The contented faces inspected their own mail and their smiles grew. Two stood up and gave each other a high five. Happily and quietly chatting to his other colleagues, I watched the last of them open his envelope. The expression on his face drop. He seized his phone and punch in four numbers. The red haired man picked up the receiver of his phone and I watched the two of them engage in a hushed conversation down the line, yards away from each other. The red haired man stood and hurried out of the room.

I sat looking around the room trying to gage what was happening. Except for the absence of one man, the room seemed as it had been before the brief moments of worried activity. My phone rang again, this time the message was: “Don’t worry, things aren’t great but they are fine.” As the line died so did my will to make sense of the day.

Leaning right back on the chair I watch the performance of the others in here. I counted each blank page they shuffled, listened to each individual tap of the keyboard. I let out a long sigh.
The door at the other end of the room opened and I watched that red mop of hair bounce across the room and the bored looking body it lay on top of sit down. The head that it covered hit the desk with a thump.

With nothing else to do I stood and made to make some coffee. Standing by the coffee machine and seeing the groining head on the desk I decide to try making some conversation again. I ask what the fuss had been about.

“One Three Eight O business,” came the monotonal reply.

Slowly, I began to shuffle off. Without even think the following words exited my mouth after a yawn; “it’s bloody boring in here, isn’t it?”

His fists banged on the desk, as he shot to his feet. The whole room seemed to close in and darken for a moment. I quietly beat my retreat, each step watched by his scowling face. Only when I sat did he also.

“I heard there is a problem!” My line mangers voice caused me to jump out my seat. Again she was behind me. I watched her hand lean forward and seize my phone. A red painted fingernail reach out and dialled four numbers; one three eight zero. Within the first ring he picked up the phone. Neither said a word. The red haired man hung up and left the room.

“Follow me,” she barked and I followed her across the room, through the white door. We walked on and on down an ever brighter and whiter corridor, her clicking heels the only sound echoing down the narrowing expanse.

“I’m sorry you feel too good for the company,” she sarcastically spat as she halted. She moved behind me to reveal a white handless door.

As I leant closer to inspect the door a shove smashed into my spine. I skidded through the door into darkness, feet slipping on the grime on that unseen floor.

She bundled me into what I took to be a chair. Metal clasp quickly round my wrists as I found myself restrained in the darkness. A dull light suddenly shone from above, barely illuminating her now free flowing hair, her face now shorn of her glasses. She straddled me and clasped my head close to her, my nose catching on the buttons on her chest. I could her panting, could smell her sweat. One moment I had felt like crying to be set free, but now I worshipped my captor, I felt whole as the bars of her fingers crossed over my eyes. Just as my I was beginning to welcome this sweet Hades she gently rose and stepped into the darkness.

“One Four Five Six,” it was his now booming voice, “you were asked not to complain. He stepped into the narrow shaft of light, hair like flames, a smile scarred his face. He had a hammer in his hand.

Last Words Before The Mothership

So here it is; our final communication to this world. I can picture you now, hiding your little smirk. You want to see the loonies. You want a little chuckle at what we hold dear. You want us to affirm your cosy little normal life. Don’t worry; this isn’t me invading your psyche. I don’t claim to be psychic, or have any magical powers. As I will explain I am not crazy. I guessed this because of what predictable little beings we have all allowed ourselves become. They know this and that is why They contacted me to bring Their message to you. You might be gazing over these words to lighten that grey little rut which you inhabit but let me warn you; there is no punch line.

Are you still here then? Has your taste been whetted for the last epistle of your mad man? Well, make yourself comfortable whilst I think of where to begin.

Of course, where else should one begin but the beginning? Whoa, don’t put it down just yet. I won’t be boring you with a biography from conception to me sitting bashing away at this keyboard. No, I’ll begin at the point my life really started.

It had been a day like every single other since I had started to consider myself an adult. My working day was spent avoiding as much work as I could get away with, my travel home spent wondering what the point of that day had been, and my evening spent sat in front of the television blotting out all the thinking I had done in time for bed so I was ready to repeat the process all over again.

You feel it too as you’re reading this don’t you? Sure, you thought this would take your mind off it but it will still be there when you finish this. One of the big jokes of existence is that you feel nothingness more sharply than anything else, it is blunt haze that somehow cuts through everything. But what can you do? You think too much for God, the hangovers are too bad for you to give your life to the bottle, and you are not enough of a coward to jab a needle into your arm. You wander about offices and shops until at lest death ends this numbness, but even that final relief scares you too much to hurry it on. So, as you, I stumbled about until They came.

They came at night. I sat in my little living room with my head in my hands when suddenly I felt something. I began to shake, the colours in the room seemed to brighten and a low hum filled my ears. All around I could sense, could feel there presence, could almost touch them as they hovered about me. It was whispers at first, but again and again Their messages would come until they built into a yelling crescendo which sent me to my knees, clutching my ears as I vainly tried to blot out the words projected into my mind.

They are our brothers and sisters. They live on a planet so far away that human mathematics would find impossible to comprehend the numbers required to describe the distance. They want us to be as them. I thought I would get that in early; these are not the aliens of Hollywood. We laughed sometimes at the films, they loved to go through my collection of films and watch hulking robots smash through cities or the fiendish plots of green skinned monsters. I’m sorry if I have put science fiction authors and film producers out of business with these words.
I soon began to converse with them as I would with someone like you. The other humans couldn’t sense them like I could, couldn’t hear their teaching. I suppose to them I was conversing with the air. I was soon signed off work.

My new spare days were welcomed. I would wander and find the lonely souls and tell them that they weren’t alone, that they were right about this world, that there did needed to be more. Most of us humans are still limited by this world, but some listened. Soon this little band grew and we set out to wake the others on this planet of ours, we were laying the ground so a hand of friendship could be ushered in from unimaginable celestial distance.

As our numbers grew we set up colonies for the friends of the beings who were coming. It was a simple self-sustaining life that did as little harm to the earth as we could. The days spent tending our plots of crops, the evenings painting, writing and composing the new art for the great age that we are about to usher in. Shut off in our private states we seldom bothered the outside world, only our occasional missions to find the others who belief would alert to our planet to our existence.

It was when we put ourselves on the internet that things really began. Millions of people stare at their screens of an evening looking for something. It is a network throwing countries worth of loneliness down cables, digitalising it and saving it to hard disk. Soon hundreds of thousands of people were finding their answers in us. I was being called on to speak on every continent of the planet. Our colonies began to dot the globe, creating a network of busy souls beckoning their brothers and sisters from beyond the far flung images from any telescope.

Such happy times could not last forever, although at the time I managed to fool myself that it would. The communications began to change.

They were very interested in the internet. Through me They began to research our peoples. Pornography fascinated them. For days at end They would sit me down on my computer, lock the doors to the other believers and have me search through every possible human taste committed to film. From the wobbly of the silicon bloated busts of bored looking Californian woman to the emaciated Russian drug addicts who grimaced at every shove of an Alsatian, They sagely processed each and every act. They noted the hidden human taste for pixelated images of fresh and were amused. Each page that they viewed demanded cash from humans hungry for a visual bite tailored for their appetites.

This made Them think. For a great many men, and more women than who would honestly admit, watching one, two, or even a room full of people, engaging in some sort of sexual situation was the sole reason they owned a computer. How could we reach those humans? The answer was simple.

Some of our strongest believers rose to this task. Websites were created with our messages subtly hidden. So as a person watched Debby from Colony 2 setting down the road to anal prolapse with Dominic and Michael from Colony 5 they would get glimpses of our teachings which would drip-drip into his consciousness with each repeat viewing. One day, red faced and panting, they would find their way to us. Also the Dollars, Euros, Pounds and Yen would fund our colonies as they prepared for the date They arrived. It would also pay for the medical bills of the brave pioneers such as Debby who literally stretched their bodies to the limits for us all.

It was at this time we started to get interest from the outside world that was unwelcome. Emails would disappear having never found their recipient, some of our websites would close down for days with no explanation, and offices in our colonies would be rearranged whilst the believers slept. Our brethren across the galaxy were concern so, through me, They began to research.
First it was the normal news channels. Death served up in both pictures and words. They were aghast. You must understand, those beings aren’t tie dyed new age hippies, and neither are us who follow them. They are in many ways like us, but, more importantly, in most ways They are past us. They failed to grasp the ease and enjoyment in which we humans stub out the lights of those next to us. It was this moment that They decided to elevate the believers from the rest of the apes of our species. We too had surpassed the homo sapiens blowing themselves up In busy market places, or marching into bullets on dusty battle fields. No, They would not now come to us; we would go to Them.

Now that is making you smile, isn’t it? You are picturing the crazy alien lovers building a big rocket in farm shed ready to be shot up into the cosmos. It isn’t like that. Like I’ve said, our brothers and sisters live a distance that would take a near eternity to reach no matter how powerful the rocket. They come to me by willing themselves through time and space so we too had to learn how to transcend. Of course, there would be a helping hand. We are not as powerful as them, yet.

Orbiting this planet is the mother ship. It waiting to collect our minds and, powered by Them, it will cross the limits of our dimension and unite us with those great intellects. It has all been planned, as I keep explaining, we are not crazy.

Moving on, time is getting short, it was when we began to communicate this information on our websites that the police and governments of many nations began to take an overt interest in our colonies. We began to shut ourselves off from the apes outside our walls. We needed to find out who was guiding these hands against us.

They researched longer than ever before, using me as their eyes. We scrapped round the underground news resources of the myriad of groups investigating the unseen world behind that which operates above and behind what we take as society. They found another power working here. This is powered by an ancient race of being which seeks to dominate all. We were a threat to their plans. The angry voices made me read on for days without sleep.

Our foes are lizard like beings which eat children during bizarre occult rituals. They have controlled everything for thousands of years, hidden behind the masks of humans. All this information is out there if you look. You can see their work behind every page turn in history. Our friends across the dimension now knew what was happening; they saw that the lizards saw their slaves were planning to escape their prison planet and they were going to take revenge. The fires of their rage would be so bright that all the other little beings would take flight for fear of being burnt.

They didn’t know we were onto them. We were going to resist.

The plans handed to me from across the astral plane were brilliant in their simplicity, truly the work of greater minds. We would create our own army. My most trusted brother believers and I were instructed to spread our seed to all our sisters of child bearing age. There could be no exceptions as we never knew when the lizards would strike. The laws of the apes would have to be ignored as we struggled to fill the wombs of our sisters young and old with the free generation.

We also began to arm. Our colonies built high walls, buildings reinforced, bunkers built. We lived in castles like those of old, lords of our own freedom. Due to our chosen isolation we could all practice with firearms, each of preparing for the day that the reptilian masters sent their ape slaves to try to crush us. We would fight and we would transcend. Nothing is going to stop us now.

You’re reading this because that day has come. You’re watching them invade our colonies live on television. I can hear the gunshots now as they are sending our believers to the mother ship. All we wanted was a simple life in our farms, away from you apes, and await for the day we would be united with all our brethren, but your chameleon masters have forced our hand.
I shall be going soon the mother ship I’m not ashamed to tell you that I am crying tears of joy as I write this.

A simple farming life means that a community often has a large source of fertiliser. This is can be simply converted to explosive. Detonators can be constructed simply, like the one rigged to go off when the apes storm through my door.

I’m sending us all to the mother ship. I guess there is a punch line after all.

Coffee At Cafe Kafka

He watched the door open and the woman enter. She stood admiring the gold-leaf sign on the glass for a moment, and then she continued on her path into the little room.

“Excuse me,” he said as she approached, envelope in hand, “I was asked to give this to you. He said I’d recognise you as soon as I saw you.”

“Did you?” she replied, removing her coat and taking a seat near the slowly shutting door.

“Actually, you’re the third woman I’ve approached with this,” he said, waving the envelope.

He shuffled into a seat opposite her. They both ordered coffee. She lit a cigarette and placed it in her rose-painted lips, just then both cups clinked on to the table from the hands of a weary waitress.

“Do you know the man who gave you this?” the woman enquired, leaning her head back and exhaling a column of smoke into the air.

“No, he never told me his name.” He stirred the dark liquid in his cup slowly and then took a sip.
She slid the envelope across the table and studied it. Her name was printed in fine hand on the thick cream paper. She took one more draw on her cigarette; its hot red tip retreated towards her lips. Carefully, she opened the envelope and peered inside.

“It’s empty,” she said, crushing out the cigarette in the ashtray. A single ember of tobacco smoked for a second, and then died.

Between Chapters

Princess Amanda skipped through the forest. The glittering sunlight, that peppered the leafy canopy, caught her raven hair and gave it an ethereal glow.

She followed the cobbled road that cut through the grassy carpet, until she reached the river, which was crossed only by bridge. It was a rickety wooden construction, old and out of place amongst the beauty of the greenery that reached from her feet up to the sky.

She placed her slippered foot on the bridge’s first wizened plank, when she heard a roar. Standing in front of her was a troll. It’s grey face upturned in cruel hunger, it’s scaled skin seeping with slime from the stream below. In it’s gnarled hand, a club made of bone.

‘I have never had a dinner as pretty as thee,’ it said. It’s cat-like eyes widening as it slouched closer.

Princess Amanda stood her ground. With an exasperated sign, she crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ she commanded.

The troll was taken aback; he was not used to his lunch demanding anything from him before it was eaten.

‘This is my bridge,’ he meekly replied.

‘You are not supposed to be her,’ she said, clearly unamused. ‘This is a historical romance. This is medieval Portugal. I am the Princess Amanda. Waiting for me in the next chapter is a knight named Pablo, who intends to ravish me. Now, if you don’t mind getting out of my way, I’m late already and I’m rather looking forward to it.’

The troll, not being the smartest of creatures, scratched his head.

‘This isn’t a trick is it?’ he asked. ‘Amanda doesn’t sound very Portuguese.’

‘Blame the author,’ she snapped, ‘not me! How many people do you who name themselves?’
The troll didn’t answer. He was too busy starring at his hands, his brain searching for reasons to prove that they really existed.

‘If you would excuse me,’ she said, breaking the silence, ‘I must be going. It’s not right for royalty to be held up by imaginary creatures.’

The troll began to sob. He watched, through tear filled eyes, the back of the Portuguese princess stride off into the distance.

‘Please tell me you’ve seen a talking goat? Or any goat at all!’ he shouted imploringly. She did not answer.

He sat on the side of the bridge, his long legs dipping their toes into the cool waters below. His grubby hands massaged his temples as he tried to soothe the emptiness that consumed him.

‘Mother was right, he said to no one but himself. ‘I should have been a Frog Prince.’