"Your team is to find the contact code-named Scurvy."
"Scurvy? Boy, he sounds pleasant."
"Actually, she's quite humorous and accommodating. You'll understand when you meet her."
"What time should I set out."
"Now."
"Great, thanks. I'll take my own rig."
At 0800, I landed on the beach where Scurvy was waiting for me. She didn't seem particularly pirate-like in any way. I handed her the documents, she scanned them, then threw them in the air and set them aflame with a snap.
"So why do they call you Scurvy?"
She stopped mid-stride and leered at me. Hilarious, indeed.
"We've got...
The city was empty. The day had swept by on the brush of a filthy broom, skittering over the edge of the world. We were happy.
But we'd always secretly reveled in disaster situations. When the status-quo was torn asunder, that's when we came alive. It was the status quo that we couldn't deal with.
The last bits of ash were falling out of the sky. The TV said that this might be the end of it. But they also said it might not. Storm clouds at night make the world all that much darker. So we lit our candles,...
It was like the time he thought that Daddy was hurting Mummy, he was sure. He was certain there'd be a Reasonable Explanation, like when Mummy shouted at God in the middle of the night, and asked Him for 'more'.
He was trying to work it out, to see what the Reasonable Explanation could be. Sometimes there isn't one. One morning when Granddad Alan was alive and he was staying at the house, he'd found his granddad eating Smokey's SuperRabbit food for breakfast with Mummy's red label milk.
He'd tried to see the Reasonable Explanation but there hadn't been one,...
We had to move quick. Aside from the smell of decay, and the swarms of flesh-eating bugs that harangued us at every turn, the swamp was cold, and Dr. Fjord's injury was not getting any better. I didn't like dragging her through the murky waters like this, but I didn't have a choice. I held her as far from the water's surface as possible, but I couldn't keep her out entirely. She wasn't doing much to help, though I could tell it wasn't by choice. She was barely conscious.
"How far?" I asked, my voice no more than a rasp....
I really don't remember how exactly I got to this point, but I'm here, so I might as well just deal with it.
"We should really head back now. It's getting too dark."
"No, let's stay. I'm sure the sun will come up every second now."
"Are you serious? It's..."
She couldn't read her watch. It displayed just symbols, like mine. They must have broken when we crashed onto that sidewalk. We're unstuck in time now.
"Isn't it late at night? The sun's not gonna come up for another few hours."
"No, it'll come up. You'll see."
We waited for...
They panic was reaching heart-stopping momentum now. Jake was sure that at any second his body would give up, surrender, break apart or explode or melt away into the once beautiful sea. It wasn’t beautiful any more. The fear had seen to that.
One minute having the time of their lives, the next…
“Shark!”
That one word was enough to instil panic into the entire group, even the captain, the tour guide. Everyone. And no one had known what to do – it hadn’t been covered in the onboard safety announcements at the beginning of the day, so many long,...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet.
"I just ate a fire hydrant," he said.
Mom and I were drinking tea by the fire. Now mom's brow furrowed.
"Donald, whatever do you mean?"
Donald peeled up his soaking wet shirt so we could see the hydrant protruding through his skin. I could see flecks of red paint trying to break through the skin above his solar plexus.
Mom went into the kitchen and came back with some pliers.
"We have to remove that hydrant," she said.
She stuck the pliers down his throat and...
Draya looked out through the trees to her castle. She had been in hiding ever since the rebellion had started. Her father had sent her to a place where Bishop Fenson couldn't find her. He had wanted to kill her. She was the heir to the throne. Shortly after she had been sent away, she heard the news that this bishop had killed her father because he felt he wasn't being given the respect that was needed by someone of his status. The months had been long and hard and she had waited, making plans.
Now was her chance. Draya...
The dawn light crept over the far bank of the Swan River like the terminus. Black in front, grey behind, just changing the quality of the light. Dominique, my girlfriend for that term at Uni, and I were still dressed in our formals; Dominique in a lime ball gown, and I in a dinner suit with black tie. The grassy slope we sat on was dewy.
The grey light rolled down like a curtain in reverse and hit the bank - a memory bank for me. Over there, I had ridden my cycle to my Uncle and Aunt's. As a...