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Alex The Inventor-Chapter 15

Book 1 of an Illustrated Sci-Fi Trilogy

By G.F. BrynnPublished 7 years ago 13 min read
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***Read from Chapter 1 at:  www.deepskystories.com***

Read Chapters 1 - 14 at: Deep Sky Stories

Chapter 15 - Circle of Death and the Battle Begins

Elizabeth and Mr. Chater were beside themselves with fear. They had stumbled into the middle of a terrifying battle in the dead of night, and Alex and some strange girl were riding around in a robot, in the middle of it all. And now they were gone again, taking off in that monstrous thing while large, black insects buzzed all around the house.

"This is insanity!", Mr. Chater cried as he reached for his cellphone.

"Don't bother trying", Elizabeth said", I've tried already but all I get is static." Sure enough, loud crackling was all he heard when he tried dialing out. Even the house lights had gone out and now they sat at the kitchen table trying desperately to remain calm.Off in the distance could be heard a continuous rumbling throb and the floorboards vibrated slightly each time the earth trembled. Then, for a few moments, there was complete silence. The two adults held their breaths, hoping everything would return to the way it was. And Alex would...

"Is that your dog I hear scratching at the back door", Mr. Chater asked as a hard, sharp scratching sound came clearly through the dark door.

"We-we don't have a dog", Elizabeth whispered fearfully, her eyes growing wide and her head turning slowly toward the insistent scratching.Silence."Scrich-scrch-sscrkak", said the door behind her. Mr. Chater gritted aching teeth and tried standing up in the midst of another silent pause."Chrk.." said his chair tightly. Then..."ssssc-crk-krch....BANG...BANG", the door replied wickedly!With a keening scream, Elizabeth broke away from her panic and banged hard against the nearby stove! Shaking hands clawed uselessly down to open the screeching bottom drawer and with a maddening, "CLANG-ANG", out came the frying pan!Rrr-rr- RUMMBLLL, boomed the distant thunder of the siege, now suddenly much louder as the back door flew open!Something cold and quick snaked up her leg from the dark linoleum floor and without more Elizabeth spun round and smashed the cast-iron pan down hard!

"Again-again-AGAIN", cried a high, frantic voice!Weak-kneed, she slipped to the floor but even then the iron club came down hard with all the energy of her fear! Something stuttered, buzzed and sparked and her leg felt the long wriggling worm squeeze harder.

“Go away, go AWAY", she cried as another blow fell on the hideous, buzzing creature at her feet! The coiling worm fell to the floor, limp and the crackling buzz finally ceased. Acrid smoke curled up from the shadowy floor and a hideously grinding gear wound slowly down until it fell silent and still. Elizabeth leaned, exhausted against the stove with the bent and cracked frying pan raised over her head, warily.Silence reigned once again in the old house.Distantly though, the shudder of the ongoing explosions continued, but were now almost like a normal background noise.

"Mrs. Faraway", a voice said quietly from the other corner of the kitchen.

"Quiet", she hissed, still as tense as a cornered wild cat. Yet still the misshapen, black form on the floor lay stiff and silent...

"I…I think it's dead..." said Mr. Chater as he picked himself up and walked slowly toward it. "Give me your hand", he whispered as he edged cautiously around it, his back to the refrigerator.

"B-bzzz-POP", crackled the ugly thing.

"NO", Elizabeth screamed and the frying pan blurred down again like a sledgehammer! CRUNCH.

"Y-Y-o-OWCH!", cried Mr. Chater as his left foot was brutally mashed by the cast-iron pan.

"Oh, I'm so sorry", Elizabeth cried and finally dropped the pan. She slumped back against the stove, exhausted from the ordeal.

"It's...okay...", he gasped, "I - I...really, REALLY...think it's dead...now - AH!" "Oh...my foot!"Mr. Chater limped slowly back to his corner and sat down carefully, trying to massage the pain away. All the while, he held back every curse-word he had ever learned."This is just not my day", he groaned, "I - I think it's broken."

"What are these things", Elizabeth asked as she tested the Fly's level of deadness with the end of a broomstick.

"Well, whatever they are, Mrs. Faraway", he said with a rising voice, "I'm quite sure that they have something to do with that boy of yours - OUCH!"

"I beg your pardon", she replied evenly and advanced on Mr. Chater with a new frying pan she had just found.

"Well...you-you saw him didn't you, riding around in that-that monster he made!" "These...things", he retorted, pointing a shaking finger at the dead Fly, "are some other monstrous creations of his too, no doubt, and now they've gotten out of control!"

"Who knows how many more are out there! They'll probably head for town next!"

"How dare you accuse Alex, he saved our lives and he's out there right now, fighting those creatures to keep us safe!"

"And well he should!" "If he makes them, hedeals with them", he snapped, and his bushy mustache twitched spasmodically.

"You rude, awful, despicable man...get out of my house", Elizabeth shouted, and she gave his broken foot a hard kick!

"YOWCH!", sobbed Mr. Chater again and he crawled for his life toward the front door, dragging his poor twice-injured foot along with him.The door creaked open then banged shut, again on the foot before he could get it outside."Oh...GOD...please get me home", he whimpered as he limped and stumbled back to his car. Fortunately, his right foot still worked well enough to press the gas pedal but Mr. Chater still had to endure the deep potholes in the driveway before finally getting out onto the main road.His windows were rolled up but anyone witnessing his driving would have heard Mr. Chater faintly cursing at the top of his lungs as he drove away, hitting every bump and pothole in the gravel road.Elizabeth finally decided that she would just have to go back out and find Alex herself. The phone was still out of service and she couldn't just pace back and forth in the house all night.Taking down a large flashlight from the hall closet, she was pulling on her coat and boots when she again heard something at the door. Though the lights were still out, the footsteps coming up the back stairs sounded human, if in somewhat of a hurry.The rap on the door sounded urgent too. She went quickly to the door and immediately recognized Miss Vee's long curly hair, silhouetted against the moonlight. With a sigh of relief, she opened the door to let the old woman in. The distant rumbling continued and the window pane rattled as it had with each loud shudder that night.

"Miss Vee, what - ", she began but was cut short by the distraught old woman.

"Elizabeth, thank God you're here", she breathed as she held both her hands for a moment. "I haven't any time left, I probably shouldn't even be here but I couldn't leave without giving you this."She quickly pushed a roughly wrapped package into Elizabeth's hands then gave her a goodbye hug before turning to go. "Give Alex my love, will you dear...I'll not be seeing you again, I think." "There is so much I should have told you and Alex but didn't", she said as she faded back into the night. "Maybe this will help you see your way to forgive me one day."

"Take care, my dear and keep Alex safe, will you", she called. There was not enough time again for Elizabeth. She felt that a moment more would have made so much difference, but instead she was again left standing; left behind. She looked down at the small package then, and wondered...Teresa Vasquez cautiously made her way through the backyard gate and toward the secret entrance to the tunnel which led back to her waiting spaceship. She prayed for just a little more time, just a little more...

"Hurry, Alex, hurry", she whispered, now terrified.The ground was shaking so terribly as the Others drew ever nearer to her ship. A lifetime’s worth of work, full of hope and new life lay within that one, unique vessel. To lose it all now, when she was so close to leaving would be an unthinkable disaster.She picked her way through the darkness as quietly as she could but every now and then, her foot hit an old tin can or scuffed in the dry gravel. She held her breath each time but her time was running out. And where were those children anyway?She saw the secret door, just ahead, in the shadow that the moonlight cast on a certain scrap-pile. She was almost there when a delicate, tinny sound of sharp, scuttling legs came from the heavy shadows all around her. Teresa stopped short in the ghostly moonlight as Larj, the Fly slunk bravely into view. Brave only because of the dozen other Flies who had just surrounded the old woman.

"It-is....the-Gardener! Larj has found the-Gardener-Who-Waits, he crowed wickedly to his comrades. Glowering slits of violet winked on and shifted about in the darkness around Teresa as the Flies cut off her escape and closed in on their prey."Why-are you-out-here, all alone", Larj asked mockingly. "Where-is the-young Earther?" There was a sudden edge to his voice then and Teresa sensed a slight wavering as well, as if from fear.

"You found me easily enough", she spoke up bravely, "I am sure one small child can't be too much trouble for you." Larj shifted uneasily at those words and the surrounding Flies buzzed threateningly.

"Larj-will-find-the-child, then-will-be-no-more-trouble", he said with a whining buzz. Teresa noticed that the Fly had been trying to flap its wings but where they should have been, now only metal stumps remained.

"Gave you some trouble, did he", she chuckled, pointing out his undignified appearance.

"It-was-not-he-but-one-of-your-Dragons", he hissed as he scuttled forward.

Teresa stepped back but there was now nowhere left to run. Only one eye was left and Larj dragged some wiring behind him as testimony of the damage that Dart had done to him the night before."Nnow…yyouu…die", he hissed dryly. The rest followed suit and began to close the circle around Teresa like a pack of hungry wolves. A new gleam was in their violet eyes and their strangling wires snaked out searchingly. Teresa kicked back one of the ganglia wires as it flopped and slithered nearer, feeling its way along like some malformed, blind worm."Your-world-will-one-day-be-ours", Larj buzzed viciously and he whipped out a wire. It caught one of her legs and Teresa fell. The others moved in upon her then to finish the work. One after the next, their cold coils lashed out and wrapped over and around Teresa until she looked like the prey caught in a monstrous spider-web.A strong gust of wind suddenly blew over the encircling horde, then another...a moment went by then, crack-crack-BANG!Two Flies disintegrated and a third was snared viciously in Jade's claws and carried aloft where it was snipped in half by her razor-edged pincers."The Dragons, the Dragons", snarled Larj and Teresa was released as the soldier Flies prepared to do battle!This time though, there was a difference as the newly arrived and modified Flies ascended into the air on powerful jets. Longer wings had also been fitted on them to counter Earth's stronger gravity. These Flies were made to fight in the air.Shock-Bolt Guns extended and fired this way and that as the seething creatures sought to engage the two swooping Guardians. Within moments an aerial dogfight ensued and Dart's shield went up and flared brightly just as an energy bolt hit it. He shuddered briefly, then, assessing the new combat situation, feathered his four long wings back for speed, retracted his legs inside his fuselage body and ignited his thrusters.In mere seconds, Dart had reached supersonic speed and performed a steep, banking turn as his sophisticated weaponry locked on the nearest group of enemy Flies.Stat-taco blasts erupted from shoulder-mounted machine-guns and a spherical high-voltage Lightning-Gun emerged from his underbelly. Next moment, the dancing lightning bolt it emitted touched an unlucky Fly and it became an instant dead weight as its electronic innards shriveled to melted slag.But, by then, a group of Flies had coordinated an attack on him and Dart was forced to gain altitude and waste precious fuel to evade a salvo of needle-thin missiles. Jade zipped past him in a blur, going the other way and took out yet another foe with a short burst of tracer-fire from her shoulder-guns. Heavy return fire though nearly drained her shield and she had to retreat in an impossibly steep climb!The two Dragons were outnumbered but not outmatched as their superior speed and overwhelming firepower gave them a slight edge over their opponents; but for how long?Teresa was lucky to still be alive and she felt like a slim second chance had been given to her. The Flies buzzed and hummed like angry hornets high above and the two Guardians were doing what they did best: fight with superior poise.At the sound of a distant diesel engine, Teresa glanced over her shoulder and saw the bouncing searchlight beams of the Alex's robot returning from Brinnel's Bog."Oh, thank God", she said with relief and hurried on. "There's still hope."________________

"What's that, over by the workshop, it looks like fireworks", Alex said as he watched the zigzagging streaks of light from the aerial combat. But even as he said it, he knew what must be happening and he recklessly jammed Big Ben into the highest gear he had.The old robot's wheel-bearings hummed dangerously and the gas tank rattled about in his rear cargo-box but Alex knew every second was vital now."Come-on, come-on", he whispered through gritted teeth as he coaxed the old construction-bot down the gravel road. But still it seemed as though they'd never get there; it could, even now, be too late for Miss Vee.

Zzeeee - CRACK - CRACK, Dart's Lightning Gun spoke viciously as he took down two more Flies but his shield was drained and a tiny missile got through and grazed his armored skin before it zinged away and exploded. Some of the Flies who had been digging down to the buried ship had come back up from the deep trench and were now reinforcing their comrades.The Dragons were losing more and more ground and they would soon be slower, with only their wings to rely on, when their jet fuel ran out. The enemies' vastly superior numbers were starting to turn the tide of battle. Worse still, the Flies below ground were already digging through the last remaining yards of earth and were on the brink of breaking through to the Biosphere. They could taste the end coming and descended with a relentless finality.__________________

Teresa Vasquez hurried now back through the tunnel but had to slow every few paces to steady herself against the curve of the glass wall. Each thud from the bombarding Flies rocked the whole structure terribly. BOOM...BOOM...BOOM! Miss Vee stumbled on nevertheless and mumbled an old prayer under her breath as she neared her goal.Sliver-thin cracks suddenly shot across the glass ceiling. Overwhelming forces bore down upon the Biosphere and the Martian sand within in shifted ominously. Teresa shivered. Let out a breath...Doom reached out to touch her shoulder.

extraterrestrialfantasyfuturescience fiction
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About the Creator

G.F. Brynn

G. F. Brynn is a self-taught writer & illustrator whose sci-fi stories weave a rich blend of youthful adventurism with ancient myth-fantasy. The characters move in a world in which the divide between dream and reality is thinly shaded.

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