feralferret
Veteran Member
Thank you.
Story The Beam
- Thread starter Kritter
- Start date
gonewacky
Veteran Member
The Story didn't end... Now I'm hanging on this worn frayed rope as it unravels waiting to fall.
Joe
P.S. You know I have to come back now...
Kritter
The one and only...
9.
A single streamer still spoke coherently in the growing mayhem. Odin focused on to him, trying to comprehend. The young man wore a metal-framed stabilizer rig over his shoulders that held his camera which was helping him keep space to breath. His camera, which faced him, caught his unsure laughter as he looked around himself frantically while being jostled in every direction. "This is crazy, this is mayhem," he said, before craning his neck, trying to find a way out of the light. "I'm gonna see if I can make my way out of here." In the background, Odin could hear a woman screaming "Help us!" It reminded him of a video he'd seen of The Station fire back in the day. 'Help us.' 'Help us,' a desperate plea shouted from behind a burning wall.
"Back away," Odin shouted with a sudden burst of genius. "Breaking news! Listen, LISTEN!" he screamed into his mic. "It's doing a countdown. It's doing a countdown. It's gonna explode. Get out of there! Back away now!" he lied, trying to invoke in their memories people being vaporized by a beam of light in a scene from Independence Day, a movie that was surely ingrained in their collective skulls. The word countdown would register. It had to. "It's doing a countdown!" he repeated with urgency.
The few souls who were both there and still watching his stream, mainly in the outskirts of the beam, started shouting this warning to others. "Countdown!" they howled. "It's doing a countdown!" The warning rippled outward, leaping from mouth to screaming mouth. Pockets of people started to shriek and run. Others saw them and followed, not because they understood, but because their terror was contagious. From high above, where the drones hovered like buzzards, Odin watched the dark trickle become a stream, and then a river.
It was working, but it wasn't enough. Hundreds still pressed forward at beam's glowing perimeter, hungry for even a second of the love it promised.
-------------
Captain Alvin Bloom saw the onrush of the crowds in slow motion, the way a man sometimes sees the final second before impact in a car wreck. The crowd was a black tide bursting through a failing dam. He had always perceived the danger, felt it in his bones from the moment he first laid eyes on that pink abomination in the sky. But now his lines of men, the police cars and yellow caution tape, everything was buckling.
And the light itself was changing. Fading. Losing that obscene, sparkling vitality, the cotton-candy glow that had drawn them all in. It had gone duller, sicklier, and people sensed it the way animals sense a storm. They were being swamped with anxious onlookers, desperate for their chance to touch the light before it went away.
Then someone behind Bloom's barricade screamed the magic words: "They're saying it's doing a countdown!" Whether it was true or not, he didn't know, but the rumor had teeth, and Captain Bloom decided he would ride with it all the way down.
Beside him, Jason slipped on his black leather jacket over his half-buttoned shirt and, as an afterthought, grabbed his mirrored sunglasses, imaging himself to be Brett 'The Hitman' Hart, ready to be the 'Pink and Black Attack" and clear this wrestling ring as the captain raised his megaphone to his lips.
-------------------
The captain's voice cracked through the megaphone, his words simple and clear and landing like thunder: "It's doing a countdown."
Those words dropped straight into Dixie's guts and twisted. For one frozen instant she was 19 years old again, sitting in the dark of the old movie theater, watching a mother ship bloom over New York as fire rained down from the sky. It was frightening, as it was the very first thing she had thought of when she first saw the appearance of the beam.
She couldn't just stay in the truck. She wouldn't. Not when her mother's life was at stake. Dixie hit the ground running, boots sucking at the mud, following her father's broad back as he plunged after Officer Scott and the Captain. The beam was dying now, its radiance thinning, bleeding away into the black Texas night. What it left behind was worse. Inside its fading perimeter, the people no longer looked blessed. They looked like meat trying to crawl out of its own skin, dark, writhing silhouettes, faces and hands appearing and disappearing against its fading edge.
Officer Scott had already seen her. The pink fuzz of Joanna Keller's bathrobe, two rows deep in that writhing mass. He bullied forward, elbowing his way through. His hand shot out, closed around the woman's frail arm, and held on as if the devil himself were trying to rip her away.
He felt it immediately. That sweet whisper of love. Jason bared his teeth, pushing back with his own heart. He thought of Joanna's tired smile earlier that night, her kindness to him, her loving hug like he was a life still worth saving, and he poured every ounce of that human love down his arm and into her.
Milton grabbed at her other flailing hand, and then Dixie latched onto her father from behind, anchoring him, while the crowd behind them heaved and surged in waves. Joanna could feel people behind her, grabbing at her robe, trying to climb over her like drowning rats. The second Officer Scott got his other hand under her arm, she let go of his hand and let her robe fall away, feeling the jerk on her other arm as those holding it tried to pull her under. Milton felt the beam's love then for the first time, felt its welcome and warm embrace, but he loved his wife more, and somehow, that made him feel stronger, as if that love was being amplified. He changed his grip then too, to her thin upper arm, and as the robe was sucked down into the crowd, they managed to lift her up and drag her over the heads of the crazed desperate people between them.
Milton enveloped her into his arms, then spread his limbs in a protective circle, sheltering his wife and daughter as he ushered them back to the pick up. They were still being jostled in every direction, both by those who had freed themselves and were trying to get away and those whose only desire was to touch the beam, unphased by shouts of 'countdown.' Milton forced open the door of his truck as best he could and helped them both inside. And then, they were safe. There was hugs, kisses, then their hands all entwined, watching the chaos as they wept.
Jason felt a burst of power flood through him while rescuing Joanna. He shouted to his Captain, "Love them! We have to love them." He knew it sounded crazy but he knew it was true. The beam strengthened love, intensified it. It didn't just want to give love and receive love, it wanted those inside to love each other. He reached for it inside himself. For every terrified face that had needed that love as badly as he had. The very thought filled him with sadness and compassion, and he felt the power grow inside himself. A faint pink glow grew around him like an aura, a few small sparkles still appearing over his head in the waning light. A burst of strength coursed through his arms, helping him break the perimeter open, just enough to create an exit, allowing a rush of people out that started to deflate the bulging mass.
Dave O'Neil came tumbling through the gap, gasping as he nearly fell to the ground, his face a mess of dirt and tears.
"My boys," he shouted, sinking to his knees, grabbing onto the officer's jacket like a drowning man. "Help my boys."
A single streamer still spoke coherently in the growing mayhem. Odin focused on to him, trying to comprehend. The young man wore a metal-framed stabilizer rig over his shoulders that held his camera which was helping him keep space to breath. His camera, which faced him, caught his unsure laughter as he looked around himself frantically while being jostled in every direction. "This is crazy, this is mayhem," he said, before craning his neck, trying to find a way out of the light. "I'm gonna see if I can make my way out of here." In the background, Odin could hear a woman screaming "Help us!" It reminded him of a video he'd seen of The Station fire back in the day. 'Help us.' 'Help us,' a desperate plea shouted from behind a burning wall.
"Back away," Odin shouted with a sudden burst of genius. "Breaking news! Listen, LISTEN!" he screamed into his mic. "It's doing a countdown. It's doing a countdown. It's gonna explode. Get out of there! Back away now!" he lied, trying to invoke in their memories people being vaporized by a beam of light in a scene from Independence Day, a movie that was surely ingrained in their collective skulls. The word countdown would register. It had to. "It's doing a countdown!" he repeated with urgency.
The few souls who were both there and still watching his stream, mainly in the outskirts of the beam, started shouting this warning to others. "Countdown!" they howled. "It's doing a countdown!" The warning rippled outward, leaping from mouth to screaming mouth. Pockets of people started to shriek and run. Others saw them and followed, not because they understood, but because their terror was contagious. From high above, where the drones hovered like buzzards, Odin watched the dark trickle become a stream, and then a river.
It was working, but it wasn't enough. Hundreds still pressed forward at beam's glowing perimeter, hungry for even a second of the love it promised.
-------------
Captain Alvin Bloom saw the onrush of the crowds in slow motion, the way a man sometimes sees the final second before impact in a car wreck. The crowd was a black tide bursting through a failing dam. He had always perceived the danger, felt it in his bones from the moment he first laid eyes on that pink abomination in the sky. But now his lines of men, the police cars and yellow caution tape, everything was buckling.
And the light itself was changing. Fading. Losing that obscene, sparkling vitality, the cotton-candy glow that had drawn them all in. It had gone duller, sicklier, and people sensed it the way animals sense a storm. They were being swamped with anxious onlookers, desperate for their chance to touch the light before it went away.
Then someone behind Bloom's barricade screamed the magic words: "They're saying it's doing a countdown!" Whether it was true or not, he didn't know, but the rumor had teeth, and Captain Bloom decided he would ride with it all the way down.
Beside him, Jason slipped on his black leather jacket over his half-buttoned shirt and, as an afterthought, grabbed his mirrored sunglasses, imaging himself to be Brett 'The Hitman' Hart, ready to be the 'Pink and Black Attack" and clear this wrestling ring as the captain raised his megaphone to his lips.
-------------------
The captain's voice cracked through the megaphone, his words simple and clear and landing like thunder: "It's doing a countdown."
Those words dropped straight into Dixie's guts and twisted. For one frozen instant she was 19 years old again, sitting in the dark of the old movie theater, watching a mother ship bloom over New York as fire rained down from the sky. It was frightening, as it was the very first thing she had thought of when she first saw the appearance of the beam.
She couldn't just stay in the truck. She wouldn't. Not when her mother's life was at stake. Dixie hit the ground running, boots sucking at the mud, following her father's broad back as he plunged after Officer Scott and the Captain. The beam was dying now, its radiance thinning, bleeding away into the black Texas night. What it left behind was worse. Inside its fading perimeter, the people no longer looked blessed. They looked like meat trying to crawl out of its own skin, dark, writhing silhouettes, faces and hands appearing and disappearing against its fading edge.
Officer Scott had already seen her. The pink fuzz of Joanna Keller's bathrobe, two rows deep in that writhing mass. He bullied forward, elbowing his way through. His hand shot out, closed around the woman's frail arm, and held on as if the devil himself were trying to rip her away.
He felt it immediately. That sweet whisper of love. Jason bared his teeth, pushing back with his own heart. He thought of Joanna's tired smile earlier that night, her kindness to him, her loving hug like he was a life still worth saving, and he poured every ounce of that human love down his arm and into her.
Milton grabbed at her other flailing hand, and then Dixie latched onto her father from behind, anchoring him, while the crowd behind them heaved and surged in waves. Joanna could feel people behind her, grabbing at her robe, trying to climb over her like drowning rats. The second Officer Scott got his other hand under her arm, she let go of his hand and let her robe fall away, feeling the jerk on her other arm as those holding it tried to pull her under. Milton felt the beam's love then for the first time, felt its welcome and warm embrace, but he loved his wife more, and somehow, that made him feel stronger, as if that love was being amplified. He changed his grip then too, to her thin upper arm, and as the robe was sucked down into the crowd, they managed to lift her up and drag her over the heads of the crazed desperate people between them.
Milton enveloped her into his arms, then spread his limbs in a protective circle, sheltering his wife and daughter as he ushered them back to the pick up. They were still being jostled in every direction, both by those who had freed themselves and were trying to get away and those whose only desire was to touch the beam, unphased by shouts of 'countdown.' Milton forced open the door of his truck as best he could and helped them both inside. And then, they were safe. There was hugs, kisses, then their hands all entwined, watching the chaos as they wept.
Jason felt a burst of power flood through him while rescuing Joanna. He shouted to his Captain, "Love them! We have to love them." He knew it sounded crazy but he knew it was true. The beam strengthened love, intensified it. It didn't just want to give love and receive love, it wanted those inside to love each other. He reached for it inside himself. For every terrified face that had needed that love as badly as he had. The very thought filled him with sadness and compassion, and he felt the power grow inside himself. A faint pink glow grew around him like an aura, a few small sparkles still appearing over his head in the waning light. A burst of strength coursed through his arms, helping him break the perimeter open, just enough to create an exit, allowing a rush of people out that started to deflate the bulging mass.
Dave O'Neil came tumbling through the gap, gasping as he nearly fell to the ground, his face a mess of dirt and tears.
"My boys," he shouted, sinking to his knees, grabbing onto the officer's jacket like a drowning man. "Help my boys."
Last edited:
Kritter
The one and only...
10.
All night long, a pink neon light had been behind Odin Jones' head like a halo while he streamed, but now, he reached back and killed it with the snap of a switch. Most of the live streams were gone. What few remained showed cameras on the ground, phones swinging shakily from running fists, or distant shots half a mile away. Only one diehard fan still had a drone in the air, and what that drone showed was the sort of thing that crawls into your head and stays forever.
The sparkling column had shrunk to a sickly thread, fading fast as the first dirty light of morning bled over the eastern hills. Those who still had sense had fled. But the others, the younger more foolhardy ones, replaced them. They dove and clawed and climbed over one another for the last scraps of that unearthly pink love, piling higher and higher as the beam grew thinner, desperate to stay inside its embrace one more second.
Odin watched it all, feeling nausea rise in his stomach. Their greed, their fighting, their uncaring self-centeredness, their lack of compassion for those that suffered around them, that was what was killing the beam. If it was a test, we had failed it. He leaned into his mic and began to preach, voice thick with righteous indignation, chastising his audience for their actions, shaming them for the carnage they'd caused, never once admitting to his own role in the build-up. He knew he didn't have to. The numbers on his screen were the highest they'd been in his life.
--------------------------------
From the safe darkness of his truck cab, Milton Keller watched with his family as the last of the disaster played out.
The beam was collapsing now, thirty yards across, then twenty, then ten, and still the mad ones kept coming. He saw Officer Scott and Captain Bloom yanking people out of the writhing pile by their wrists, their arms, anything they could grab. But more poured past the barricades, trampling heads and hands and spines, scaling the mountain of the living and dead. The sound of moans and muffled screams beneath them would haunt Milton's dreams forever.
And then...the beam vanished, and the whole terrible tower of bodies swayed and fell upon itself.
The gawkers, who'd been hanging back, hesitated a minute, and then realizing they weren't getting the apocalyptic laser evaporation they'd been promised, came rushing back in to start filming. Captain Bloom wasn't having it. He waved in the ambulances and instructed his men to start forcing the crowd back again. He was two seconds from having the fire trucks open their hoses when six National Guard vehicles came rolling up the road.
Milton's eyes scanned the torn up grounds of his farm, the beaten fields, the scattered clothing and litter, the trampled remains of his wife's pink bath robe, and the dozens of bodies from end of end. His gaze stopped on the far end, where Officer Scott was on his knees, pumping the chest of one of the O'Neil boys. Bloom walked over, laid a hand on the exhausted cops shoulder, said something low. A moment later Scott nodded, stood up slowly, and moved on to the next broken body. Also a boy.
Milton bowed his head. "I told him not to let them touch it," he choked, shaking his head, fighting back tears as the scope of his emotional trauma started to catch up with him. "Well. Let's go on into town, let them do their jobs."
"Daddy, wait," Dixie said, looking back towards the house. "What about Beau?"
Milton nodded. "Gimme a minute," he said, exiting the truck. After hours of calling for the dog, he had feared the worst, but he realized in his quick scan of the grounds, he hadn't seen his boarder collie's stark black and white fur. After calling her name twice, he checked inside the house, then walked to the barn, noticing the lab coats had shut its doors. It momentarily gave him hope. After opening the doors wide to let the soft light of dawn spill in, he called again. The sheep stood clustered in the corner, watching with their strange yellow eyes.
"Beau?" His voice trembled. "Where are you girl?"
Silence. Then the light rustle of shifting hay. One sheep stepped aside, then another, revealing the old collie curled tight against the back wall, tail tucked, shaking. The moment she saw Milton, her tail began to thump weakly against the boards.
He raced to her, running his weathered hands over every inch of her, making sure she was okay. He'd feared broken bones but she was solid. Just afraid. He led her out through the thinning crowd, her warm body pressed against his leg like she feared they'd be separated again.
Officer Jason Scott ran up to them as the truck started to turn around in their driveway. "How's the misses?" he asked.
Milton nodded, both in indication of her wellness and in thanks for his help. Joanna reached through the open window and squeezed the officer's hand.
"It really was love," she said sadly. "Just like you said."
"Yes, ma'am," he responded. "You told me I could find more of it at this church of yours. Mind giving me that address?"
She smiled, small and sad, and reached for a pen.
------------------------------
Town was unusually busy, as people still poured into it hours after the light had died. The Keller family sat in a back booth at the Dairy Queen, spooning at melting sundaes, not speaking much. The beam had changed them in those few terrible minutes they'd fought to reach Joanna. They had all felt the love, and they all remembered it. How it knew them, touched their souls, filled every crack and empty place, and then it simply left.
Dixie believed it had come for the world, but the world wasn't ready. From her parents' tired, hollow faces, she knew she wasn't the only one carrying that sad thought.
Milton glanced out the window towards the alley across the street. The lab coats were being loaded into a black car. They wore black suits now, and dark sunglasses. The car pulled away without a sound, taking them out of town like they had never been there at all.
----------------------------
Back in the barn, the sheep now looked at each other, their eyes deep and knowing in the dusty golden light.
"Hey," one of them said. "He left the door open."
(( The End *Thanks for Reading! ))
All night long, a pink neon light had been behind Odin Jones' head like a halo while he streamed, but now, he reached back and killed it with the snap of a switch. Most of the live streams were gone. What few remained showed cameras on the ground, phones swinging shakily from running fists, or distant shots half a mile away. Only one diehard fan still had a drone in the air, and what that drone showed was the sort of thing that crawls into your head and stays forever.
The sparkling column had shrunk to a sickly thread, fading fast as the first dirty light of morning bled over the eastern hills. Those who still had sense had fled. But the others, the younger more foolhardy ones, replaced them. They dove and clawed and climbed over one another for the last scraps of that unearthly pink love, piling higher and higher as the beam grew thinner, desperate to stay inside its embrace one more second.
Odin watched it all, feeling nausea rise in his stomach. Their greed, their fighting, their uncaring self-centeredness, their lack of compassion for those that suffered around them, that was what was killing the beam. If it was a test, we had failed it. He leaned into his mic and began to preach, voice thick with righteous indignation, chastising his audience for their actions, shaming them for the carnage they'd caused, never once admitting to his own role in the build-up. He knew he didn't have to. The numbers on his screen were the highest they'd been in his life.
--------------------------------
From the safe darkness of his truck cab, Milton Keller watched with his family as the last of the disaster played out.
The beam was collapsing now, thirty yards across, then twenty, then ten, and still the mad ones kept coming. He saw Officer Scott and Captain Bloom yanking people out of the writhing pile by their wrists, their arms, anything they could grab. But more poured past the barricades, trampling heads and hands and spines, scaling the mountain of the living and dead. The sound of moans and muffled screams beneath them would haunt Milton's dreams forever.
And then...the beam vanished, and the whole terrible tower of bodies swayed and fell upon itself.
The gawkers, who'd been hanging back, hesitated a minute, and then realizing they weren't getting the apocalyptic laser evaporation they'd been promised, came rushing back in to start filming. Captain Bloom wasn't having it. He waved in the ambulances and instructed his men to start forcing the crowd back again. He was two seconds from having the fire trucks open their hoses when six National Guard vehicles came rolling up the road.
Milton's eyes scanned the torn up grounds of his farm, the beaten fields, the scattered clothing and litter, the trampled remains of his wife's pink bath robe, and the dozens of bodies from end of end. His gaze stopped on the far end, where Officer Scott was on his knees, pumping the chest of one of the O'Neil boys. Bloom walked over, laid a hand on the exhausted cops shoulder, said something low. A moment later Scott nodded, stood up slowly, and moved on to the next broken body. Also a boy.
Milton bowed his head. "I told him not to let them touch it," he choked, shaking his head, fighting back tears as the scope of his emotional trauma started to catch up with him. "Well. Let's go on into town, let them do their jobs."
"Daddy, wait," Dixie said, looking back towards the house. "What about Beau?"
Milton nodded. "Gimme a minute," he said, exiting the truck. After hours of calling for the dog, he had feared the worst, but he realized in his quick scan of the grounds, he hadn't seen his boarder collie's stark black and white fur. After calling her name twice, he checked inside the house, then walked to the barn, noticing the lab coats had shut its doors. It momentarily gave him hope. After opening the doors wide to let the soft light of dawn spill in, he called again. The sheep stood clustered in the corner, watching with their strange yellow eyes.
"Beau?" His voice trembled. "Where are you girl?"
Silence. Then the light rustle of shifting hay. One sheep stepped aside, then another, revealing the old collie curled tight against the back wall, tail tucked, shaking. The moment she saw Milton, her tail began to thump weakly against the boards.
He raced to her, running his weathered hands over every inch of her, making sure she was okay. He'd feared broken bones but she was solid. Just afraid. He led her out through the thinning crowd, her warm body pressed against his leg like she feared they'd be separated again.
Officer Jason Scott ran up to them as the truck started to turn around in their driveway. "How's the misses?" he asked.
Milton nodded, both in indication of her wellness and in thanks for his help. Joanna reached through the open window and squeezed the officer's hand.
"It really was love," she said sadly. "Just like you said."
"Yes, ma'am," he responded. "You told me I could find more of it at this church of yours. Mind giving me that address?"
She smiled, small and sad, and reached for a pen.
------------------------------
Town was unusually busy, as people still poured into it hours after the light had died. The Keller family sat in a back booth at the Dairy Queen, spooning at melting sundaes, not speaking much. The beam had changed them in those few terrible minutes they'd fought to reach Joanna. They had all felt the love, and they all remembered it. How it knew them, touched their souls, filled every crack and empty place, and then it simply left.
Dixie believed it had come for the world, but the world wasn't ready. From her parents' tired, hollow faces, she knew she wasn't the only one carrying that sad thought.
Milton glanced out the window towards the alley across the street. The lab coats were being loaded into a black car. They wore black suits now, and dark sunglasses. The car pulled away without a sound, taking them out of town like they had never been there at all.
----------------------------
Back in the barn, the sheep now looked at each other, their eyes deep and knowing in the dusty golden light.
"Hey," one of them said. "He left the door open."
(( The End *Thanks for Reading! ))
Last edited:
feralferret
Veteran Member
Thank you.
steamroller
Contributing Member
Thanks Kritter, another great story !!
sssarawolf
We're just plugging along.
Thank you.
accountant
Senior Member
Thank you, Ms. Kritter.
Lovely story.
A.
Lovely story.
A.
