Tangled Intersections
Eva Lefoy
Copyright © 2015 Eva Lefoy
Cover Design by James, GoOnWrite.com
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Blurb
Copyright
Author Bio and Links
One Last Thing
Dedication:
This story written on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Greg Van Stralen, who, in his life-long quest for a good horror story, threw down the gauntlet to a few of us writers. The rules were simple: create a horror story in the same vein as The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson. When he pointed at this particular author, he said, “You can set yours in space.”
Being that this writer’s brain thrives on irreverence, it’s no surprise the first thing that popped to mind was Marvin the Martian. Whether or not Greg can forgive me remains to be seen…
After watching the movie and reading Jackson’s book – never having read it in school, strangely – the story left a vague, confused impression. Who was who and what was really going on? Was there truly an antagonist or was there only imagined evil? Worse, yet, did the home’s malevolence come from the characters themselves? The work came off as almost purely psychological / emotional drama, which of course lends itself well to the claustrophobia of a space station….
A former Los Angeles native, Greg is known for his habanero hot sauce and gun addictions, and his abiding knowledge of biology. The author wishes him many more birthdays and shooting trips to come!
Blurb:
In deep space, there’s always some terrifyingly easy way to die…..
For Nidi Station residents, sighting a certain alien cartoon creature indicates their approaching demise. But is the little green man a true harbinger of death or is he simply an ale-inspired hallucination? For new resident Dr. Maynard Grison, who’s suffering from a severe identity complex, one more push is all that’s needed to send him over the edge. The question is, which stimulus will set him off, the wastewater re-cyc green ale, being shadowed by Marvin the Martian, or the talking floorboards? Find out in this psychological space drama inspired by The Haunting of Hill House.
Tangled Intersections
Arrival
Nidi Station
Docking Bay
The clang of the docking clamps rang in Dr. Grison’s ears sounding a hell of a lot like freedom. Palms sweaty with anticipation, he kept them firmly wrapped around the shuttle seat armrest and resisted the urge to look behind him and grin at the Vanaslovi guards’ captive. How he must hate being in captivity. But the truth was he’d grown sloppy. They’d found him passed out right above the recently deceased body wearing the victim’s blood on his hands. As the prisoner’s psychiatric doctor, Grison was charged to see to his treatment. Right now though, what he wanted more than anything was out of the stupid shuttle. He grit his teeth and forced himself to hold still a little longer.
Air hissed as the craft’s door opened, allowing them into the small, pressurized primary bay. Barely bigger than a storage closet, it allowed Nidi Station guards to scan them for weapons and medical before authorizing admittance to the main shuttle area. Their unit would be auto-parked by robot attendants, filed according to size and anticipated need for accessibility. Dr. Grison hoped they locked it away in the bowels of the station and lost it. He didn’t ever want to see it again.
Once the scan completed, the auto-messenger welcomed them in several languages at once: Universal, Parsi Tongue and Earth Standard. He half-listened, smiling at appropriate times into the one-way monitor, and nodding. Yes, yes, he would be sure to pay attention to the red and blue traffic lines in the major pedestrian hallways. Yes, he would recognize and obey the floating security bots. No, he would not seek access to restricted areas. He’d follow abort-ship protocols to the letter.
The guards behind him must have nodded their assents as well, for the double doors suddenly whooshed open. Dr. Grison stepped onto the main deck and took his first lungful of musty station air with gratitude. Being locked on that shuttle with those two goons and their maniacal captive Rister had almost killed him. Almost, but not quite. He had far too much to live for.
“Welcome to Nidi Station,” two hoverbots droned. “Coordinates?”
“Security,” one of the guards droned.
“Lodging,” he said into the forest green refractive eye panel of the closest bot.
“Extended stay?” it warbled. The brightness of its visual matrix dimmed amidst a whir of activity coming from its central processor. Apparently, searching openings took up a lot of its battery power.
“Yes, I think so.” Rubbing his hands together, he at last glanced at Rister. His last contact with the man before they would drag him away out of his sight, hopefully forever.
Digging his feet into the station’s no-slip matted surface, Rister sprang up repeatedly like a jack in the box while the guards attempted to hold him in place. The crazed look in his tearing eyes worried him, but it was the ongoing scream echoing from under the face mask that made his skin shiver. Thank stars the mask made verbal communication impossible. He recoiled from the man, determined to get as far away from the psycho bastard as he could manage in the last few minutes he’d ever spend in his presence.
At last the whirring stopped and the unit dinged. “Payment method?”
He flipped his attention away from Rister and held out the gold platinum card with Dr. Maynard Grison holo-graphed across the front.
A stubby mechanoid arm snatched it and slid it into a tiny slot on the front of the unit’s casing where it disappeared from view. “Thank you. Processing.” Another ding, and his card ejected, airborne, flying toward him. He managed to snatch it before it took off a slice of his nose. “Payment allocation verified. We are happy to welcome you to Nidi Station, Dr. Grison. Please follow me to your new luxury accommodations. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
Inside the mask, Rister’s shrill throaty screech threw spittle out the front. It landed on the slip-free matting at Dr. Grison’s feet. Two seconds later, a cleaning bot scooped it up. Erasing all traces that Rister had been there. Grison hoped, prayed that sooner rather than later, all traces Rister had ever existed would be erased entirely.
Taking his leave at last, he smiled at the captive man and then nodded to the guards. Nothing left to say, but thank you for not letting that lunatic kill me, he turned his attention back to the hoverbot.
It shot off down the hallway at a good clip, not looking back to see if he followed.
Sighing, he hurried down the passageway dodging pedestrians, all the while following the blinking blue lines, and stopping at the solid red ones to look both ways. Always a good citizen, he tipped the bot when they arrived at his rooms, and got its reference number: C35374. The exchange was as good as a handshake, best one could hope for with a mechanoid anyway. C35374 informed him his personal items would be delivered to his room upon arrival of the mail cruiser.
All he had to do now was settle in and wait.