Tag: dystopia

Mutiny

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Palmer killed the captain, knocked out gravity, fried the radio, and nearly blew the drive core before we stopped him.
The crew wanted him dead, but I insisted on a trial. Procedure is procedure.
It didn’t take long, though. Guilty of murder and mutiny.
Minor problem: the lawbooks were seriously out of date.
Punishment was still death by drop-hanging.
“Can we yank on his legs to choke him?” asked Victor.
“Nope,” I said. “No weights. Free drop.”
Palmer laughed at us. “String me up and leave me there for a day,” he said. “That’s the law.”
So we did.
Outside.

Marathon

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We depend on tourism down here. The whole place is geared for tourism. Hotels, reef diving, restaurants – you name it.
Okay, so a skanky college student came down here and partied just a little too much, and she vanished without a trace.
Now everybody’s screaming boycott or sanctions, FBI’s trumping all over the place.
What a mess.
Our image needed a boost, so I suggested a marathon. Never mind that you’d have to run in circles to make a course of 26 miles.
We did it anyway. And was working.
Until a runner tripped over the skank’s body.
Crap.

Trinkets

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The ancient Indian closed his eyes and hissed a curse:
The land, it hates you. It trembles with rage, shaking under your accursed White Man’s feet, wishing it could swallow you whole and spit you out in Hell.
Those maps in your wicked hand will not guide you. The land will twist and writhe like The Snake Spirit, sending you to your doom.
I looked at the trinkets on his table again.
“Okay, twenty bucks for the necklace,” I said.
“Thirty,” said the Indian.
“Twenty-five?”
The Indian smiled. “Sold,” he said. “And you’re lost because your map is upside down.”

Moonlighting

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They made fruit smoothies by day and killed babies by night.
We found the tiny corpses in the dumpster behind the Blend-a-Rama. If it hadn’t have been for a hungry stray dog, we’d have never known it was a front for a backalley abortion clinic.
The problem is, it’s not their dumpster. And the geniuses at Crime Lab screwed the evidence in a mixup. Someone got high on seized weed, had the aborted tykes incinerated.
All they’re getting is a health code citation and a slap on the wrist.
Word spreads fast. Their business is booming now, day and night.

The Sea of Lost Children

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The Crown Prince put down his teacup.
“There is no abortion in the Kingdom,” he said.
He smiled. We smiled.
Ten hours later, the GPS unit told us to stop.
“Welcome to the Sea of Lost Children,” said our guide, pointing at the dunes.
We took turns digging.
Eventually, we found them.
“Suffocated in plastic,” said Bob. “Postnatal. No abortion.”
“Just plain murder,” I said. “How convenient.”
That’s when we heard choppers.
We tried to run, but soldiers surrounded us.
“Keep digging,” commanded an officer. “You sought them out, so join them now.”
Ever breathe plastic?
I don’t recommend it.

Home Sweet Hell

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“Welcome home, Sir,” said the demon on duty at the Gates of Hell.
“What’s with the damn line?” asked Satan. “It took me two weeks to get to this spot.”
“Someone moved our records to that stupid Windows Vista crap and-”
Satan raised his hand. “Say no more.” He laughed and walked up to the turnstile…
*THUNK*
Which didn’t budge.
“Stuck?” asked Satan.
“Um…” stammered the demon. “While you were gone, we had a teensy weensy revolution kind of thing.”
“Hitler?”
“Yasser.”
“Figures,” said Satan. He turned around.
“Leaving again, Sir?”
“Yeah,” said Satan.”Call if you need me.”
They didn’t.

Dull As Sandpaper

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“Let me go,” said the blindfolded reporter.
He struggled with the straps, but it was to no avail. There was no way he was getting up from the chair.
A giggle. A snicker.
“Who are you?” he whined into the darkness.
“Dull as sandpaper, are we?” said a voice.
The reporter instantly recognized the voice. It was someone he’d interviewed a few weeks ago, but he decided to “sex up” his story a bit for the readers.
“I was just trying to-”
“Do unto others,” said the voice. “As they’ve done to you.”
That’s when he heard the belt sander.

Spare Santas

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We watched the sleighs take off in the night, patted ourselves on the back, and headed back into the Workshop to enjoy our only night off before we’d have to plan for next year.
An hour later, one of the sleighs comes back.
Rocket’s got three bullets in his flank and Chancer’s hanging dead from the harness.
There’s a big black boot caught in a sleigh skid. I tugged it loose, and a few bloody toes fall out.
“Squad seventy-two,” I mumble.
Pacific Northwest. Trouble over Pocatello.
We warned the Santa, but they never listen.
That’s what spares are for.

Hatestorm

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Howard Stern was the least of it. Foul-mouthed juvenile miscreants, amoral priests and vile partisan pundits, spreading filth and putrid rants throughout the ether around the clock and around the world.
You see, Marconi never finished his equations. The Principle of Saturation went unpublished, so the garbage and hatred building up in the invisible spaces between matter and antimatter went unrealized.
Until one day, after a particularly gross midget-sex roundtable on Opie and Anthony, the Saturation point was exceeded.
Clouds of rancor spilled across the skies. Marconi’s worst nightmares realized, a thousand years of darkness.
The fools blamed global warming.

Simple Math

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The warden got tired of screaming at Governor Jackass about running out of room on Death Row. Simple math: too many walking in, not enough leaving feet-first.
On the day the last empty cell was taken, the warden got word yet another prisoner was coming.
No room. That’s when he took matters into his own hands: Any new prisoner coming in that needed a cell would have to kill a man for his cell.
One in, one out. Simple math.
Eventually, word got out.
Horrified, the governor put a new warden in office.
The old one left feet-first. Simple math.