Víðarrbjörn Svartalfson

Eirik looked hard at the piece of candy being waved in his face. It was normal enough, if you could ignore the evil looking scorpion that sat in the center. Eirik took a half step away from the thing, an instinctual move. He heard about these things, these lollipops that had a scorpion at their center. He never thought he would actually find one. Yet there it was. A greenish brown scorpion with strange black streaks down its back was suspended in a sour apple sugar concoction. He bit his lip.

“Why not?” he shrugged and nodded his head. The overly enthusiastic clerk beamed and added the price of the devilish confection to Eirik’s overall bill.

He paid, smiled, and walked out of the store.

The Sandias were in the background, the objects of his fascination. They loomed large in here Albuquerque, great ruddy peaks that gleams a vibrant red in the light of the setting sun. They were beautiful. They shielded Albuquerque from the north, creating a natural barrier against wind, rain, and snow. They were the reason Eirik was here. They had a million little secrets tucked away in the rills, valleys, and crags and he was determined to find them all.

Eirik Dwarrow was a geology student, recently graduated from Kerberos University, and was on the hunt for his graduate school. If he were to go here, to the University of New Mexico, he would not have to go far to reach his dreams.

He took the bus home, not paying any attention to any of the other passengers. He stared straight ahead, watching the sun glide down and set the mountains afire. He had lived here for three months now, watching this display nearly every night. He was still not tired of it.

He reached his apartment on Candelaria and fell onto his couch. It was an old, somewhat smelly thing he had purchased for a song at a garage sale a few weeks past. It was his only piece of furniture aside from the coffee table he had purchased from the same vendor. They did not match but that did not matter. It was the beginnings of a home.

He pulled the lollipop out of the bag and examined it the same way he might examine a sample of igneous rock. What had possessed him to buy this monstrosity? Now that he had in his hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted to try it. Yet, at the same time, he did. A morbid curiosity came over him and in a single fluid motion, he ripped the plastic wrapper off and stuffed it into his mouth.

It did indeed taste like sour apple, a flavor with which he was well acquainted. But there was a sting that went with it. It had a numbing effect that he had anticipated from the thing in the middle of the lollipop.

Shifting the thing to the side of his mouth, he pulled out his real prize, “The Jurassic Faunas of Artic Canada – Cadoceratinae.” As a geology student, he had only heard about the book and to find a copy in a random, used book store in Albuquerque, New Mexico was more than a sign.

He flipped through the first few pages, settling himself into the couch. The sour apple flavor in the lollipop had begun to diminish and the strange sting of the scorpion had begun to grow stronger. Eirik felt woozy. His vision blurred. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. All the shapes in his apartments blurred even further. He felt the book tip out of hands, it felt as though it took forever to fall yet he still could not catch it in time. His spatial ratio was off, he tried to catch the book but only succeeded in slamming his hand on the edge of the coffee table.

Before he could stop himself, Eirik fell back onto the couch. He tried to pull the lollipop out of his mouth but somehow it would not budge. Something stung his inner check and he pulled back violently, part of his inner cheek feeling as though it was ripped free.

The last thing he thought he saw before he lost consciousness was the scorpion inside the lollipop wriggling free of the sugar prison and skittering across the floor, leaving tiny pin pricks in the linoleum floor.

When he awoke, he was not in his apartment. Eirik tried to pick himself off the ground and shivered. He was outside. But he wasn’t in Albuquerque; indeed he was not in New Mexico, or anywhere on Earth that was recognizable. There were massive fungal growths coiled around… something, that reached toward the sky with web like fingers. Eirik coughed. Had one of the things moved?

He stumbled to his feet. Where was he?

To be continued...

Finnegan almost warmed his hands in the firelight, forgetting the fuel that was powering the furnace before him. He grimaced and stepped back, his boots scrapping and echoing in the emptiness of the warehouse.

He was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, none of them serious, but all of them painful. He kept his eyes on the fire, watching it with an obsessed interest. It burning bright, oranges and reds and bronzes flashed here and there. Faces appeared in the flames, screaming and roaring at Finnegan O’Toole. The Irishman was unmoved. He stared, unblinkingly.

When he was satisfied that the fuel was burnt up, Finnegan turned to go, his dark red trench coat swirling dramatically with the motion. He limped, suddenly aware of the wound across his thigh. He touched his hand to wound, it came away red.

He made it to the car, winced as he hefted his bulk into the passenger’s seat. His breath ragged, Finnegan opened the glove compartment and pulled the gauze out. Gingerly, he wrapped his wound, biting down on lower lip. The wound stung.

He had been lucky, all told. The thing he’d thrown in the fire had been fierce. It had been old, at least a century old. He had tracked the thing for nearly a week before he got his first sight of it. It was horrid, pale and gaunt, with unnatural animalistic claws and teeth. It had been human once, but there was nothing human in it now. It had changed.

Finnegan had first heard of this one after a few families went missing around Walpurgisnacht, the last day of April in a small town south of Truth or Consequences. He immediately knew who, and what, it was. He, to his great horror and frustration, had not found the thing in time to save another family.

But it was done now.

He had subdued the monster and set it in a pyre. It had screamed and howled but it finally died.

Finnegan O’Toole crossed the name “Adam Jermayne” off his list.

So Aspire got its first rejection today. I didn't feel dejected, as I expected. I saw it, shrugged, and began compiling a new list of places to submit.