Stephen Shepherd Makes

“Thank you for everything” A soft murmur pressed into Charlie’s shoulder blade.

Charlie rolled over, stretching in the hazy light of the early morning, to face Sam who squirmed awkwardly on the bed.

Charlie reached out and pulled them close, thwarting their embarrassed escape. Somewhere between the warmth of each other and proximity caused blushes all round.

Charlie raised a hand and gently cupped Sam, who pivoted laying a kiss delicately in Charlie’s palm. Charlie’s giddy smile at this became an invitation, for the trail of affection to race its way up their arm to their neck, their lips.

“Anytime”.

“Argh!” Sam shot up from a horrifyingly cruel and troublingly convincing nightmare.

There was a sickly moment of near silence, imperfect due to the shuddering gasps that rattled out of Sam’s throat.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie blurted, bursting through the bedroom door.

Sam couldn’t respond over the heaving breaths, Charlie took that as a ‘no’ and sat on the edge of the bed beside them. Comfort, soft and quiet brought Sam’s breathing down to normal.

Charlie stood, their job done but a yank on their wrist pulled them tumbling back to the mattress.

“Stay” a plea, answered with a gentle kiss.

“Can I pet your dog?”

Blaine only blinked at the abrupt question.

“Well, can I?” the woman pestered, her bright eyes pierced through her heavy fringe.

Blaine gesture at the giant, skeletal jaw of the Beast that loomed around him, “You can see it?” He asked in tone of genuine confusion, no one else ever seemed to notice it.

“Yeah” she beamed, “what breed is he?”

She reached up and scratched her nails first in the matted fur of what little rotting flesh remained, before shifting to its snout producing a sound that made Blaine shudder from spine to scalp.

“You ready for this?” this overly enthusiastic announcer’s voice boomed in the auditorium.

The hall was full of Witches of all schools and styles, the competition was going to be fierce.

Off to one side an illusionist creating detailed effigies of monsters then maintaining the illusion as its form changes to a different creature.

Elsewhere an enchanter was perched atop a ramshackle whirligig, a thin sliver visible as they’d pulled the tarp back to scratch additional runes into it.

“This is your 15 minute warning, 15 minutes until judging commences”.

Zohar grinned, this was the favourite of his scholarly duties.

“We need to leave now!” Leyland tossed Johnson his coat.

“Why?” Johnson question while also gathering essentials for a hasty exit.

“Apparently the last job wasn’t as clean as I thought it was, we’ve been compromised.” The dire news delivered in Leyland’s matter-of-fact tone did not ease the situation.

The scramble to leave was interrupted by a loud and ominous honk, the pair of professional peer through the blinds as two brightly coloured car parked up outside.

“This is why I said ‘No Clowns’” Johnson bemoaned.

“Calm down.”

“There are two cars Leyland, there could be hundreds of the bastards”.

‘Please help me’. It was an innocuous phrase in certain contexts, this was not one of these contexts.

‘Please help me’ was etched into the wall of the cave, hundreds maybe thousands of time.

‘Please help me’ in English, in this cave, on an inhabited planet.

‘Please help me’ as the only sign that there had ever been life here.

‘Please help me’ a cry that had obviously gone unanswered.

‘Please help me’ The empty cave silently screamed in a million part harmony.

‘Please help me’, ignored.

‘Please help me’.

‘Please help me’.

‘Please help me’ the Astronaut started carving.

“Alright it’s my turn now” Jimmy grinned in that sinister way he did whenever they played this game, “I draw a card and, play Toxic Goblin”.

Sam groaned, Jimmy had been bragging about one of his new ludicrous combos.

Charlie sat staring confused at the cards they’d borrowed off Sam to join in.

“I activate Poison Mimic ability, ‘Posion Mimic creates a token that is a duplicate of a target monster with the venomous trait’. Your defeat will sting Sam. Charlie it’s your turn”

“Okay, I play Mimic-Slayer Spearman, I pay resources for his ability which ‘Kills all Mimic Monsters’.”

“That’s a terrible idea” Jimmy judged hyperbolically, “let’s face it buddy, you just can’t cook.”

Charlie’s mouth hung agape for a moment before they protested, “I’m not bad, but that’s not the point Sam deserves a break from always cooking for me.”

“Yep, Food poisoning would definitely stop them from cooking for you.”

“Shut up, not even I could fuck up an omelette.”

~Later

Sam sat staring distressed at the monstrosity that dribbled on the plate before them. It had hues of reds and browns, several chunks of underdone carrots and a clump of congealed oregano.

“Looks great,” Sam lied.

“Let’s divide and conquer” Johnson said staring at the overstuffed and shambolic filing cabinets.

“Carter and Jameson, I want you two to start unpacking the cabinets and separating them by quarter.”

The pair nodded and began grabbing the irritating loose paperwork.

“Next up processing: Williams you’re on quarter one, Cooper do quarter two, I’ll handle quarter three and Braun take quarter four.”

The others immediately set to work while Johnson turned to the last of the available staff.

“Jackovich and LaRue, You’re going to be filling this away properly.”

“And Smith, it’s going to be a long night, get coffee.”

“It’s all your fault” snarled Paul as he pulled himself from the smouldering wreckage.

“I said pull left” Warren protested to the accusatory finger under his nose.

“I did, left, straight into the ditch, making us sitting ducks” Paul said gesturing at the up-ended tank.

Their staring match was ended by a soft cough from their superior.

“Warren, do you call your turret’s last position?” Nolan interrogated.

“187°, Sir!”

“Do you understand what I am getting at Paul?”

“The turret was… facing… backwards, Sir?”

“Correct, meaning your left was his right, careful communication is essential, I hope this training sticks.”

“Left or right?” Tim said holding two plates of military-grade rations, unappetizing and grey.

​“Right” mumbled Darren, without a shift in his position.

​“Any change?” Tim asked already knowing the answer.

​“Nope,” Darren grumbled, staring off the edge of the watchtower.

​“This has to be the worst post in the empire” whined Tim, “Like, at least at a border gate we’d be doing things constantly. Or if we were truly on some abandoned outpost we’d be able to slack off fully. But no, ‘the Mountain Pass must be guarded!’ and enough idiots try it so we ‘have to watch’. ugh!”

“What movie should we watch?” Charlie said flicking through the list of films. “You’ve been working way too hard lately, pick a film.” Charlie nudged jovially with their elbow.

​“Uh, I don’t mind.” Sam dismissed half-heartedly, but their answer was only met with a well-meaning, piercing glare. “Fine, that one, I guess.”

​The movie had not been on for long when Sam started flagging. Their head slowly fell forwards before jerking back up again. Sam wobbled slightly in their seat and tipped over landing gently on Charlie's shoulder. They breathed slowly and deeply. Charlie tentatively placed their arm around Sam.

“Don’t open it” A quick slap to the wrist punctuated the command.

“Why not?” the reasonable rebuttal was met with a judgmental glare.

“We have no idea what’s in there!”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m opening it. Find out if the cat’s alive or dead, y’know?”

“That’s not how that…” their complaint was interrupted by the need to slap a wrist once again.

“Ow, can you stop doing that?”

“Stop trying to open the box!”

“But what if it’s something cool in there?”

“Then it should stay in there! Whoever sealed the box up obviously didn’t want it getting out again.”

“May I have this dance?” Rose asked in a tone somewhere between genuine and mocking, Crispin peered through his mask as she smirked knowingly.

The barn was heaving with dancing and cheering of harvest celebration, Rose dragged the disguised Prince onto the dance floor to the upbeat sound of a fiddle.

“You’re not worried about my toes, are you?” Crispin lightly joked.

“Why should I concern with treading on a fellow peasant’s feet?” The pair chuckled.

During the dance, Rose surreptitiously passed the small scroll to her dance partner.

“I’m sure you’ll find this helpful” Rose whispered before bounding away.

“You had one job” Captain Walton’s voice crackled in Jenson’s ear.

“And I’m doing it” Jenson retorted defensively, still trying to work.

The panel flashed and sparked as Jenson touched two freshly exposed wires together, they’d managed to hot wire it.

“Captain, what are the target’s coordinates?”

“892.541 by 204.096 moving on bearing 199 at a steady rate of 1 and a half Mega-Units per Cycle, what are you planning?”

“This facility has a pretty beefy defence system that I’ve just rebooted the hard way, so keep a close eye on that satellite and watch the blip vanish… And fire.”

“Wake up!” the shout stirred Monty to bleary wakefulness; the bucket of ice-cold water made him alert and aware of his presence in the room. In a dank and rat-infested warehouse on the docks, there wasn’t a soul alive and active in this business who didn’t know and fear what the Boss’ gang called ‘The Confessional’.

“Welp, this is awkward” Monty coughed.

“It doesn’t have to be, just tell us who you were working with? Who has the case?” One of the thugs said playing good goon.

“Or else,” his friend added underwhelmingly unscary attempt at the bad goon act.