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Manning returned himself from his walkabout to the cavern in which he lived. The cavern was very old and Manning knew that it had been used over and over again as a home by humans, mountain lions, and various other animals over the centuries. He loved the cavern. It was part of him and he was part of it. It sat in the base of a large set of mesas in a desert than had been called Sedonia several centuries ago. That was before the wars. Nothing much had happened in his desert during the century and a half of war that had occurred several hundred years ago, but like the rest of the continent it had suffered from the nuclear and biologic fallout from the weapons that had been used. As a result of this the desert, which had been thought of by most as a barren wasteland then, became a real barren wasteland. Most of the life had disappeared there and like everywhere the basic chemistry and genetics of life, both human and animal, had been altered. After a long time, life slowly returned to th...

Greg Kinnon was everybody’s idea of an amazing person. He was of exceptional intelligence, had excelled academically and possessed great athletic prowess. He was a star athlete in high school, also studied and excelled at the martial arts, had never been in any trouble, and was a deeply religious Catholic. He graduated from Notre Dame University with a BS Computer Science, a BS in Biology and held a Phd in Philosophy. He was a deeply religious Catholic. After school he had joined the Army and gained the rank of Major. He was involved in Special Ops as an Airborne Ranger successfully completing covert operations all over the world. After ten years of service he left the Army and disappeared. He was a deeply religious Catholic. Kinnon entered the office of Cardinal Leopold Frontiera deep in the bowels of the Vatican. This was his first meeting with the Cardinal since his own transformation and he expected to receive his first assignment. Frontiera’s secretary ushered him into the lar...

Atu rested on the mountainside. He was tired and hot and the bleeding wound in his side was throbbing with pain. Blood also rushed from his head where he’d been caught earlier with a throwing stick. As he caught his breath he scanned the view from his perch. It was mid-afternoon and the sky was overcast. Humidity hung in the suffocating air like honey dripping down a glass surface. The edge of the jungle was approximately 500 yards below him marking the end of the rich, black soil on which he now reclined. Soon he began to hear the sounds of a large group moving toward the edge of the jungle from within. That would be the hunting party that was pursuing him. If he wanted to survive, he must skirt the mountain and vanish into the jungle on the other side. It would mean total banishment from the tribe but this was infinitely preferable to the alternative. He never thought that he would find himself a criminal, much less one with a death sentence on his head. He had always been a respecte...

It had been a long night. The bar was large, crowded, and noisy. He’d met some people after work and had a few drinks with them. Lots of talk about their various jobs, babies, and the pains of modern life. Everyone else in his group had left an hour ago, but he’d stuck around to have a few more. And now it was time to go. He wasn’t really drunk drunk. Just a nice high combined with Friday night end of the work week fatigue and relief. He looked forward to a hot shower and a warm bed. He exited the club and turned left to head home but as he passed the alley that ran along the side of the club something distracted him from the corner of his eye. He glanced down the alley and saw nothing but the dark shapes of what he assumed were a couple of cars and some dumpsters. There wasn’t much light so he couldn’t see much. He could have sworn that he had seen something in his peripheral vision. As he stood thinking about it he thought that he also perhaps heard some sort of sound. Thinking that ...

“Well, what kind you want?” he asked “I’ll take a root beer.” Danny replied The stranger popped some change into the machine and pulled out a bottle. “Here you go” he said handing it over The bottle was cold and wet with condensation dripping down its sides. “Thanks” said Danny as he tipped the bottle up and took a long draw of the cold, bubbly liquid. It was good. At twelve years old, a cold root beer was one of the best things in life. “I really thought I had you in that last game” said the stranger “but you got me with that steely” “Yeah” Danny replied “that’s my ringer. It always seems to do the job.” “Well, we’re even Steven now, right?” “Oh yeah” said Danny “Even Steven! Hey, what’s your name anyway?” “My name’s Lonnie Martin” “Well hey Lonnie, my name’s Danny Poe.” The two boys sat in the shade at the Phillips 66 station on Old Mill road in Pelican Island, a suburb of Charleston, SC. It was a typical summer afternoon. Hot and humid, and the boys had just finished several games o...

Cody Brooks died at 2:47p.m. on November 18, 2014. It was a quick death, not totally painless, but quick. Major heart attack. He had been an unremarkable man, 39 years old when he died, no wife or children. He had had a nice funeral attended by his family and friends and after the graveside sermon his casket containing his mortal remains had been lowered into the ground and covered. The end. ... There was a sound. A bothersome sound. Like the buzz of a fly at night when you're sleeping or the distant sound of a car alarm that won't shut off. He tried to ignore it, but eventually it brought him around. He found himself in a small, confined space with hardly room to move. It was dark but he could sense a surface very near his face, as well as on both sides of him. And still there was that sound. What was it? Like a periodic pounding or scraping sound. In a short time he realized that he was lying on his back in a dark box. He couldn't remember getting into the box, nor imag...

It was another gig, one of the thousands he'd played over the years. The Music Stop was a decent place as bars went. This one was clean, held about 400 people, and had a nice sound system, though they'd only be using it for announcements tonight. After years of gigging as the jazz hipster gun for hire, he'd finally reached a stage where he could eke out his modest existence by playing the music he chose to, which was acoustic jazz. No more blues bands, rock bands, wedding gigs, he spent his time touring with his own group, making records (his own and as a sideman for others) and soloing with the occasional big band. Additionally he sometimes did clinics at high schools and colleges and the odd TV appearance. Life was good. He was 64 years old and an ex heroin addict and alcoholic, and his zig zagging around the world all of his life was written in the wrinkles and hollows of his ruddy face. At 6' he was tall and thin and now stoop shouldered after years of hanging a ten...

Time travel had always been considered a scientific impossibility. Many theories about it were bandied about by scientists, physicists, cosmologists, and others, but the general consensus was that it was impossible. Until Orson Flecht made a monumental discovery. Flecht discovered that multiple dimensions exist and that they can be manipulated in various ways. One of these is the ability to 'disalign' two dimensional spaces so that each is at a different point in their timeline. Flecht's next move was to design a device that would allow the targeting of an entity either in the local dimension or a neighboring dimension, and the traversal across the dimensional boundary of the targeted entity. Flecht had completed experiments targeting and transporting animals from our local dimension to other disaligned dimensions successfully. Now it was time to try it with a human. Flecht assembled a team of physicists, doctors, psychiatrists, sociologists, and historians and began plann...

It was 4 a.m. as we bounced down the country road in the pickup. I was still half asleep and hadn't managed to pour a cup of coffee from the thermos yet. It was a clear winter morning and cold outside, the temperature reaching a solid -10 degrees. As daylight broke in the east we came to the end of the road at the shore a large lake. "Okay, we're here" said my friend Larry. "Grab your stuff and we'll head out to the shack." I was about to go ice fishing for the first time. I was in Michigan visiting my in laws (Larry was my wife's cousin) and had been convinced that I just HAD to go ice fishing at least once in my life. It all seemed like a waste of time to me, but I played along for the sake of familial bliss. My goals for the day were to try to stay as warm as possible, not fall through the ice, and maybe even catch some fish for dinner. We arrived at the ice shack about 400 yards out on the ice and got settled in. After stoking up the wood stov...

She had been distant lately. We had been together for about 4 months and I thought things were going well, but then something seemed to go awry. She had always been a quiet one but I began to get the feeling that we had run out of things to say. Our lovemaking had been almost non-stop at first. I had gone at her like a hound on a steakbone and she had never complained. As time passed though, things cooled a bit as we slid into the deathtrap of repetition and predictability. It's ironic that when relationships start we strive to learn all that we can about our partners; what they want, what they like, and how to know when we're giving it to them, and after we learn all of these things we grow bored because all of the mystery is gone. The mystery seems to be gone now. I didn't have to tell her. We both knew that it was time for us to part ways. We could now both move on with our lives and find other partners, challenges, and hopefully happiness. I kissed her one last time an...