Fiction Vortex - February 2014 Read online

Fiction Vortex

  A Speculative Fiction Typhoon

  February 2014

  Volume 2, Issue 1

  Edited by Dan Hope & Mike Cluff

  Copyright 2014 Fiction Vortex

  Cover Image by David Revoy / Blender Foundation

  Cover design by Dan Hope

  Website: FictionVortex.com

  Twitter: @FictionVortex

  Facebook: FictionVortex

  Table of Contents

  Letter from the Editor

  Short Stories

  Fred10 — by Jason X. Bergman

  Men Are Not Dragons — by Stephen V. Ramey (Editor's Choice Award)

  Take the Standards — by Kallirroe Agelopoulou

  One Hour Empire — by Tim West

  Article

  5 Tips for Better Titles

  Book Reviews

  Moon Hoax, by Paul Gillebaard — Review by Jon Clapier

  The Colony: Genesis, by Michaelbrent Collings — Review by Jon Clapier

  About Fiction Vortex

  Letter from the Editor

  And thus begins a new year, and a new batch of great stories. You may be wondering why the new year is starting in February, instead of a more traditional month, like January. That's because we spent the month of January recapping the best stories of 2013, and there were a lot of them.

  I strongly suggest that you check them out because they are awesome.

  We're astounded at the great stories that have graced our URL in the last year, and we're even more ecstatic about the stories to come.

  This month we have stories that are all about people who never expected to be in the positions they find themselves in. This can mean anything from being trapped inside a dragon, to being trapped on a slab in the morgue. To each their own, and whatnot.

  Fortunately, you'll only be captive to the great writing. Unless you want to read these stories in a morgue.

  Your choice.

  Vortexical Wishes,

  Dan Hope

  Managing Editor, Voice of Reason

  Fiction Vortex

  (Back to Table of Contents)

  Fred10

  by Jason X. Bergman; published February 4, 2014

  Fred held the control unit in his hand. He was nervous. He wiped a sweaty palm on his jeans. He had devoted ten years to studying the fundamental building blocks of the universe, and at long last he was going to put his theories to the test.

  He stood in his kitchen next to the bulky transport machine. It wasn’t pretty, a pile of wires and parts cannibalized from appliances.The control unit was a little gray box with a single button, taken from an old television remote, and a dial from an old toaster. The dial would theoretically allow him to fine tune his jump to a specific dimensional frequency, but since he wasn’t sure any of this would actually work, he had never hooked it up.

  Fred was nervous, but he had resolved to take the plunge tonight. This was it. The validation of his life’s work. He looked at the clock on the wall, a cheap piece of white plastic with thin black hands he had purchased at Walmart. It was 2:30 AM.

  He took a deep breath and pressed the button.

  A short click and then light flooded around him. It seemed to pierce his forehead, a million little daggers stabbing him over and over.

  And then, just as suddenly as it attacked, the light receded. He was standing in his kitchen, as before. The clock still read 2:30 AM, but its face had changed. Instead of the cheap clock in his kitchen, this one appeared to be slightly nicer. Not much nicer, but it was a faux mahogany. And where Fred’s kitchen had been filled with broken and discarded bits of machinery, this one contained actual, working units.

  "It worked!" Fred exclaimed. "It actually worked!" He was overjoyed. "I’m the first person to successfully travel to a parallel universe!"

  From down the hall, a light clicked on.

  Fred suddenly remembered that any alternate universe would naturally contain a parallel version of himself, and he was about to meet him. This was so exciting!

  "Hello?" Fred said, leaning toward the hallway. "Is anyone the—"

  "Hey," the Fred from this universe grumbled as he emerged from the bedroom. "Let’s get this over with. Some of us have to work tomorrow." His slippers made scratchy noises on the floor as he shuffled down the hallway.

  "I don’t—"

  This universe’s Fred held up a hand, stopping him mid-sentence. "Gimme a sec, okay?" He didn’t look pleased to see a visitor from another dimension. He was wearing a bathrobe and squinting. He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. A sniff, then a deep snort and he rubbed his eyes. "The machine works." He let out a yawn. "Good for you." Another snort, this one longer, like he was really working to get something up there. "Bad for me though, because all of you stupid Freds just come here. In every universe your machine exists, it only takes you here. And in this universe, I’m not an amateur scientist, or a professional scientist, or a science-anything. I sell cars. And I have to go to work tomorrow, unlike you." As he spoke, he pointed an accusatory finger at Fred. "So please push your big red button and go back to where you came from." He stood up, then reached out and put Fred’s hand on the button.

  Fred started to protest. "But—"

  "Goodbye, Fred. Congratulations. Don’t ever come back."

  He pushed the button, and Fred disappeared.

  ~~~~~

  A click and then light flooded around him. So much light. It seemed to pierce his forehead, a million little daggers stabbing him over and over again.

  The light dissipated and Fred found himself standing in the same kitchen as before, but where his kitchen had been filled with broken and discarded bits of machinery, this one seemed to be filled with actual, working appliances. The clock read 2:45 AM, same as before, but instead of his own blue dial, this one was some kind of faux mahogany.

  "It worked!" Fred exclaimed. "It actually worked!" He was overjoyed. "I’m the first person to successfully travel between universes!"

  "Read the note!" called a voice from down the hall.

  "Excuse me?" Fred replied, a little confused. He craned his neck to try to see the person. Was that the Fred who lived in this universe?

  "NOTE!" the voice called back.

  Fred looked down at the kitchen table. There was a note, hastily scribbled in blue ink on the back of a junk-mail envelope. He picked it up.

  "Dear Fred," the note read, "Congratulations. Your machine worked. Unfortunately you have landed in the home of the only Fred who doesn’t care. He has to work tomorrow."

  "Is this a joke?" Fred replied, still confused.

  "Just. Go. Away," the voice called back.

  ~~~~~

  Fred lay in bed and waited for the flash of light that let him know his intruder had left. Maybe this is the last one, he thought, but he doubted it. He may not be a scientist, but even he knew that there were an infinite number of parallel universes, adding up to an infinite number of invaders in his kitchen. A flash signaled the arrival of yet another traveler. Fred winced.

  From down the hall, he could hear, "It worked! It actually worked!"

  Another flash. Great, Fred thought. They’re overlapping now.

  "Holy crap," he could hear the second traveler say, "it worked! It actually worked! I’m the first—"

  "Second, actually," the other traveler interrupted.

  "You mean you—"

  "Amazing!"

  Fred couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled himself out of bed and threw on his robe. He shuffled down the hallway for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  "Hello," one of the travelers called out to him as he approached. The traveler held out his hand, but Fred brushed it asid
e, slumping down at the table.

  "Hey," he replied. Did they have to all be so damned happy to see him? "I’ll make this quick. Your stupid machine works. As you can see, I am you." He looked from one traveler to the other. "Both of you, I suppose." Fred stood up again and started to walk out of the kitchen. "Do what you want here, but then please, go home. Just let me sleep."

  Another flash. Fred groaned. His head hurt. He turned back to the other two travelers, who were staring as another visitor slowly materialized before their eyes. "Do me a favor. Fill the new guy in, will you?"

  Fred dropped down on the bed just in time to hear, "It worked! It actually worked!"

  He looked over at the clock. It was 3:00 AM. He had to be up in four hours. Did these guys even work for a living?

  Twenty minutes and three visits later, Fred had an idea. A silly idea. Giggling to himself, he lurched out of bed and put his robe and slippers back on. He shuffled down the hall to the kitchen and opened the door to his garage, shuddering as the cold air wafted in. He stepped inside and grabbed a steel lawn rake off its hook. Then he stepped back into the kitchen and closed the door.

  He looked down at his kitchen floor. A few hours ago it had been spotless, but now there was a black circle — a mark created from the constant flashes of interdimensional travel. He carefully placed the rake on the edges of the circle. He then taped a note to the opposite wall, just below the clock, that simply read, "GO HOME."

  Laughing to himself, he walked back to his bedroom. Now he just had to wait for his next visitor to arrive.

  It didn’t take long.

  A flash and then, "It worked! It actually w—"

  SMACK!

  "Ow! My node! I tink I broke my node!"

  From the bedroom, Fred could hear the visitor stumbling about, confused. Finally it seemed, he read the note.

  "Go. Home. Whud? Id dis a jogue?"

  After a few more minutes of audible confusion, there was a flash and his invader was gone.

  Lying there in bed, Fred smiled. He might not be able to get any sleep tonight, but maybe he could have some fun with his other-dimensional counterparts.

  ~~~~~

  The first death was an accident.

  Fred had been cleaning up. It was almost 4 AM, and he hadn’t had a visitor in over ten minutes. He had some fun with the last few visitors, but was happy to be done with them. He was standing in the kitchen with the rake under his arm when a flash went off behind him.

  Fred turned around in surprise, just as the visitor materialized in front of him. It hadn’t occurred to him that someone might materialize around the rake he was holding, but that’s exactly what happened.

  When the visitor finally solidified, he did so with the rake’s handle buried in his chest. Fred looked at the invader, who could only stare at the thing protruding from his chest. Their eyes met for a moment. Then a look of horror slowly crept up the face of the visitor, as he realized what was happening. He tried to raise a hand up to pull out the handle, but it was too late. His heart had stopped beating, and life was draining out of him. All the poor traveler could do was gasp and stare in confusion.

  The visitor gulped for air a few times, then slumped down. Fred was still holding the rake under his arm, connecting him to the doomed traveler. He let go and the visitor crumpled to the floor, lifeless.

  Fred stepped back, unsure of what to do. It had been an accident. But now there was a dead body — his body, technically — lying on the kitchen floor.

  His hands were shaking as he crouched down to examine the traveler, who was still holding the control box in his right hand. Fred grabbed a spatula from a kitchen drawer, stepped back, and used it to depress the big red button on the control unit. A flash of light and the body disappeared. The rake, which had been supported by the traveler’s body, fell to the floor with a metallic clang.

  Interesting, Fred thought. He wasn’t a scientist like these invaders had been, but in his youth, before he had been distracted by cars and girls, he had possessed an inquisitive mind. That part of him was most intrigued by this turn of events.

  He walked over to his refrigerator and grabbed it on both sides. He started to drag it out away from the wall. He pulled the heavy refrigerator left and right, inching it along the floor until it was directly over the black circle.

  Then he stepped back and waited.

  ~~~~~

  At 4:23 AM, there was a flash of light, followed by a bump from inside his refrigerator.

  Fred walked in a circle, inspecting it from the outside. He could see a finger — no, four fingers — on one side. On the other he could see an entire arm, and at the end of that arm, a hand still holding the control unit tightly. That was a relief — the last thing he wanted was to have the body get stuck in this dimension. This was all fun and games until he was stuck with a dead guy in his kitchen.

  He opened the door. Inside, the traveler had materialized around the clutter. The fridge had been mostly empty — Fred hadn’t gone shopping for the week yet — but it contained the usual assortment of condiments and liquids. A bottle of aging milk, a jar of peanut butter, some ketchup and so on. Several items were gone entirely, presumably they were lodged inside the person who now occupied the bulk of the space inside the unit. But certain things like the shelves appeared to have won the tug-of-war for space, segmenting the traveler’s torso into three pieces. Upon closer inspection, the shelves had a number of gaps within them and the traveler’s flesh filled in these spaces.

  Fred hadn’t defrosted the freezer in some time, and when he opened it, he couldn't even see the head, just two large blocks of ice. Blowing off some frost revealed that the head had materialized in there. Closing the freezer, he checked down below and found the feet in the vegetable trays, shoes and all.

  Fred didn’t learn much from this little experiment, but it was certainly interesting. It was doubtful this traveler had ever regained consciousness in this universe. As deaths go, this one was probably pretty humane.

  Once he had examined the remains, he pushed the red button and disposed of the body. Remarkably, following the flash of light, his refrigerator and its contents remained intact. Not that he planned to keep any of that stuff. He wasn’t completely sure, but he guessed that being inside a corpse wasn’t very good for peanut butter.

  ~~~~~

  Fred couldn’t help but be curious about the way bodies were materializing around objects. Not to mention the way they all disappeared when the button was pressed. He had never felt this way before. He felt so scientific.

  For his next experiment, he decided to take a more direct action. He pushed the refrigerator back to its normal resting place, noting with some sadness the scuff marks left on the kitchen tiles. Then he went into the garage and grabbed a hammer.

  He crouched down behind the kitchen table and waited. After a few minutes, another visitor appeared.

  "It w—"

  There was a sickening crunch as Fred slammed the hammer down on the back of the visitor’s head. The blow wasn’t enough to crack his skull, but it did knock him down. Fred crouched over the traveler, who was looking up at him, confused, and probably in a fair amount of pain. No doubt as final visions go, seeing a version of himself was very strange. Fred brought the hammer down again and again, turning the visitor’s head to a bloody pulp.

  This caused an enormous mess in his kitchen, not to mention Fred’s bathrobe. But that was all part of the plan.

  When he fell, the traveler had dropped his control unit, and it now lay several feet away on the floor. The blood which was seeping out of the many wounds in the traveler’s head was pooling around it, making the box a sticky mess.

  Fred looked down at the disgusting state of his kitchen. If his theory was correct, pressing the button would yield very interesting results. He was anxious to see what would happen next.

  Fred took a deep breath and pressed the button.

  The resulting flash of light was much larger than it had been previou
sly, owing, Fred suspected, to the increased surface area of the traveler. Fred’s own bloodstained robe flared up as well, little dots of light exploding from his chest. But when it was all over, his kitchen and clothes were exactly as they had been before.

  It was like the traveler had never been there. Even the control unit had disappeared from his hands, returning with the body.

  ~~~~~

  When the next traveler arrived Fred brought his hammer down, knocking his victim unconscious. He then took a knife and sliced open the visitor’s wrist, causing blood to spray across the floor with surprising force. He was in the process of covering various parts of his kitchen with arterial blood when another flash went off.

  Fred quickly dropped his unconscious victim and stepped away from the black circle on his floor. But something curious happened. Rather than create some kind of monstrosity with the two bodies fused together, the light started to move away from the kitchen, and before he knew it, a new visitor appeared down the hall. It was as if the process was smart enough to avoid materializing two Freds on top of one another.

  Fred was amazed at this turn of events. So much so that he forgot that he was covered in blood, holding a knife, and standing over the unconscious body of his own other-dimensional self.

  "It worked!" this new visitor said, after materializing in the hallway. "It—"

  The traveler stopped mid-sentence as he looked into the kitchen. He stood there, utterly dumbstruck at the grisly scene before him.

  Fred began walking toward the new visitor.

  "What th—"

  Fred growled and leaped on the traveler, swinging his knife wildly. The visitor instinctively raised a hand up to cover his face, dropping the control unit in the process. Fred slashed down at him repeatedly, making small cuts across his arms as the visitor helplessly clawed back, trying to deflect the knife.

  "Please, stop!"

  Fred dropped the knife and looked down on the visitor. He had a pretty nasty scratch down his left arm, but that was the only real wound Fred had managed to inflict, and it wasn't very deep.

  Fred was suddenly sickened by what he was doing. What had he become? He fell backwards, his robe spilling open. He moved back across the floor, his hands growing sticky from the pools of blood in his path.

  The latest visitor was confused, taking labored breaths and sobbing as he desperately tried to make sense of things. "Please ... just ... stop. Are you ... me?"