Ganymeder

Synopsis:

The brilliant scientist, Portage McPeeve, does not want to take over the world.

He’s discovered a way to travel the stars, using them as gateways into other realities. With his Gateway Manipulator, he hopes to rule all the worlds of the multi-verse with an iron fist. However, when his beloved kitten becomes lost through the machine, he does not hesitate to cast plans for multi-world domination aside; instead, he follows her through the cosmos – encountering zombies, higher education for Supers, Greek gods, and killer ninjas along the way.

Will Portage find Mrs. Bumblefrost before it’s too late?

Episode #7

The scientist, Doctor Portage McPeeve, made the final adjustments on the machine, and the glowing sphere crackled once more to life. “Ready?” he asked his minion.

Snap Decision dutifully nodded her head, her glasses reflecting electric fire.

Soon the sphere stabilized to a round orb that shone softly against the laboratory’s fluorescent lighting. The link between worlds had been established. Peering through the portal, they gazed into another world.

#

Sarah hugged her pillow, panting with exertion as she pulled her legless torso from the cold metal chair onto the warm covers of her bed. She hated the damn chair. She hated everything about it: the hard metal bars pressed into her back, the way the plastic seat sunk beneath her weight, the way the nylon cushion sucked at her skin as she struggled to escape its clutches.

The nurse had told her she would adjust to her new routine with frequent exercise. The therapist had told her the chair was her new path to freedom and independance, but all Sarah saw was a cold metal contraption that replaced the legs she once used to run the towpath trail. Could steel and wheels take the place of flesh and bone?

She wanted her old life back, the one that fate had taken from her when the accident cost her those precious limbs. You mean the accident you caused, echoed a familiar voice.

Sarah shook her head to dislodge the thoughts echoing through her brain. You know you shouldn’t have been driving, it said. You didn’t keep your eyes on the road. This is all your fault.

“No, no, no!” she cried, pressing her hands over her ears. “It was an icy patch!”

You know better, said the voice.

She grabbed the remote from the end table and flipped through channels with furious speed. Images of car chases, car crashes, lions eating gazelles, and commercials for antidepressants with horrendous side effects flashed before her in a blur. With a grunt she hurled the remote at the screen, shattering the images. “GodsDAMMIT!”

Then she noticed the comforter before her truncated torso begin to rise into a familiar shape.

“What the hell?” She gripped the fabric, thinking a mouse might have run under the covers.

Hoping it was only a mouse.

Slow dread filled her like freezing water as she pulled back the sheets.

Legs.

It couldn’t be, but there they were, bare and pale with goosepimples from the room’s sudden chill. The same scar on her right ankle from when she fell from a tree when she was six. The same vericose veins from working the graveyard shift in an all night diner.

She reached one shaking hand toward the bare flesh. It was ice cold.

No mouse, the voice told her, and the room filled with frosty laughter. She wanted to run, but how could she? Her legs were-

HERE.

Yet she felt herself move to the edge of the bed, ghostly limbs draped themselves over the side, and she felt herself stand.

“No,” she said aloud in the empty room, to no one, yet everyone; denying what was happening, powerless to stop it.

Oh, we don’t think you have a say in this, Sarah, replied the familiar voice. The chill creeped from her impossible legs, climbed her torso, entered her arms, and filled them to their fingertips. She had never been so cold in her entire life. Ice water filled her veins. She wanted to scream.

“We?” she gasped. “What the hell-”

Her arms moved on their own, and slender fingers grabbed the sheets, pulling them roughly from the bed. They twisted the Egyptian cotton into a long cord, knotted it, then lifted the deadly noose over her head. Soon the sheet was wrapped around her throat.

Her mind sought other explanations. A nightmare. Good lord, it was all a horrible dream, too dreadful to be real.

But we are real, Sarah, continued the voice as she felt herself pulling a chair to the room’s center, below the hook she had hung in the ceiling for the lamp she had never bothered to install. She felt her phantom limbs step onto the chair, felt her arms lifted, her fingers working the sheet that was just thin enough to tie around the hook, just strong enough to end her life.

She laughed at the irony. The hook she’d installed for the light she’d never bought would put out her light forever. “But why?” she managed, the sheet not yet tight enough to silence her.

Your carelessness took us from this world, said the voice. Seems only fair we take you from this one.

Then they kicked the chair from beneath her.

From an adjacent room, a small ebony kitten walked into the bedroom and gazed at the body through emerald green eyes. She watched the legs fade from existence before she too vanished without a trace.

**All episodes listed here.

**Look for the next exciting installment of Pinholes next Tuesday, same cat-time, same cat-channel… uh, blog. I mean, blog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 at 12:01 am and is filed under Ghosts, horror, Pinholes: Traveling through the Curtain of the Night, scifi, Serials/Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.