Gruff Tolls by Kevin L. O'Brien
that sleeping guard!"
"Ya didn't have ta yell!"
"How else was I supposed to get your attention? You were too far away to hear me whisper."
"You were supposed ta be right behind me."
"You were moving too fast!"
"I was tryin' ta get through the village before we were discovered, ya bimbo! Why couldn't you keep up?"
"I was trying to be stealthy!"
"Dammit! I thought we agreed ta move fast!"
"I didn't agree to anything, you decided for both of us!"
"I thought it was the best thing ta do!"
"I'm the senior partner, I'm the one who's supposed to make the decisions!"
"Hah! You couldn't decide what shoes ta wear this morning, you idiot!"
"I'm the idiot? You're the one who thought we could scare the natives with a simple trick!"
"How was I ta know they'd seen matches before?!"
By that time they were within ten feet of the lava. Eile could smell the foul gases and feel the heat rising up from the surface.
"I knew yer obsession with adventure would get us killed some day, but I never thought we'd go out like this."
"Son of a--stop blaming me!" White-Lion kicked her legs in frustrated anger.
She smiled. That's it, she thought, get good and mad. "Who else am I gonna blame? It's no one's fault but yers!"
"Ooohhh! I can't believe I chose a poopy-skull like you to be my partner!"
"God, I can't believe I fell for a self-centered butthead such as you. I thought I had better sense!"
White-Lion screamed in rage as she twisted and bucked her body, but it soon turned into a guttural roar as light exploded from her eyes. It echoed through the jungle, scaring up flocks of birds and flushing animals out of hiding as they fled in terror.
Yes! Now we're getting somewhere. The only problem was, White-Lion's magical ability was erratic. Eile had no idea what would result. She could only hope it was something productive.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/338142-the-peril-gem].
From "Rhapsody in Orange"
The sight of Differel looking up from her desk stopped them in their tracks. She sat hunched over, leaning on her arms braced against the desktop. For a moment she almost looked like a zombie. She was haggard and disheveled, with heavy bags under her bloodshot eyes, her stringy, lifeless hair ragged and unkempt as if she hadn't showered for several days. It wasn't simply a matter of letting herself go; they had seen that before. It seemed indicative of a failure of will, as if she didn't care anymore. Eile glanced at Sunny, and from the look on her face she could tell she understood just how bad a shape Differel was in.
The aristocrat leaned back in her high-backed chair and rested her head against the padded leather. "What are you two doing here?" She looked and sounded weary, as if she had very little energy left.
"We haven't seen much of you lately, except in the Dreamlands," Sunny said as she closed the door, trying to sound airy, "so we just decided to drop by."
Eile decided to go along with her. "Yeah, Dracula was kind enough ta give us a lift."
She closed her eyes, as if the effort to get irritated was too much for her. "You two never were good liars. Aelfraed sent for you."
"Aw, cripes. Yeah, yer right, but he's worried about you. They all are, and now that we've seen you, so are we. Geezus, Diff, what's happened?"
She opened her eyes a crack. "That's none of your business."
Eile could feel herself getting angry, but she reflected that if she could a rise out of the blue-blood, that might snap her out of her malaise. "Like hell it is. We wanna help you."
Differel leaned forward and removed a cigarillo from the desk's humidor. Eile knew she used smoking as a defense mechanism, so the fact that she was getting one seemed a good sign. But she didn't like the way her hands shook as she lit it with her father's lighter.
"Everyone's been trying to help me." She stood in a slow, cautious manner. It was almost painful to watch.
"I don't need help." She walked around the chair towards the back windows, pausing for a moment to steady herself. "I need understanding and acceptance," she concluded before continuing on.
Sunny walked around the desk to be with her, and Eile followed. "That's what Eile meant," she said in a soothing tone.
She turned to face them, her visage grim as death. "No, you're like the others. You won't believe me either. You'll just laugh, or feign sympathy as you plot to have me committed."
Eile finally lost her temper. "Dammit, Differel, do we hafta spell it out, again?! We're yer friends! We're not gonna laugh at you, or question yer sanity; we will try ta help you anyway we can. But you hafta level with us. Now, come on, what's wrong?"
She gave them a desperate look, as if she really wanted to believe them. "I...don't know--"
A lilting, child-like voice wafted through the air. "Aw, go on, tell them." It was followed by a giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of outrage and slugged her in the mouth. Eile flew back and Sunny caught her before she fell.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?"
"You were wiggin' out!" Eile replied as Sunny put her on her feet. "I couldn't think of anything else ta do."
Differel made an effort to calm herself, but still stared daggers at her. "Hmph. Well, it worked, but never do that again."
Eile tested her jaw. "Don't worry, you've gotta a right cross that can fell an ox, lady. So what's going on anyways?"
Differel took a moment to retrieve her glasses and head back to her desk. "It started a fortnight ago. I heard the voice for the first time as I was falling asleep. I awoke, but no one was in my room, and I assumed it was just a dream. But I heard it again, louder and clearer, the next night, and then the next night, and the night after that."
She paused to select another cigarillo and light it; Eile noted her hands still shook. "It kept talking to me, night after night, incessant, more frequent and longer each time, until I could barely sleep. Meanwhile I started hearing it during the day. It would break in while I was on the phone, in a meeting, receiving a report; then when I was reading or exercising, or just trying to relax. I never know when I'll hear it, or for how long." She put her hands over her ears as if trying to deaden some cacophony. "And I cannot block it out; no matter what I try, it breaks through my thoughts and hammers at my brain like a pile driver."
She dropped her hands and turned to look at them. "That's when I told the others. I hoped Vlad had been aware of it and would vouch for me, but he denied knowing anything. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were convinced I was merely suffering from stress."
She took a deep, rattling breath. "I almost believed them, but then I started seeing her! At first it was in my dreams, then I would catch glimpses of her in halls and rooms, just flashes out
of the corners of my eyes. But then she started leering around corners and through windows, popping out from behind furniture, standing just inside when I opened doors--Vlad never saw a thing!"
She took another rattled breath. "By then I was deteriorating rapidly and I was sure they would pack me away to a sanitarium any moment. I was becoming paranoid; thank God you two are here now, because I doubt I would have lasted another day."
"What does she look like?" Sunny asked.
Differel gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"The girl you've been seeing; what does she look like?"
"Like me," the voice said. Eile turned with the others and saw a girl fade in from nothing as she pirouetted across the room towards the desk. But Eile realized she wasn't a girl at all. She looked like a late-twentysomething woman who dressed and acted like a child. She was short and petite, which added to the illusion, but there was a maturity of face and figure that belied her playacting. She was dressed in what looked like a Sailor Moon senshi uniform like some kind of cosplayer, except over it she wore an open cape-like coat. She also looked fairly normal, except for the baroque style of the clothes and ornaments, and the fact that everything about her was in various shades of orange: costume, hair, eyes, lips, cosmetics, fingernails; even her skin had an orange tinge to it instead of pink.
As she approached, she giggled, warbled, and bubbled laughter, until she came to a stop just in front of the desk and faced them, a huge grin on her face. She jammed the index fingers of both hands into her cheeks and cried, "Ain't I cute?!"
She acted and sounded like a lunatic, which, Eile realized with shock, was exactly what she was.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/337657-rhapsody-in-orange].
From "The Denver Walker"
Seven F-15E Strike Eagles flew in a diamond wedge formation over eastern Colorado. They had departed Buckley Airforce Base in Aurora where they were temporarily stationed. They were headed due east towards the Kansas border, and their intended target. Each was armed with eight AIM-120 AMRAAM medium range air-to-air missiles, modified to deliver fragmentation warheads, and an AIM-54 Phoenix long range air-to-air missile, as well as their standard 20 mm M61A1 gatling guns.
Approximately fifteen minutes behind them followed a single A-6E Intruder attack aircraft. It carried a single BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile under its fuselage with a special warhead. The pilot was Lt. Col. Eile Chica. Her squadron, which included the Eagles, had been transferred from California a week before just for that mission. Their target was the Walker, which was on a direct course for Denver, and if not stopped would arrive in twelve hours. Where it went, nothing was left in its wake.
Eile's mind wandered as she zoned out the monotonous task of straight, level flight. She recalled the briefing she and her people had been given when they first arrived. Approximately nine months ago, a meteorite crashed into the ocean a couple of miles off the eastern seaboard of the United States. Though it had been a large one and had caused some flooding along the Atlantic coast, nothing more was thought about it.
Six months later, the Walker came ashore off New York City. Though it gleamed as if made of metal or plastic, it had a smooth, organic shape, with no obvious seams or joints. It consisted of a bulbous, misshapen body, like a russet potato, with numerous feathered and branched appendages. It stood and walked on three spindly legs. The surface of the body was featureless except for what looked like a single, blood-red eye covering about one-sixth the surface area. Except that instead of being used for seeing, it fired a disintegrator beam that could reduce anything to plasma in an instant. It destroyed everything in its path, leaving nothing but bare rock and a layer of dust.
The devastation caught everyone by surprise. All attempts to communicate with it went unanswered, though whether it simply ignored them or was unable to understand them no one
"Ya didn't have ta yell!"
"How else was I supposed to get your attention? You were too far away to hear me whisper."
"You were supposed ta be right behind me."
"You were moving too fast!"
"I was tryin' ta get through the village before we were discovered, ya bimbo! Why couldn't you keep up?"
"I was trying to be stealthy!"
"Dammit! I thought we agreed ta move fast!"
"I didn't agree to anything, you decided for both of us!"
"I thought it was the best thing ta do!"
"I'm the senior partner, I'm the one who's supposed to make the decisions!"
"Hah! You couldn't decide what shoes ta wear this morning, you idiot!"
"I'm the idiot? You're the one who thought we could scare the natives with a simple trick!"
"How was I ta know they'd seen matches before?!"
By that time they were within ten feet of the lava. Eile could smell the foul gases and feel the heat rising up from the surface.
"I knew yer obsession with adventure would get us killed some day, but I never thought we'd go out like this."
"Son of a--stop blaming me!" White-Lion kicked her legs in frustrated anger.
She smiled. That's it, she thought, get good and mad. "Who else am I gonna blame? It's no one's fault but yers!"
"Ooohhh! I can't believe I chose a poopy-skull like you to be my partner!"
"God, I can't believe I fell for a self-centered butthead such as you. I thought I had better sense!"
White-Lion screamed in rage as she twisted and bucked her body, but it soon turned into a guttural roar as light exploded from her eyes. It echoed through the jungle, scaring up flocks of birds and flushing animals out of hiding as they fled in terror.
Yes! Now we're getting somewhere. The only problem was, White-Lion's magical ability was erratic. Eile had no idea what would result. She could only hope it was something productive.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/338142-the-peril-gem].
From "Rhapsody in Orange"
The sight of Differel looking up from her desk stopped them in their tracks. She sat hunched over, leaning on her arms braced against the desktop. For a moment she almost looked like a zombie. She was haggard and disheveled, with heavy bags under her bloodshot eyes, her stringy, lifeless hair ragged and unkempt as if she hadn't showered for several days. It wasn't simply a matter of letting herself go; they had seen that before. It seemed indicative of a failure of will, as if she didn't care anymore. Eile glanced at Sunny, and from the look on her face she could tell she understood just how bad a shape Differel was in.
The aristocrat leaned back in her high-backed chair and rested her head against the padded leather. "What are you two doing here?" She looked and sounded weary, as if she had very little energy left.
"We haven't seen much of you lately, except in the Dreamlands," Sunny said as she closed the door, trying to sound airy, "so we just decided to drop by."
Eile decided to go along with her. "Yeah, Dracula was kind enough ta give us a lift."
She closed her eyes, as if the effort to get irritated was too much for her. "You two never were good liars. Aelfraed sent for you."
"Aw, cripes. Yeah, yer right, but he's worried about you. They all are, and now that we've seen you, so are we. Geezus, Diff, what's happened?"
She opened her eyes a crack. "That's none of your business."
Eile could feel herself getting angry, but she reflected that if she could a rise out of the blue-blood, that might snap her out of her malaise. "Like hell it is. We wanna help you."
Differel leaned forward and removed a cigarillo from the desk's humidor. Eile knew she used smoking as a defense mechanism, so the fact that she was getting one seemed a good sign. But she didn't like the way her hands shook as she lit it with her father's lighter.
"Everyone's been trying to help me." She stood in a slow, cautious manner. It was almost painful to watch.
"I don't need help." She walked around the chair towards the back windows, pausing for a moment to steady herself. "I need understanding and acceptance," she concluded before continuing on.
Sunny walked around the desk to be with her, and Eile followed. "That's what Eile meant," she said in a soothing tone.
She turned to face them, her visage grim as death. "No, you're like the others. You won't believe me either. You'll just laugh, or feign sympathy as you plot to have me committed."
Eile finally lost her temper. "Dammit, Differel, do we hafta spell it out, again?! We're yer friends! We're not gonna laugh at you, or question yer sanity; we will try ta help you anyway we can. But you hafta level with us. Now, come on, what's wrong?"
She gave them a desperate look, as if she really wanted to believe them. "I...don't know--"
A lilting, child-like voice wafted through the air. "Aw, go on, tell them." It was followed by a giggle.
Sunny whipped her head around trying to locate the source of the voice, but Eile was more disturbed by Differel's reaction. She went rigid, as if having a seizure, and bit off the end of her cigarillo, which dropped on the marble floor in a small shower of sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace and jammed her fists into each temple.
"Who said that?"
Differel snapped to attention and stared at Sunny in utter disbelief. "You...you heard that?!"
"Wellllll, yeah, naturally," Sunny said, her eyes wide with wonder. "Who is she?"
Differel charged straight at her and grabbed her by both arms. "You really heard her?!" She shook Sunny hard enough to whip her hair around her head.
"Cut it out!" Eile said. "Let her go, we both heard it!"
Differel threw Sunny at Eile and backed away from them. "How do I know you're not lying? How...how do I know you're even real!? Maybe you're just more hallucinations! Merciful God in Heaven, I may actually be going mad!! I can't live like this! Dear God, please, make it stop; make it stop--"
Eile strode up to Differel and slapped her across the face so hard she turned her head and knocked off her glasses. The blue-blood glared a look of outrage and slugged her in the mouth. Eile flew back and Sunny caught her before she fell.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?!?"
"You were wiggin' out!" Eile replied as Sunny put her on her feet. "I couldn't think of anything else ta do."
Differel made an effort to calm herself, but still stared daggers at her. "Hmph. Well, it worked, but never do that again."
Eile tested her jaw. "Don't worry, you've gotta a right cross that can fell an ox, lady. So what's going on anyways?"
Differel took a moment to retrieve her glasses and head back to her desk. "It started a fortnight ago. I heard the voice for the first time as I was falling asleep. I awoke, but no one was in my room, and I assumed it was just a dream. But I heard it again, louder and clearer, the next night, and then the next night, and the night after that."
She paused to select another cigarillo and light it; Eile noted her hands still shook. "It kept talking to me, night after night, incessant, more frequent and longer each time, until I could barely sleep. Meanwhile I started hearing it during the day. It would break in while I was on the phone, in a meeting, receiving a report; then when I was reading or exercising, or just trying to relax. I never know when I'll hear it, or for how long." She put her hands over her ears as if trying to deaden some cacophony. "And I cannot block it out; no matter what I try, it breaks through my thoughts and hammers at my brain like a pile driver."
She dropped her hands and turned to look at them. "That's when I told the others. I hoped Vlad had been aware of it and would vouch for me, but he denied knowing anything. They tried to be sympathetic, but they were convinced I was merely suffering from stress."
She took a deep, rattling breath. "I almost believed them, but then I started seeing her! At first it was in my dreams, then I would catch glimpses of her in halls and rooms, just flashes out
She took another rattled breath. "By then I was deteriorating rapidly and I was sure they would pack me away to a sanitarium any moment. I was becoming paranoid; thank God you two are here now, because I doubt I would have lasted another day."
"What does she look like?" Sunny asked.
Differel gave her a sharp look. "What?"
"The girl you've been seeing; what does she look like?"
"Like me," the voice said. Eile turned with the others and saw a girl fade in from nothing as she pirouetted across the room towards the desk. But Eile realized she wasn't a girl at all. She looked like a late-twentysomething woman who dressed and acted like a child. She was short and petite, which added to the illusion, but there was a maturity of face and figure that belied her playacting. She was dressed in what looked like a Sailor Moon senshi uniform like some kind of cosplayer, except over it she wore an open cape-like coat. She also looked fairly normal, except for the baroque style of the clothes and ornaments, and the fact that everything about her was in various shades of orange: costume, hair, eyes, lips, cosmetics, fingernails; even her skin had an orange tinge to it instead of pink.
As she approached, she giggled, warbled, and bubbled laughter, until she came to a stop just in front of the desk and faced them, a huge grin on her face. She jammed the index fingers of both hands into her cheeks and cried, "Ain't I cute?!"
She acted and sounded like a lunatic, which, Eile realized with shock, was exactly what she was.
Read the rest of the story [https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/337657-rhapsody-in-orange].
From "The Denver Walker"
Seven F-15E Strike Eagles flew in a diamond wedge formation over eastern Colorado. They had departed Buckley Airforce Base in Aurora where they were temporarily stationed. They were headed due east towards the Kansas border, and their intended target. Each was armed with eight AIM-120 AMRAAM medium range air-to-air missiles, modified to deliver fragmentation warheads, and an AIM-54 Phoenix long range air-to-air missile, as well as their standard 20 mm M61A1 gatling guns.
Approximately fifteen minutes behind them followed a single A-6E Intruder attack aircraft. It carried a single BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile under its fuselage with a special warhead. The pilot was Lt. Col. Eile Chica. Her squadron, which included the Eagles, had been transferred from California a week before just for that mission. Their target was the Walker, which was on a direct course for Denver, and if not stopped would arrive in twelve hours. Where it went, nothing was left in its wake.
Eile's mind wandered as she zoned out the monotonous task of straight, level flight. She recalled the briefing she and her people had been given when they first arrived. Approximately nine months ago, a meteorite crashed into the ocean a couple of miles off the eastern seaboard of the United States. Though it had been a large one and had caused some flooding along the Atlantic coast, nothing more was thought about it.
Six months later, the Walker came ashore off New York City. Though it gleamed as if made of metal or plastic, it had a smooth, organic shape, with no obvious seams or joints. It consisted of a bulbous, misshapen body, like a russet potato, with numerous feathered and branched appendages. It stood and walked on three spindly legs. The surface of the body was featureless except for what looked like a single, blood-red eye covering about one-sixth the surface area. Except that instead of being used for seeing, it fired a disintegrator beam that could reduce anything to plasma in an instant. It destroyed everything in its path, leaving nothing but bare rock and a layer of dust.
The devastation caught everyone by surprise. All attempts to communicate with it went unanswered, though whether it simply ignored them or was unable to understand them no one