FLASH FICTION:-- HORROR, SCI-FI, HUMOUR, CRIME, SLICE OF LIFE, ETC.

Friday 11 November 2011

Food for thought

When the cell door slammed open the human captives scrabbled in panic. Clawing over one another, fighting to get as far away from the door as possible, trying to avoid being the chosen one. The two aliens separated Simpson from the tangle of thrashing limbs and bodies, they threw him face down on the floor, grabbed a leg each, and dragged him out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind them.

Back inside the cell, the men and women cowered, whimpering, terrified. None of them knew what became of the chosen ones, only that they never returned.

Simpson struggled and screamed as he was dragged along a series of corridors. His face, hands and arms losing shreds of skin as he was scraped along the coarse metal floor. Fingernails splitting and cracking as he fought for purchase. His teeth chipping and breaking during the descent of a steep stairwell.

Eventually they entered a large room, the floor of which sloped gently down to a gaping square hole. The creatures ripped the clothing from his body, unmindful of breaking a few bones in the process, then unceremoniously threw Simpson into the hole. His smashed and bleeding nose had just enough time to register the sickly smell of rotting flesh before he landed on the spinning blades below.

Simpson continued his journey, now in the shape of thick strings of viscous mincemeat he dripped onto a second set of finer, sharper blades, then through a series of crushers, pulpers and rollers, along a conveyor where a liquid bio-electron accelerator was added, and finally through a multi-bladed blender. Simpson ended his journey as a smooth pink liquid at the bottom of a huge vat.

Several minutes later the bio-accelerator activated, and the electrons twitched into life. Minute blue sparks of electricity began to arc across surface of the pink slush, multiplying rapidly until the vat shimmered with light.

Fine wires carried the power from the vat, through the ship, and up to the bridge, where Simpson's two former escorts now stood, awaiting their commander's attention. The commander stood before a gigantic brain contained within a plastiglass dome, off to either side the walls were a mass of blank screens.

The commander watched impatiently. Eventually a small shudder ran through the brain's exterior, causing it to shiver like a shaken jelly. The screens began to flicker, and one by one lit up and started scrolling streams of data. A barely perceptible vibration ran through the ship as the massive Plasmin engines fired into life.

The commander turned to face the two crewmen, a look of deep displeasure on his face.

“If we are ever left drifting, powerless and defenceless again because you two morons forgot to feed the computer, I will personally throw both of you down the chute myself. Got it? At the end of your shift get yourselves suited and booted, for the next six weeks your leisure time will be replaced by hull scrubbing punishment. Now get out of my sight”


©2011 Stephen. J. Green.

23 comments:

  1. Ewww nasty nasty Aliens! You certainly know how to write these don't you. A computer that needs human flesh to work, food for thought indeed!

    As always you made me cringe and laugh at the same time - good sci fi!

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  2. Right now the computer just eats my time and attention. At what Windows Update can I expect it to start eating bits of me?

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  3. Ew ew ew! OK, I like it. Especially because I'm a sucker for word play. But still, ew!

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  4. Ha ha, excellent. =)

    Reminds me a little of the Ghast in the Space Captain Smith series - kind of like melodramatic Nazi space ants.

    Not the twist I was expecting, but brilliant. =D

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  5. @Helen - Thanks. Making you cringe and laugh at the same time makes the writing of it worthwhile. :-)

    @John W. - Haha! I believe the fleshbyte plug-in will be available next year. We can probably expect a lot of annoying neighbours to start disappearing shortly afterwards. :-)

    @Tim - C'mon admit it, you like mincemeat too, doncha? :-)

    @John X. - Thanks, the phrase "Food for thought" is one of those just begging to be used in a story like this, isn't it? :-)

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  6. Am I guessing right in thinking 'Brainfood' was a close second for the title? An excellent short, I certainly didn't see the twist coming.

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  7. Bah, forgot to say it was me ^^^

    Hi Dad!

    (nano-frazzled brain :P )

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  8. Hi Darling, and thank you.

    Hmmmm.... Brainfood? I think I'll be working on a story around that title... :-)

    I'll be looking forward to reading your NaNo at the end of the month, try not to over-frazzle yourself. :-)

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  9. Wow.. Chilling. Exellent description. I can almost believe you have been down that chute yourself..x

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  10. Hi Rosalind, and thank you. I haven't actually been down the chute, but I was largely responsible for its design. :-)

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  11. Wow, what a twisted ride, Steve. At least this way their lives served some greater purpose. Some of us never find that.

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  12. Hi Stephen' and thanks. I suppose in a way that may be true, it would depend on what the Aliens' ultimate goals were, somehow I don't think Simpson and co would agree with this sentiment though. (Bwuhahahaha!)

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  13. Well, some eewww over at this end, but I really liked your flash, Steve! Twisted is something I can't get enough of around Halloween and until before Christmas :)

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  14. Disturbing and gross as this one may be (in a good way), I laughed a lot while reading it. Impressive that you can elicit all of those reactions with one story. My favorite line was "Simpson ended his journey as a smooth pink liquid. . . ."

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  15. @Estrella - thanks, eeww seems quite a popular word for this one.

    @LF - thanks, I try to put some humour in my flashes, even if it is sometimes very dark humour, thanks for the appreciation. I'd be willing to bet it wouldn't be Simpson's favourite line though. (Chuckle)

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  16. It was interesting watching his journey even after death - you don't get a lot of that in fiction.

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  17. Thanks Icy, it's nice to be different. :-)

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  18. $4 a gallon gasoline suddenly looks like a bargain. Yikes!

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  19. Hiya Harry, Haha, it's a good job cars don't need feeding the same way isn't it? :-)

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  20. So this is what we have to look forward to, huh? You definitely had me cringing at your description. And that title? Awesome!

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  21. Thanks Chuck, let's hope that there aren't too many of these brain-driven ships floating around, eh? :-)

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  22. This story stuck with me. A whole new turn to the phrase feeding the computer.

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  23. Thanks Chris, I've been bandying ideas around that phrase for a week or two, then this idea came to me.

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