Floating Ink

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2016 James Livingood

CHAPTER ONE:
Invasion

CHAPTER TWO:
Executive

CHAPTER
THREE: The Cabin

CHAPTER FOUR:
Howling

CHAPTER FIVE:
Caretaker

CHAPTER SIX:
Walls

CHAPTER
SEVEN: Sand

Invasion

Ruth was the queen of rats and the
trendsetter of black soot stains. Most of her days were spent
entertaining her cockroach subjects with tales of her valor. They
were a captive audience, held in a shoe box with holes. When the
queen desired a boo and a hiss, she would shake the box. When she
told the best part of a story, the food, she would share a morsel.
All who gazed at her natural beauty fell in love. Perhaps that’s
why so few people saw her, honestly. Who could risk such a
life-long fate?

Her kingdom was not 50 paces from one of the
biggest mansions in town. Steam pipes sputtered hot moisture in the
custom built sauna. A decorative river ran through the sauna. She
had set rules that the river could not be used for cleaning, after
all, it was decorative only. Those who honored Ruth would often
leave presents for her in the decorative river. These gifts of
homage floated down gently waiting for her to notice and discover.
She had plucked out gifts of worn shoes, frayed belts, chipped
cups, stained plates, and more.

She sat on a stone bench near the sauna room.
By royal decree, this place was called the Queen’s museum. Small
shelves made of bricks popped out from various sides. These shelves
held antiquities and gifts of homage she had received throughout
town.

A black button from a gentleman caller was
gracefully set on one brick. A spool of silken thread, disguised as
wool, was put in a place of high honor. Her royal cardboard court
of cockroaches was often found here. Ruth had spent much of her 25
years of life looking for such a keen collection. When she had
found this storage location, she knew she had found home.

Today was not a day to celebrate such a
magnificent, bejeweled level of sophistication. Today the queen had
appointments and appearances she must make. A local band had
requested the pleasure of her company by posting a sign near her
royal residence. It would be a celebration in the park once she
arrived. The pleasure of her company did not come without cost. The
promise of free picnic food would be her due compensation for an
afternoon well spent. If the music pleased her, perhaps she would
be inclined to reschedule a few other appointments. Nothing could
be guaranteed, though. After all, she was a queen.

——————

Ruth walked among the people enjoying the
music in the park. Women wore elegant hats adorned with peacock
feathers and lace ribbons. The men mostly had slicked back hair and
fanciful facial hair. One gentleman had a goatee, another a slick
mustache curled into two points. She turned to the center of the
park and the music playing there. On either side of the stage were
upside down top hats, filled with coins and dollars. She
contemplated grabbing one of the top hats for fashion reasons, but
decided against it. Ruth turned back to her task of digging through
trash cans, looking for half-eaten sandwiches and other “too-soon”
discards. People were so wasteful in her eyes. Most weren’t even
appreciating the musical talent presented on stage. She decided to
separate herself from the crowd and learn about the music. Ruth
wanted to understand the song in a way that others could not.

She sat down against a tree and took in the
band. She could see they were playing a long melody that kept going
in circles. Ruth admired the talent and wanted to see if one day
she could play such a song. She watched the artist's hands and how
they plucked the guitar strings. Ruth could also tell that the
chorus was particularly tricky as the man stuck out his tongue a
little while trying to play. How many people had noticed the man’s
tongue? The sour note strummed was the first indication something
was wrong. The guitar player stopped playing, which caused the
other members of the band to slow down their pace. The melody
slowly washed away on the painted wood stage, through the cracks,
and onto the grass of the park.

As the members of the band stretched their
necks to the sky, the audience, lying on the lawn on soft blankets
also looked up. In the sky was an unnaturally black blot, the size
of a horse. Like a giant inkwell had spilled from the clouds and it
ran over a shape. It was hard to understand the purpose of the
flying object, as black tentacles went in and out of the body with
each motion. A black metallic shine served to point out the device
against the sunny sky. Soft whirs and clicks sounded from the
instrument as it plodded along through the sky. The device bobbed
up and down as if sucking in air from around its expanse. The
tentacles appeared to be scooping in the air the same way a man
would cup water to their mouth. It was at that moment of complete
silence that Ruth chose to speak.

“What’s that foul looking thing?” she pointed
upward, “It looks like a shadow puppet.”

Ruth stood from her tree and adjusted her
dress. While the dress alone was comfortable on a hot day, all the
extra layers trapped in heat like a winter coat. She fidgeted with
her hair, secretly checking for sweat. The initial droplets had
begun to form, so she took out her best cloth and dabbed at her
face. When no one responded to her question, Ruth looked around.
Everyone was still staring with wide eyes towards the shape in the
sky. Her own eyes rolled, and her head began to shake.

“It’s a party favor! Nothing more. What is
everyone’s jaws so open?”

Still, no one moved or made a comment. In
truth, Ruth could feel her doubt within. A nervous vibration of the
unknown was moving up to her throat. Her mother had taught her that
valor and elegance were part of womanhood. These were grown men and
women acting like foolish country bumpkins gawking at the first
light bulbs they had ever seen. The doubt and nerves she felt soon
swelled into anger. She would show these people that there was
nothing to fear. A valorous and elegant woman could handle any
situation.

Ruth undid the buttons on her worn boot and
threw it at the object in the sky. She wasn’t sure what the end
result would be, but she certainly didn’t mean to hit the thing.
Her face turned red as soon as it dawned on her that throwing shoes
wasn’t very lady-like. That embarrassment faded as the device
reacted to the leather laced boot threat. A beam of light, like the
kind that breaks from a cloud on a gray day, shot down toward the
now still boot on the ground. The boot exploded seconds afterwards.
Bits of leather and lace falling out of the sky like an unnatural
snow.

Being herd animals, everyone just looked at
the boot with quizzical looks. It didn’t register with people that
there could be something dangerous about a light that makes things
explode. Ruth’s frustrated scream at losing her favorite boot,
finally snapped the crowd into action. In a disorganized manner,
they grasped at their blankets and possessions, trying to exit the
scene. While it didn’t make sense to risk their life for a blanket,
panic doesn’t render wisdom.

Ruth didn’t care about the chaos around her.
Instead, she only looked toward the ruin of her prestigious boot.
She really enjoyed that footwear. It was not only elegant enough
for a day out, but it was comfortable. That is what started to boil
her fear even further, that the footwear had been so comfortable
and was now gone. She took the other boot off and threw it at the
device. If the thing had taken one boot, it might as well have the
other.

This time, before the boot struck, the light
appeared and the boot shredded mid-air. Screams around the leather
hide remnant surged and then died down as people fled. Ruth put her
hands to hips, determined to find out who had ruined her most
comfortable pair of footwear. She would make them pay for a new
pair. She would give them a heaping helping of her mind and then
make them open up their purses to pay for this stunt.

As she tried stomping up to the device, it
floated away. The black ink blot floated toward a band member
putting his instrument in a guitar case. The guitarist, who had
been so coordinated with his fingers a moment before, now fumbled
at the latches. The floating device shined its light on him, and he
exploded into a heap of red splotches. Ruth decided that new boots
could be found later and that comfort was something to be concerned
about another day. She turned on her naked heels and began to run
with the crowd.

As she ran, she saw more black ink dots
falling slowly from the sky. The dark rain stopped several feet
from the ground and slowly bobbed in various directions. If this
were a stunt of some sort, it was done on a massive scale. Luckily
for the citizens, no other black ink floaters were shining any
lights. They were just slowly moving from one point toward the
next. They didn’t seem interested in the running crowds flowing
around them.

Ruth finally got to her home and closed the
iron gate. She ran down the tunnel, suddenly stopped, and decided
to stay still for several seconds to listen for sounds of being
followed. She was the one who had angered them, so it made sense
that they would chase her. Slowly, as fear started trickling down
and the quiet of a mundane world reasserted itself, she wondered if
the whole thing had been a dream or joke. It was a cruel joke to
make her think that a person had died.

Paranoid, she grabbed several nearby trash
cans. She assembled them into a makeshift barrier between her and
the tunnel opening. They were like a line of metal soldiers
standing guard. As she grabbed a lid off one of the cans, she
spotted the inky blob of a device floating toward the home. She
couldn’t tell if this was the same one as in the park or a new one
that she had not seen before. It started a low buzzing noise, like
a fly stuck in a windowpane. The device sent its light toward the
nearest trash can. Ruth jumped away from the trash cans a moment
before one exploded into a heap of refuse and metal bits.

Lying on the ground, Ruth scuttled away from
the slowly floating device. The buzzing continued until the device
was above her. It then went still, and the buzzing was cut off with
a click. A few moments later a whisper sound started to fill the
alley. The sound increased with volume in a gently way.

“Hello? Hello?” said the metallic voice. The
voice sounded like someone was talking into a soup can phone. It
also had a gravely kind of tone, as if rocks were in the soup can
as it tried to talk.

“Hello?” She responded back weakly. She
wasn’t sure why this device was trying to communicate with her.

“Good! This one. This one is good. Can she be
a caretaker? Yes. Good. Setting power to high.” continued the
voice.

Ruth grabbed the edge of the wall to pull
herself up and run. As she turned her back, she saw her silhouette
against the bricks. The device was shining a light on her. She
froze and prepared to be exploded into a million pieces. Instead,
the world slowly went black. It was as if a curtain was pulled from
the sides of her vision. She crumpled into a ball on the damp
stone. She wasn’t sure how long she was on the cold floor.

Then a strange feeling of detachment
happened. She felt as if everything she once knew no longer
mattered. Every person, every thought, every piece of who she had
once been no longer mattered. She began to sit up and wonder how
she got here. She saw the metallic ink blot moving inches at a time
towards her place on the floor. She couldn’t remember why she was
afraid of this thing. She turned around and saw herself still lying
on the floor. ‘Did that light kill me? Am I dead?’ She wondered. It
wasn’t a passionate fear, but more of a resolve. If she were dead,
there was nothing to be done. She moved around the thing invading
her home, but it did not seem to notice her ghost self. She stared
back at her body, thankful for the life it had given.

It was at that point she saw a ball of light
near her head. She bent over and examined the light, just as the
creature moved closer to examine her. She saw a small scene inside
the ball of light. It was an image of herself walking outside. Why
would such an image appear? What did it mean to be floating near
her head? She stared at the small sphere watching herself walking
around the block. She enjoyed the sight of her body being alive,
and that made this little ball of light precious. The dead were not
meant to enjoy things, so she felt like a piece of her had
returned.

When the floating creature moved closer, the
ball of light started to fade away. It was as if the ball of light
was dimming as the creature crept nearer. She was scared to touch
the image, but it was scarier to her if the vision went away.
Summoning courage she shouldn’t have, she reached out and touched
the sphere. As she did, it expanded and became brighter. Soon it
was so bright she had to close her eyes.