In Short Fiction
In Short, Fiction
Copyright 2015 Ariel McKean
Table of Contents
Abiorn’s Curse
A Lifetime Later
His Father’s Car
The Pilgrimage
Coffee Shop
About the Author
Abiorn’s Curse
The bow of the longship sliced through the water, sharper than any blade possessed by man. Abiorn looked out across the sea as they soared silently towards their destination: Stockholm. From his vantage point, he could see the rocky shoreline jutting out as they came closer. Leaving his first mate to command the mighty vessel, Abiorn strolled down the length of the ship, admiring the plunder that he and his men had reaped. Stuffed in great barrels of wood and iron were mountains of gold, heaps of jewels and fine gemstones, and more golden crosses than one could count. Sitting along the length of the ship was the most prized of Abiorn’s treasure: a massive, stone statue embedded with chunks of gold. Carved into its surface was a mighty bear, mouth wide and growling. Abiorn touched the rough surface of the stone, enthralled with its beauty and mystery.
A terrible scream interrupted the captain’s musings; the sound came from below and was accompanied by an Earth-shaking blow to the underside of the longship. The men retrieved their spears and stone hammers and peered over the side of the ship to see what had hit them so fiercely. The water was black and turbulent, but under its surface were the shimmering, green scales of a truly monstrous beast. The beast circled the longship with a speed that seemed impossible before rising out of the water.
“By Odin’s beard! A sea serpent!” Abiorn yelled to his men.
The serpent swayed from side to side, attempting to distract and hypnotize the men. A man nearest the beast threw his spear with all of the might he could muster; the iron tip of the spear glanced off of the thick, iridescent scales of the monster before being cast into the water.
Abiorn looked on and commanded, “Do not throw your weapons, men! This beast must be bested by logic!”
The men turned to look at their captain, spears still raised as the creature continued to sway and circle the ship. It appeared to be eyeing their treasure as it moved; sea serpents were notoriously greedy beasts, prone to stealing the hoards of men and keeping the treasure for themselves. Its golden eyes hungrily scanned the barrels of spoils that filled the ship. It lingered on the strange stone monolith, enchanted by the glint of the gold in the sunlight. Without warning, the sea serpent curled around the longship and let out another earsplitting wail. With one fluid movement, the creature crushed the hull of the ship, rending the vessel in two and sending the men aboard flying into the cold waters below. The beast let out a cry of victory and pulled the ship into the black water.
Abiorn drifted on a piece of the hull of the ship, watching the great monster as it pulled his plunder into the depths of the sea. A great, green, scaled hand grasped the carved stone as the serpent disappeared underwater. Abiorn spat at the beast as it disappeared, anger welling in his chest. His crew had perished at the hands of this monster; now it must pay the price. Abiorn looked skyward and said, “On Odin’s name, may you follow that stone until the end of time. May you never die! May you be cursed to gaze upon that stolen relic for all of eternity! On Odin’s name, beast, may you never again see the light of day!”
1000 years in the future
“Guys, are you seeing this?” William said into his microphone as he swam to the depths of the Baltic Sea.
“I’ve never seen anything like it! See if you can get closer, Will.” Alexander said to William from the boat hundreds of feet above Will. William kicked his feet hard and reached the seafloor, coming face to face with a mountain of gold. William shook his head in amazement; the hoard had sat untouched for hundreds of years and gleamed as though it had just been cleaned.
A movement in his periphery wrenched William from his thoughts. A dark shadow moved just outside of William’s field of view, much too fast for William to follow. William whipped his head around trying to follow the movement. He darted forward only to be stopped in his tracks by a huge, stone statue. William kicked off from the statue and attempted to swim towards the surface. A great, black shadow blocked his path, two gleaming golden eyes staring at him in the darkness. William screamed into his microphone before being dragged back down to the depths, trapped in the jaws of a massive serpent.
A Lifetime Later
Her body seemed smaller than he remembered, more frail. Her skin was no longer smooth and sun-kissed; instead she had crow’s feet and laugh lines, the evidence of a long, happy life. Her hands were folded over one another, stretched out on the glass table. He wanted so badly to reach his own out, to meet her palm with his and feel that closeness that he had been missing for years. She felt his eyes on her and looked up. “Is it really that much of a shock, Mark?”
Mark smiled, “Juliet, I’ve been waiting for this for twenty-five years. Nothing could be shocking about this.”
Juliet smiled, her eyes lighting up. Her cheeks turned pink and she glanced away. Mark’s eyes were drawn to the glint of her wedding band, the one thing that stood the chance of spoiling their reunion. Juliet caught him staring, and pulled the sleeve of her shirt down to hide her ring.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Juliet said.
“Why would you have? I had big dreams, Jules. Too big for you, or at least that’s what I told myself.”
Juliet cast her eyes downward and shook her head. Mark wondered who she was married to, wondered if he made her pancakes every morning or if he rubbed her shoulders like she always wanted him to, or if she ever thought of Mark in the middle of the night when the rest of the world was asleep. He knew that she probably never thought of him. He knew that she probably hadn’t given him a second thought, not since he left her all those years ago.
“Mark, why did you find me?”
A million things ran through Mark’s mind then: he missed her, he still loved her, he hated that he left her for such selfish reasons, he wanted more in his life now and knew that she was the only answer, but he knew that it wouldn’t change anything. Mark was stuck in his life as it was. He had chosen to carry on his family’s business, and he must live with that choice for the rest of his life.
“Juliet, I—,” Mark began, only to be cut short by a wail from behind the privacy fence surrounding their hotel room porch. The sound was unnatural and piercing, enough to make one’s hairs stand on end and their stomach drop. Without hesitation, Mark grabbed Juliet’s arm and wrenched her into the safety of the hotel room before retrieving his suitcase from underneath the bed. Keying in the password with the deftness of a man who did this very action on a regular basis, Mark opened his case and collected his tools from within.
From inside the case, Mark pulled a compact crossbow fitted with a silver-tipped arrow. Juliet looked at Mark with panicked eyes, her face flushed and her breathing quick. He knew she was scared, but he didn’t have time to explain to her exactly what was happening and what he did in his life. He leapt across the room and slammed the patio door closed behind him. He opened the gate of the tall, wooden fence and found himself face to face with a familiar creature.
“You interrupted a very important conversation, Witch! Don’t think that I will spare you!” Mark drew his arrow and took aim at a spot right between the witch’s eye, the only area that will ensure full termination of the monster. The witch cackled and lunged at Mark with her claws bared; her sudden movement knocked the bow out of Mark’s hand and well out of his reach. He reached behind his back to find his backup knife, only to find that it was not there.
“Damn. I must have left it in my case,” Mark thought to himself, cursing his foolishness. The
witch jumped on him and tackled him to the ground, her hands clawing and ripping at Mark’s throat. With one hand on the witch’s chest, Mark kept her at an arm’s distance while he formulated a way to slay the creature. The witch’s flailing movements had pushed the crossbow even farther from Mark’s grasp. Mark wrapped his hand around the witch’s throat, knowing full well that he didn’t have enough strength in his hand to save himself.
An arrow cut through the air and landed precisely between the witches eyes. Her body slumped forward and Mark cast her off to the side before turning around to see who had saved him. Juliet was standing in the doorway of the hotel room, a crossbow in her grasp. She flipped her hair out of her face before lowering the