CHAPTER 78
I was back with the others after a surprisingly short conversation, followed by a longer one, with Simon, who was looking positively secular in a checked shirt and jeans, not a whistle of a dog collar in sight. That thought brought back others, of course, and he noticed. After we had finished our negotiations, he asked outright what had disturbed me.

“Nothing here, Simon. Just been a rather heavy time at work”

“Ah. Annie told me about the shootings”

I stared in the mirror, mouth agape as my face changed from a grown woman to a child of about twelve. She’d forgotten to change the maid uniform with me, so it was sort of hanging there, the skirt falling way past my knees.

“Steve?” Angela placed a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“How…how long am I going to stay like this?” My voice came across as a mere whisper, I saw Meredith smirk behind Angela in the mirror.

“Until you can change yourself back,” Angela smiled and ran her fingers through my hair, straightening it out. It felt good.

“And I am back with groceries!” Angela said cheerfully as she walked into the room. I had resumed my original position on the bed and Meredith was pretending to be busy with her phone, acting like she hadn’t just forced me to lick her feet for the last hour. I kind of wanted to say something to Angela, in fact I was pretty sure I could have, but I just didn’t want to. I was tired, I was hungry, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. I just wanted to lay here on the bed and drift off to sleep. “Wake up over there or it’s going to feel worse later!”

Twigs snapped, feet pounded, the forest whizzed by in gasps as I dodged from tree to tree, palms outstretched to make sure I didn’t plant face first into a trunk. Aleah said I’d know it when I saw it. What was I looking for? I inhaled as I ran, forest air scraped through my throat and barely inflated my lungs. I thought the endless expanse of trees and briar patches would extend forever, but I was wrong. It ended. I burst into a clearing, stopping short as if I’d just found myself on the edge of a cliff and pressing my hands to my knees as I bent over in exhaustion.

[The following January]

“Come on you laggards. Just because you are effing women does not mean that you can slack off. There is still six miles to go. Then it is only a few more hours then, you can have that hot bubble bath that you females all love so much!”

CHAPTER 77
Annie was smirking, and although Eric was doing his best, his own mouth was twitching. I gave him a by-now-well-practised Mother Look, and he shrugged.

“They did it to us, Di, years ago”

Annie slapped his arm.

“You mean me, love! Di, first time I went to that music day event, and they had video of the whole sodding thing!”

Curtain Fall - Chapter 13

Itimori and De’elen moved steadily through the lush environment, proceeded by a lightly clothed protector armed with his standard combat pole-arm. Following was a second who was tasked with pulling supplies via a wheeled pack. The remaining two were flanking the women out of view.

Other than weaponry there was little machinery in evidence. It had been concluded that the ability to recharge any powered transportation or device might be problematic, so it had been decided to go without until they might acquire such from the aliens.

CHAPTER 76
Annie had been apologetic.

“Sorry to mess you around, Di, but we just haven’t got the room for both of you. Steph’s place isn’t that far away from us, honest”

“Are you apologising, girl? What the hell for?”

“Well, I sort of said I’d put you up, aye? And now I’m turfing you out. It doesn’t feel right”

“Annie, who is it that’s going to be putting her up for so many weeks?”

Cheshire and Tizzy look at the young girl that had hidden away in Tizzy’s police car. She was sound asleep on the hospital bed that Cheshire had taken her too. The private hospital had been the same one that Cheshire had taken Tizzy to when she first came to Hawaii.

“What have you found out about her?” Cheshire was curious about the young girl.

Stuck in a Rut.
By Rosalie Redd

Casey Church is a normal 13 year old boy, full of hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties. But in a world where there hasn’t been a girl born in over a century, what is normal?

Chapter 7.

0500hrs, Glenborrodale, Scotland
Drill Sergeant Winter had a gleam in his eyes as he goes into the barracks and starts banging on the trash can. All the new recruits that had signed up for training had finally arrived late last night. Some of them had only had four hours of sleep. He keeps banging on the trash cans until everyone was awake.

“Alright you maggots, I want you out in formation in five minutes.” Sergeant Winter makes sure everyone is up before he heads outside to wait for them.

Rebecca shivers as she hides in a group of bushes and watched one of the men she had been hired to investigate. The perp she had under surveillance was inside some woman’s house having sex. She glances at her watch to see what time it was and couldn’t believe he’s been in there for at least two hours now.

Webster’s dictionary defines Speed as the fallowing: the rate of change of position along a straight line with respect to time over a set distance. In other words, the quicker you can get from one place to another. The question is what do you, do when your family has spent the last two generations in search of ways to accomplish this goal faster and faster. Would do you do when the family business is the search for more Speed. For Robert ‘Robby’ McGuire the answer is easy. You grab your sister and strap on a pair of Formula One racecars then go for broke.

He didn't like anything he was looking at. The gauges didn't show any signs of life when he flipped the switches. Everything was dead. This wasn't good. There was no noise from below to tell him the little diesel was even trying to start when he turned the switches on.

He dropped down into the galley where Karen was pumping water into the sink. "I don't have any batteries this morning. I think I forgot to turn off the radios last night and the mooring lights drained everything."

He opened the hatch leading into the engine room. Karen could hear him complaining about boats in general, as he tried to crank the diesel over by hand.

Witch Hazel And The CIA

Josh was the second boy Hazel pushed back on. Hazel was six that first time, so was the boy. This time Hazel was thirty eight the boy eighteen. Both boys ended up diapers wondering what the hell happened. You really don't want to push on a witch - Ever!