Chapter Seven

Prompt: Incorporate the phrase a child's laughter.


It had been fifteen minutes since the Chairman’s address to the American public; five minutes since the ex-president stood up in support of the decision to drop nuclear weapons on the infected portions of Northern California.

Reactions were uniformly mixed.

Across the country there was fear. Fear that the miliary had made the whole thing up. Fear that they hadn’t. The world simply stopped in stunned silence. It was a lot to absorb. It wasn’t every day that the world’s one remaining superpower would essentially declare war on itself. At least that was how it looked from the outside.

For those in the “zone”, there was pleanty of fear to go around. People treated this overwhelming emotion in different ways. Many just sat and started at whatever had been in front of them when the news broke. Others went to churches. Most sought out family and friends to spend their final minutes with. Some families would sit and play games together. The sound of a child’s laughter would echo down a street alongside the screams of a man gripped in panic.

There were surprisingly few escapers. Border guards had parachuted in as the announcements were made. Radio stations broadcast emergency messages warning people not to try and escape. Still, there were those that tried.

There were several fringe type behaviors. Sex in the streets, looting and such all took place without earning so much as a glance from others in the grip of their own fears.

And the fear was everywhere.

The Strangeness took notice almost immediately. Only minutes before, they had been feasting at the buffet of emotions. There was so much diversity that they sprinted from one emotion to the next as quickly at the data could be assimilated.

That all changed.

Now, there was only one item on the menu – FEAR.

The Strangeness sent out diagnostic elements to find out the source of this new singularity.

Bombers laden with nuclear weapons, the fuel of the sun, crossed over the eastern edge of California. The Greater Bay Area was ten minutes away from being blown back to the stone age.

The Strangeness gathered its data at nearly the speed of thought. The source of the FEAR was easily understood. IT was in danger!
Time to go.

The Strangeness sent out a signal, recalling all of “itself” back. The small metallic carriers fell out the air. The empty shells, no longer needed, littered the ground everywhere.

At the University of San Francisco, this phenomenon was not missed by the CDC. Dr. Finely, noticed his jar of metal mosquitoes had suddenly become so much junk. He had a hunch.

Within minutes, he had contacted several remote CDC monitoring stations throughout the city. His theory appeared to have been confirmed. The aliens had apparently abandoned ship.

He was on the telephone immediately with the results.

Bomb-bay doors opened as the city of San Francisco, Baghdad by the Bay came into view. Checklists neared their completion as fingers reached for red buttons.

“That’s right General. It appears that whatever was behind the infection had left the building. These little mosquito-like things are littering the ground everywhere.”
The general hung up the telephone and quickly placed a call to Nellis Air Force Base.

“Recall the bombers.”

Shaking fingers of hardened men trained to fear nothing released their hold on the red buttons. Many of them fell to their knees and wept.
The world was called back from the brink.
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Something strange rode across the universe. Its vessel was small and fast, riding on a beam of light. Massless and without form, it searched through the boundless playground of time, stars and gravity wells in search of one thing; to satisfy its curiosity.

In its rear view mirror was a small water world of beings much stranger than itself.

Word count 739
Running count 3,823