The Pipes

By William Mangieri

Sometimes it's the little things...
An unexpected extraterrestrial visitation has an adverse effect on a Texas farmer's well.
Think twice before you drink the water – there’s something in the pipes. Read on to experience a different kind of invasion.
"The Pipes" is a short, speculative fiction, and is also available in the collection “Some More, And Yet Still Even More Things I Could Get OUT OF MY MIND.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Mangieri
• Release date: Mar 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311346315

William Mangieri

William Mangieri is a karaoke junkie, former theater student, and recovered wargamer who spends as much time wondering "what if?" as "why not?". He writes from Texas, where he and his family live at the mercy of the ghost of a nine-pound westie.William writes mostly speculative fiction (that’s science fiction, fantasy and horror), although he also has a detective series with a soft sci-fi element (Detective Jimmy Delaney.) He completed writing his first novel (Swordsmaster) in 2019; prior to this, he has honed his skills on short fiction. He has been published in Daily Science Fiction and The Anarchist, and six of his stories have earned Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future contest.

Book preview

The Pipes

By William Mangieri

Copyright 2015 by William Mangieri

Smashwords Edition

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The Pipes

The sound of bagpipes playing ‘Amazing Grace’ can be a mournfully glorious thing; bless Mr. MacPherson’s heart for trying, but today it’s one of those fingernails-on-a-chalkboard kind of things, as grating as a whole cluster of first year clarinet players squeaking and screeching in search of a single note. The kind of sound that would have suited Daniel – he loved to irritate people.

I loved him for how he irritated me; yes, even for that. If we were to stop the proceedings and open his coffin, I wouldn’t be surprised to find him lying there with a big smirk on his face, and then he would say that the bagpipes sound better than the crowd of people who trying to sing along, and he’d be right. I’m glad they’ve come out behind the church to be with us, anyway.

I keep wondering if the way he ended up was my fault. But I didn’t make that damn meteor crash into our well. And I didn’t make Daniel drink that water. I hated the taste of our well water even before all that, but he wasn’t willing to lay out good money on one of those fancy filtration systems, so I drank nothing but bottled. He’d bellyache about the expense, but not too much; he