Ofendra

By Earl T. Roske

Ofendra! Is a collection of five science fiction short stories.

Ghostmaker

Ex-sheriff Filmore has found a gun left by angels he watched fighting in the sky. He learns through experience that the gun makes his enemies into ghosts. Literally. But, when another angel sits down at his campfire, he learns the truth of what he’s done.

A Better Mousetrap

Chunky is one of Casey’s few friends. His sudden invitation to an art exhibit by Casey reveals a nightmarish surprise. The nightmare expands as he learns Casey has built a net that catches things from a parallel universe. When Casey reveals a giant net, his friend fears what Casey might catch.

Defiant by Nature

Young Fletcher is avoiding the outpost and the school bullies when a memory not his own, floods his mind. The memory leads him to a creek where he finds and saves a Novjarian butterfly larva. He cares for the larvae in secret. When the larva transitions into a butterfly, Fletcher realizes he has to do more. And he can’t do it alone.

Last One Out

Sheriff Josiah is deconstructing the town, driving the revenants to the church. Everything is going as planned until the outlaw Clayton Hodges wanders into town. Now sheriff Josiah’s energy is being wasted on saving the outlaw. And sundown is fast approaching.

Glitch in Eternity

A childhood incident caused Trudee to question the truth of Eternity. Her persistence is seen as a threat to the community. Now, her lack of faith is being blamed for the Glitch. When Trudee learns what's really happening, she can either let Eternity fail, revealing the truth, or fix it and protect the lie the community relies on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Earl T. Roske
• Release date: Jan 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370521630

Earl T. Roske

Earl T. Roske is a writer and playwright. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. His short plays have appeared in festivals and shows around the world. While Earl's fiction is generally focused on speculative fiction he doesn't shy away from writing what ever fires his interest. His work currently ranges from literary prose to horror to young adult. Earl is currently in the final stretches of bringing his first full-length novel, Tale of the Music-Thief, out into the world. At the same time his is - like so many other authors - working on several other novel projects while simultaneously writing short stories, more plays, and living his life with his family.

Book preview

OFENDRA!

EARL T. ROSKE

Copyright © 2018 Earl T. Roske

All rights reserved.

Other works by Earl T. Roske:

Tale of the Music-Thief

Last Wave

Ten of Ten: The First Ten Ten-Minute Plays

DEDICATION

For my wife, my daughter, my friend(s), and the writers I commune with in person and online.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Explanation…,......

Ghostmaker..........

A Better Mousetrap

Defiant by Nature..

Last One Out.........

Glitch in Eternity...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ac•knowl•edge: recognize the fact or importance or quality of. With that in mind, I must acknowledge the fact is that I could never write without my wife’s patience and love, and my daughter’s time at pre-school. I must also acknowledge the importance of talking with other writers like Andrew, Trish, Erin, Megan, and several dozen others that I have become acquainted with locally and on the internet. The quality of those interactions, those conversations and even the bursts of silence where we all type like the possessed, those are the quality moments of being a writer that deserve acknowledgment.

EXPLANATION

There’s something you’ll likely be wondering. If you aren’t, shame on you, but I’ll explain anyway and you can pretend that you were wondering. (Don’t worry, I won’t rat you out to the real wonderers.)

What you’re wondering is this: What does ofendra mean? Ofendra is the Esperanto word for offering. Specifically, for the making of an offering. And that is what this collection of five stories is meant to be. It is an offering to you, the reader.

Enjoy.

GHOSTMAKER

I’d been crossing the old Clarkson homestead when I first saw the angels fighting in the sky overhead. Most of my attention had been over my shoulder where I figured the last of the Rosey gang was following me, so I didn’t see them right away. It was the noise, like the sizzle of coffee dripping on hot campfire coals, that drew my attention upward. The angels looked like fat stars in the daylight sky, dancing around each other in much the way I’d seen moths around a lantern. Then, one blazed brighter before fading to a dull red glow and dropping like the condemned through the trapdoor.

I followed its descent, a straight line from the sky to the ground, disappearing over the hill and amongst the Ponderosas and Bristlecones. The ground shuddered as the angel struck the earth.

Above, the second angel, still a bright star, moved with the calm demeanor of the victor. It dropped in slow, lazy circles towards where the defeated had fallen.

In another time I might have turned and lashed my horse into a gallop, putting miles between me and the mysterious battles of heaven. But, back the way I’d come wasn’t a much better option. Besides, I’d lately been lacking a thirst for living, feeling tired in a way not physical. Potentially dead either way, I gave the horse a gentle heel and turned it toward the column of smoke beginning to climb above the rise ahead.

It was an hour travel before I was near enough. I tied off my horse and proceeded on foot. The victorious angel had disappeared into the trees about a quarter hour before I’d started walking. Around me, the air stank of forest fire and stranger smells that stung the nose and made breathing a tad more laborious. The closer I came to the place of the fallen angel, the sharper the smells became. There were sounds now, too. I heard the sharp crackle of burning wood. I heard sounds I couldn’t put words to. Sounds that were never meant to touch the ears of men.

Still, I crept closer. A low blanket of heavy smoke that put strange tastes in my mouth provided some cover as I continued moving tree to tree. I finally saw the angels.

Like any youngster I’d spent many a Sunday with my backside stuck to a wood bench as the minister breathed words of fire and damnation. I’d learned, before I’d stopped caring, of the angel, Lucifer, who’d been thrown down from the heavens. It had been told that he’d been the most beautiful of angels and that beauty had corrupted his thinking. If any of that were true, and I’ve long had my doubts, these angels were not of that stature. Not even the loneliest of mining camps could bring themselves to call these creatures beautiful.

They wore clothes as tight as a banker’s waistcoat and just as equally accentuated the bulges and lumps that seemed to form their bodies. Their heads looked like they’d fallen victim to a stampede. As for the rest of their form, well, there was quite a lot of it.

I’d been to a carnival a couple of times when visiting back East. Surrendered a good nickel for the sideshow where people ogled the freaks in their booths. Near the end of the tent, there’d been this one man. He’d been sitting on a stool, wearing nothing but shorts so the people could see that all three legs were his. Out of one side of his abdomen, two child-like arms also protruded. The fallen angel had that sideshow man beat when it came to counting limbs.

The victorious angel, four arms but only two legs, stood over the other, pointing the shiniest, fanciest pistol I’d ever laid eyes upon. The other, in addition to numerous limbs, was covered with a slick of green ooze that seeped from some wounds and pulsed from others. If a man had been bleeding like that, I’d be counting his remaining life in seconds.

As the one lay and the other stood, they spoke at each other. I assumed they spoke. There was motion occurring the same time as I heard the noise. And if it was words of a heavenly language, those folk in the revival tents had some things to learn.

Their conversation ended as quick as it had begun. The one with the pistol aimed it at the other and pulled the trigger. I say it pulled a trigger, but I can’t honestly say that’s what happened. It’s the only way I know a pistol to work. What I did see was a thick band of angry lightning leap from the barrel and strike the fallen angel. I blinked as the light pulsed bright as the sun itself. When the light faded and I could focus on the angels I had to blink several times. Even that effort didn’t change what I saw. Where there’d been two angels, now only one remained. The other was simply gone.

The remaining angel didn’t seem concerned about the disappearance, so this must be how angels die.

It occurred to me at that point that since the angel was no longer preoccupied, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. There was nothing in its actions to this point that implied benevolence. Of course, because I wanted to remain unnoticed, I got exactly the opposite.

I’d only moved my foot a couple inches, shifting to ease the strain on my knee, and a small pebble popped out from under my foot like a pea from a pod. It struck a larger rock a dozen feet away. It made a sharp, cracking noise. It was a noise that, had a decent breeze been rattling the trees, or if the angel had been in motion, would have been lost as quick as it was made. But there was no breeze, and the angel’s only motions were to turn its head toward the sound and to raise the pistol and fire.

Again, there was that burst of angry lightning. The large rock where the pebble had hit was gone. This was followed by a second rock less than halfway between the first and myself disappearing.

Now, I know one of the commandments is not to kill. It’s a commandment I’ve broken seventeen times, that I know of. Most of those, like now, was in self-defense. The angel was aiming again and I knew, as sure as a rabbit knows why the shadow covers it, that I was dead if I did not act.

Seventeen became eighteen. The angel’s shot went wide, hitting somewhere over my shoulder as I put the second and third round into its chest. It staggered back a step. The green ooze pulsed out of the holes my bullets left behind and flowed down its chest.

The angel grasped its pistol two-handed and aimed again. Whatever steady hand it had possessed before, it didn’t now and the fourth shot from its pistol was even wider from the mark. A skinny Bristlecone disappeared in the flash. The angel lost its balance and dropped to its knees, which buckled backward like a horse or a dog, and then it toppled sideways.

It lay unmoving on the ground. I did the same behind the safety of the boulder I’d earlier taken as a refuge. I’ve played possum twice in my time, and it worked once. The only time I’d even taken a bullet. So, being a man who’s learned from experience, I decided to wait a while and see if angels knew the game of possum, too.

It was getting on into the late of the afternoon when I finally made my way down to where the angel lay on its side. I’d used the time between to clean and reload my pistol and now approached with six rounds ready. Green slime was splattered liberally in the area where the two angels had faced off, where the one now lay. The angel showed no sign of life that I would call recognizable.

I’m not sure what the punishment is for killing an angel, not even in self-defense. But them beans were already spilled and I would have to accept what consequences came to me on my judgment day. Until then, I intended to keep on living.

Now that I was here, where the one angel had smashed into the ground, I started to see many strange things. White metals that had melted in the fire. Points of light that still glowed dully on a flat board. Wire string snaked out of every bit and piece of the wreckage that must have been the angel’s chariot. I’ve seen prospector sheds blown to bits by mishandled dynamite. Seen a train boiler after it exploded, burst open like a cow carcass left too long in the sun. They were the closest things I could remember that compared to this.

Nothing, however, compared to the pistol still in the angel’s hand. It was as sleek as a bull’s horn but made of some kind of agate. A metal had somehow been embedded into it and more of the wire rope curled through it. On the side, there was a finger length line that glowed like light between two slates on an old barn door at sunset. The pistol lacked a trigger guard and a trigger to pull. But, there was a round spot, like a button, that I imagined must be the trigger. It felt good in my hand. Fit comfortable, which was a good thing once the shooting started.

I’d gone and forgotten my earlier predicament. The Rosey gang wasn’t too pleased with me for hogtying their namesake and handing him over to the sheriff. I’d caught wind of their plans for revenge and had skipped town knowing they’d be coming after me.

Here they were.

I see you, Filmore!

It seemed he did because the bullets arrived as quick as his words. Martin Warner. The Little Demon as he was an inch over five foot and was known to claw and bite when it came to a scuffle. Had he been the only one, I could have bought my way out of the predicament. But he was not alone. A hellcat was with him as well.

You’re a weasel, Filmore, Myra Wright shouted down at me from a position above where I’d been hiding from the Angel. She was Rosey’s partner in crime and then some. I took it that she didn’t like how I stole him out from under her possessive sleeping arm.

There were several more, but they remained silent and kept to shooting. I skittered and hopped around, trying to find a place to defend and trying to keep from getting kissed by hot lead in the process. I finally found a sliver of safety behind a large chunk of busted boulder. It provided the barest cover. I had to lay on my back and press my side up against it, but at least the bullets weren’t spitting rock fragments at my face.

Come out and get what’s yours, Myra said. She punctuated her demand with several more shots. The angle at which they hit suggested what I already figured would happen. She was moving.

The cover wasn’t going to last long. They’d realized how narrow it was and started shifting along the tree line. In a few more minutes, I’d be exposed. To get anywhere else, I’d need a distraction. The idea put a smile on my face. I still had the angel’s pistol. That was the kind of distraction that would give me time. Sizzling lightning, a disappearing tree, it might put the fear of God into them. Or, at the least, pull their attention away, which was all I was asking for.

I shouted back, I already got what’s mine, Myra. A nice bag of silver!

She screamed and fired at my location with the steady rhythm of someone who knows how to use a repeating rifle. I took quick aim at her location with the angel’s pistol and touched the button. Surprisingly, there was no kick for all the angry it pushed out the end. The lightning laced across the open space between me and Myra. I figured my aim to go wide and zap a tree. All that I needed. Instead, it touched Myra and she was gone.

The whole of the world paused around me after the light had faded and Myra’s absence was noted. Me, too, as I hadn’t seen but the one alien disappear when the lightning touched it. I had a new angle on it this time. Saw the light race, like a hawk diving on a luckless mouse.

When the world moved again, there was a mountain of confusion with it.

Myra!

I scrambled for another boulder on the edge of the dent the angel had made on the ground.

She’s gone ya darn fool, said Martin. His voice had that break in it that a person gets when they are a combination of scared and confused. Dammit, Filmore! What’d you do?

He started shooting as I made cover. I’d already had a bead on him from the way he was flapping his gums. The moment he stopped wasting bullets I poked my head up and waited for him to do the same. When he did, I touched the Angel pistol’s trigger again.

He must have seen me aiming or I was gripping a little too tight on the grip. After all, I did make someone disappear from the face of the Earth with an angel’s gun. Whichever reason you choose to go with, I missed, making another tree go away. It was enough to spook Martin because he came out from his cover and started shooting wildly in my direction.

I used two hands this time and touched the button. More angry lightning and now Martin was gone, too.

Where you going? I heard someone yell.

A distant response replied, That’s black magic. Or the devil’s work. Ain’t no difference to me ‘cause I’m not sticking around to find out.

There was more arguing and yelling. I heard one horse gallop off.

I’d recovered my wits now. I pulled my pistol and paused with both weapons in my hands. I’d been about to slip the angel’s gun into my belt before thinking two things. The first had been about that glowing line on the side of the pistol and how it seemed shorter than when I first picked it up. The second thought was a wonder about the sensitivity of the angel gun trigger. No need to pull my own disappearing act. I wedged it into my holster deep enough to keep it from moving. I wasn’t out of here yet.

I moved quietly through the trees, heading towards the angry voices. If there was one thing I knew certain, it was that a price hung over every