16 Strange Tales

By Ronald N. Goulden, MBA, PMP

Sixteen strange tales that peek into the bizarre in this world and others. Inside these pages are Sixteen Strange Tales that will make you wonder and think, hmmm.

These stories include space exploration and conquest, monsters, witches, gnomes, fairies, gargoyles, serial killers, Galactic Princesses, wizards, vampires, alien invasions, and different dimensions.Have you ever wondered about the person nest to you in the grocery store? Is he a nice guy, or is he planning to kill you where you stand? What could be behind all of the sudden increase in ‘missing persons’? Have you ever walked in the woods and heard strange sounds? And what about that odd banging and scratching in the hallway?

Have a chat with the man who may have inspired H.G. Wells, Nikola Tesla, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald N. Goulden, MBA, PMP
• Release date: Jan 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463496213

Ronald N. Goulden, MBA, PMP

Ronald Goulden has written novels and stories for thirty years. Having served in Viet Nam as a Translator/Interpreter, He quickly adapts to new cultures and sees a story or an adventure everywhere. He has ‘dabbled’ in witchcraft, though he is not a witch. All of his novels and stories have interconnecting threads that link them into a larger universe, spanning space and time. Some of the links are obvious, while others are very subtle. Some of the events in the stories are based on real life, while others are pure fiction. The distinction between fact and fiction is up to the reader. Having studied witchcraft many years earlier, it had always been in my mind. When I became an IT Director for the Farm Credit bank system in Wichita, I observed the ‘power’ a small group of ladies expressed over others in the bank and their general disdain for many of the men. I had also researched the BTK Killer during his spree and developed a program that allowed me to ‘predict’ his next attacks. As such, I saw the potential for violence in anyone. After being treated rather rudely by the band of bank beauties, I decided to write a story to explain their odd and overbearing personalities. Using newspaper stories and personal experiences, I settled on baby sacrifices and Satanism. While the personalities and physical attributes are based upon real people I knew at the time, their involvement is this story is purely fiction. There are many ‘links’ in this story to the other novels I’ve written over time, essentially building an alternate universe.

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16 Strange Tales

Ronald N. Goulden, MBA, PMP

Copyright © 2020 by Ronald Goulden, MBA, PMP

Smashwords Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any

electronic system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means;

electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise,

without written permission from the author. Brief quotations

may be used in literary reviews.

Cover Design by TFG

ISBN: 9780463496213

Table of Contents

1-The Colony

2-The Dome

3-Escape

4-The Factory

5-Gargoyle

6-Gnomes

7-The Intruder

8-Pan

9-The Parasite

10-The Pet

11-Richmond Horror

12-The Satanist

13-The Shopper

14-The Fourth Man

15-Weeds

16-Wizards Blood

Additional Works

The Colony

The proximity klaxon blared as I reviewed the reports on colony B4917. For the past ten years, colonists had been slowly populating that alien planet under the variable red giant. However, in recent weeks the population declined dramatically. My job was to discover why.

I had to chuckle at that liberal use of the word, colonist. The inhabitants of this planet were not voluntary settlers, bravely seeking new worlds to conquer. They were serfs, and B4917 was a debtor's prison.

The Earth Federation solved many of its problems when it passed its Encouraged Settlement Act of 2145, almost a hundred years ago. The Act gave the Federated Government, disguised as the Federal Credit Agency, the FCA, the right to conscript delinquent borrowers into the CCC, the Civilian Colonial Corps.

On paper, they remained in the CCC until they repaid the debt to their creditors. In actuality, no one ever returned from a CCC settlement. The cost of a return shuttle to Earth was prohibitive. Once a person went to a colony, they remained as indentured servants for the remainder of their lives. They spent the remainder of their lives toiling for the Credit agencies of the FCA. The roots of this system began in the early twentieth Century, when an American President named Woodrow Wilson founded the Fed, ultimately giving control of the world’s financial systems to the bankers, outside of any realistic government oversight and control; ultimately allowing the banks to become ‘too big to fail’.

Credit was easy to obtain. The credit companies were as quick to act on delinquent debts as the credit was to obtain. As a result, the Federal Credit Agency was the most profitable organization in the history of the known universe. Literally billions of people lived under the heavy fist of the banks,

But to be fair, the colonists enjoyed the care and protection of the FCA. They were a valuable commodity to the Credit Agency. They represented cheap labor that worked long, hard hours for room and board. The fruits of their labor filled the coffers of companies back on Earth.

B4917 was a mild planet. It boasted a high oxygen atmosphere and the gravity was slightly lighter than that of Earth. The climate ranged from frigid to tropic and was quite stable. There were no indigenous life forms that posed any threat to man. It was an ideal planet on which to work.

However, it had suddenly become an ideal planet on which to die. Being a relatively new colony, it was sparsely populated. However, the entire colony of four hundred fifty-one men, women, and children apparently died within a few weeks’ time. The final reports from the colony overseer suggested that everyone just quietly disappeared into the snowy terrain, one by one, never to return. Eventually, even the overseer ceased communications with Earth.

Ultimately, the only sign from the colony was the automatic beacon. This hyperspace beacon automatically transmitted a compressed beam to Earth when certain extraordinary circumstances occurred. One such occurrence resulted when the motion detectors in the colony did not detect any form of life or movement within the confines of the colony complex. The purpose of that trigger was more protective than benign. The Credit Agency feared desertions of their property, the workers.

That beacon blasted its message into the void more than a month ago. The Credit Agency ordered me to investigate and deal with the problem. The loss of the colonists represented a financial loss of thirty million credits a day on the books of the Agency. They wanted the problem handled quickly.

As was my habit, I spent the entire hyperspace trip in normal time. I declined the normal procedure of suspending animation for the duration of the trip. I refused this sleep whenever practical. The suspended animation process detracted a year from the life span for each month that a person spent in suspension. I like life and I'm not inclined to give up a year of my life to avoid a month of boredom. Besides, I used the time to study the data cube full of information on the colony.

After landing on B4917, the computer built into my armored suit would not permit me to sleep until I completed the mission. In ways, I envied the colonists; at least they had some semblance of control over their pitiful lives; I had none.

Looking up from the report, I gazed at the computer-simulated view of B4917. It was a small planet, with only eight percent of its surface occupied by liquid. Like Earth, the two polar caps were white. The remainder of the planet's surface ranged from pale yellow to rich blue.

These colonists were miners of the B ruby, it was important to all industrial and military laser applications.

This ruby, found in abundance in the southern snowfields of B4917, was the purest in the known universe. The incidence of flawed B rubies was fewer than one in a million. The Credit Agency had a ready market for their perfect gemstones.

With a breakdown in treaties with the Arcturians, war was looking eminent. Hence, the value of the rubies escalated. The Credit Agency was frantic to get the mining operation back on schedule. They even conscripted five hundred borrowers whose loans merely fell into the questionable range and were preparing to ship them to B4917 shortly after I departed,

The new colonists were to arrive five days after my touch down at B4917. The colony complex had to be secured for the new colonists. That was my job, to discover and correct the problem and secure the compound and operations, all within five days.

I tapped a few simple commands on the keyboard of the computer terminal. I archived the file on B4917 into the safety of the computer. While the keyboard was a twentieth century anachronism, it was my preferred means for communicating with the computer. I liked antiquities.

I braced myself for the landing cycle. I had instructed the computer to land gently, since it had a conscious human onboard. However, the Agency computers often misinterpreted the limitations of the human body. All too often, they landed the ships as if nothing was alive. I prepared myself for a bout of unconsciousness.

However, the computer controlling my ship must have been a newer model. It maintained a very comfortable rate of descent. All the maneuvers were gentle and slow. To my pleasant surprise, the ship landed on the pad for the compound as if it had a human at the controls. The skids creaked slightly as the weight of the ship slowly settled on them. Then, the slight vibration of the engines ceased. I nodded my head in appreciation at the programming of the new computer.

A few quick commands instructed the ship's computer to access the colonial data banks. I stood up and began making my preparations for departure. Since there was evidence that the colonists may have met with a violent fate, I had authorization to carry weapons. The weapons cabinet hissed open for me to select my armament. I chose a heavy projectile rifle, again a relic from the twentieth century. I had learned painfully that many life forms are immune to pulse weapons and often react too slowly to beam weapons. I never met a creature that could continue hostile actions with gaping holes carved out of its body by steel jacketed bullets.

I also carried a laser pistol. It was the latest design, using a small reactor in the handle for a power supply. The weapon also used the new beam concentrator to trap stray emissions of energy and redirect them back into the primary beam. This resulted in a twelve percent increase in output wattage. The weapon had the power of a small cannon for twenty years earlier.

The computer console beeped to tell me that it had located and opened the overseer's log file within the colonists' computer. Stepping close, I tapped a few commands to scroll the file. According to that log, the people disappeared from all points around the colony complex. That did not make sense; there was no discernable pattern. The disappearances happened randomly throughout the day and night; it did not seem to be a coordinated desertion.

Giving up on that track, I delved into the reports from the Science Section. Every colony has a Science Section. This section performs experiments that are too dangerous or illegal on Earth. Science Sections throughout the universe made many valuable discoveries and many blunders, often costing thousands of innocent lives.

One item caught my interest because it violated all the safety procedures mandated to the Science Section. The scientists had been working with genetic engineering. They tried to produce a burrowing insect that would dig in the ruby fields, loosening the soil for the miners. Evidently, the scientists had succeeded in gene splicing a large antlike creature they had discovered with an indigenous snow worm. The resulting half meter creature proved to be what they sought. However, the report stated that it was a rapid reproducer and aggressive with exposed to other forms of life.

The scientists disposed of the mutant by dumping it in the snowfields outside of the colony, expecting it would perish outside of the labs. That was a direct violation of safety procedures. One does not introduce an unknown life form to a planet's surface without insuring that it has a natural enemy.

I cursed them for being fools. Reading on, the report stated that they produced three 'sexes' of the creature, male, female, and asexual. The Science Section destroyed the males and females and just dumped the asexual creatures into the snowfields. They felt that the few survivors might accidentally help the miners before they died of starvation and exposure.

Damned fools! I could not contain myself. I was not a specialist in exobiology. Yet, even I knew that the snow worm was immune to the frigid temperatures of the snowfields. I also knew that it reproduced asexually, like the earthworm back home. If those characteristics carried across in the gene spliced animal, the entire snowfield could be crawling with the mutated ant worms. Damn!

Since I might have to contend with an army of ant worms, I grabbed a sonic shield generator and strapped it on my back. I carefully plugged it into the portable computer of my suit of armor. I hated to carry the extra weight. Yet, it generated a field of sound that had always been very effective in disrupting the nervous system of every known order of life in the universe. I could only guess at the origin of the antlike creature with that they crossed the snow worm genes.

The overseer's log stated that the colonists disappeared from all points around the colony proper. I had some tricks at my disposal that even the colony overseer did not suspect. On a hunch, I used one of them now. Tapping a command on the keyboard, I probed the activity log. At the colony construction time, the engineers placed sensors that tracked the traffic at any point in or around the colony. The original intent was to help with statistics and planning. However, it had also detected valuable discoveries that the colonists tried to conceal from the Credit Agency. I scanned the activity log, searching for departures from the colony with no corresponding returns.

I found what I expected, four hundred fifty-one departures from the colony complex with no returns. Contrary to the overseer's reports, all the colonists disappeared in a direction northeast of the colony. This began to smell of a conspiracy.

The computer beeped twice as it transmitted this information to two unknown destinations. Curious, I entered a few deft keystrokes that told me two other enforcers were working this case. Having more than one enforcer on a mission was unusual. I began to have misgivings. Shutting off the computer, something nagged at my subconscious.

Feeling as secure as possible, I opened the hatch and stepped outside into the wind whipped snow of B4917. The hatch snapped shut behind me as my foot crunched into the dry snow. For a moment, I stood in the blowing snow, letting the icy particles brush against my bare face. Then, I lowered my helmet visor into the ready position. The visor offered some protection from the elements. Its primary function was to serve as a display media for the 'heads up display' output option from my portable computer. I set an alarm for the computer to alert me when the other enforcers arrived.

Due to my linkage with the computer, the hatch would not open for me unless I was wearing the body armor. I effectively carried my prison wherever I went. The ship would be secure; opening only at my command. A starship was a valuable commodity on a planet such as B4917. It represented an escape from the Federation created hell of their existence. Any of the colonists would kill for a ship like mine. Of course, it was common knowledge that the ships respond only to their living pilots. I was reasonably secure that no one would kill me for my ship.

Since it was a capital offense for them to have a weapon, I felt safe from a beam or stunner attack at the hands of the colonists. Of course, I did have to keep my eyes open for the potential threat of the ant worms that the colonists released. That could prove to be a real problem.

The miles faded quickly under my stride. Being in my prime, I could walk for days without suffering. Besides, since the mission had begun, the computerized armor would keep me functioning until I completed my mission, or I died. At this point, I was as much machine as man. I was at the mercy of the Credit Agency computers.

I always felt a thrill at walking the soil of an alien planet. There was so much to see, hear, smell, and experience. Of course, all I experienced at the time was a lot of cold snow. In time, I turned up the heating unit on my suit and checked the odometer. I had walked fifteen miles already. I was well out of the range of the tracking sensors.

The computer beeped twice as information automatically broadcast to the other enforcers. Disturbed, I paused briefly and surveyed the snowscape around me. It was bleak and barren. I seriously doubted that the colonists would be able to travel the fifteen miles as easily as I had. After the first three miles, I stopped seeing any sign of the colonists' passage. I decided to go another five miles before turning back.

As I walked, I thought I detected a slight movement in the snow beside me. As a precaution, I switched on my motion detector and scanned the suspect area. The 'heads up display' screen on my helmet visor blinked at me. There was something in the snow, ten meters to my right. I altered my course and readied my rifle. As the detector continued to blip, I advanced on the slight movement.

Within seconds, I was standing inches away from the movement. I could see the snow shifting as the object moved under the white powder. Using the barrel of the rifle, I nudged the creature below the snow. It chittered at the interference but offered no resistance.

Encouraged by the passiveness of the animal, I reached down into the snow with my armored glove and grasped the struggling creature.

When I pulled my hand from the snow, I found myself staring at a huge ant. It was metallic blue and eighteen inches in length. It had huge mandibles and an elongated abdomen that still showed the serrations of its worm ancestry. The tail added another six inches to its length. I was holding one of the ant-worms created by the Science Section's gene splicing experiments.

As the creature struggled in my grip, its tail lashed futilely; its six legs kicked wildly. However, during this time, it made no attempt to use its mandibles on my readily available wrist. It showed no signs of hostility. Lifting the visor of my helmet, I stuck my nose close to it and sniffed cautiously. It lacked the acidic smell characteristic of Earthly version of that genus. Throughout the universe, all ants and wasps smelled of the acid they carried in their 'stinger'. This creature had no apparent odor.

I sat the animal on the snow and watched it burrow into the frigid powder and leave a trail of disturbed snow as it scurried away from me. I could not believe that this creature was responsible for the destruction of the entire colony.

On a hunch, I followed the path it created. Within moments, the motion detector on my chest blipped wildly. I was nearing a large concentration of moving forms. Perhaps I'd discovered the colonists. Again, the computer beeped twice. The computer assimilated everything I saw and transmitted it to the other two Credit Agency enforcers. I began to feel resentment at this invasion of my right to act independently, and a little threatened; Enforcers never worked together.

With a caution bred of countless surprises across the universe, I crept forward slowly. The slight rise of the snowfield provided me a modicum of concealment. I prepared the projectile rifle. I wanted to 'fire a round across their bow', to get their attention. In my current mode as an enforcer, I was a Credit Agency Marshall. I had the power to arrest, convict, and execute violators of the Federation law.

As I topped the rise, I took in a breath of surprise. Fifty yards below me was the opening to a huge mound. Around the opening were hundreds of scurrying antworms, moving about with apparent purpose. I pulled my binoculars and stuck them to my eyes with my left hand.

There was no doubt about it; they were the same species as the one I had released. I adjusted the optics and could distinguish differences among the insects. I could see the type I had released. Yet I could also see a longer, more worm like version, and a winged version of the same insect. They were of the same species. Yet, the differences pointed out another incongruity in the report of the Science Section. They had not destroyed the males and females of the species. They had released them into the countryside along with the asexual version of the ant worm.

By their foolishness, they had allowed the ant worms to reproduce sexually and asexually. That mound could contain millions of eggs, waiting to hatch.

With full understanding of the implications, I turned back toward my ship to begin an annihilation run over the colony of insects. As I did, my foot slipped in the loose snow and soil. The suit gyroscope whirred angrily, attempting to retain my balance. However, it could not overcome gravity. I tumbled precipitously down the sharp incline toward the mound. Somewhere along the way, as I tumbled head over heels, I lost my rifle.

The momentum of my fall carried me up the side of the mound and was still enough to carry me over the edge. I fell a considerable distance and landed heavily on my back. For long moments, I gasped violently, trying to regain my breath. As I struggled, countless insects crawled over my struggling form.

Finally, my lungs began functioning again. I sat up abruptly and panted heavily. A huge male crawled across my lap. I watched it in horror, thinking it would soon rip me apart with those vicious looking blades.

However, the insect appeared unconcerned about my presence in its nest. It continued its path, ignoring me completely, treating me as no more than a minor obstacle as it continued on its path.

I struggled to my feet, being careful to avoid stepping on any of the insects. They had shown no signs of hostility so far, and I hesitated to antagonize any of them while trapped in their nest. The computer beeped once, one of the enforcers had arrived. I gazed upward at the dark sky, ten meters above me. I started to climb out of the nest and then paused. I wanted to investigate the nest some more. I wanted to see if I could find any signs of the missing colonists. If the ant worms had attacked them, there would be human bones in the nest. I knew that I had to inspect the nest.

I drew my laser pistol and turned on the flash beam on my shoulder. I turned downward and followed the tunnel, occasionally stopping as an ant worm trundled past, carrying some unidentified burden.

These insects were unlike Earthly ants. They made their tunnels very large and spacious. I attributed that to the inbred need to burrow. I decided it was very probably the result of human genetic engineering.

I had no difficulty walking through the tunnels. Only once did I have to duck my head to pass through a constriction in the tunnel. The insects remained unconcerned about my alien presence in their nest. They accepted my willingly, almost eagerly. The insects acted like domestic animals, enjoying the companionship of a human. They seemed to take turns ‘escorting me’ in my travels.

I wandered through the tunnels for hours, the computer on my back logged my path. With the computer, it was impossible for me to get lost. It tracked every move I made. With a few commands on the tiny key pad, it could guide me from the maze, by the shortest possible route. However, it also reported everything I did to others.

Finally, I came upon the nursery. I gazed at the hundreds of thousands of eggs in the cavernous opening. Yes, the scientists had released both males and females along with the asexual ant worm.

Since I felt no danger from the ant worms, I holstered my laser pistol. Realizing that I was hungry and thirsty, I sat down and opened a provision packet. I watched the insects while eating. Then, I realized that the tunnels were exceptionally clean. There was no debris of any kind in