Catching Lightning

By Curtis A. Deeter

Dragons, dark wizards, mythology, space exploration, body modification addiction, and a solar system devouring planet-this collection has a bit of everything for fantasy and science fiction readers. Whether you are looking for a brief escape from reality or a deep delve into high fantasy, you are sure to find a story you love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Of Rust and Glass
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736772805

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Catching Lightning

stories by

Curtis A. Deeter

Logo, company name Description automatically generated

Catching Lightning

by Curtis A. Deeter

© 2021 Of Rust and Glass, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Published by:

Of Rust and Glass

607 River Road

Maumee, OH 43537

Typesetting: Curtis A. Deeter

Cover Art: Creative Inkwell

https://www.instagram.com/creativeinkwell/

ISBN: 978-1-7367728-0-5

This fantasy and science fiction collection is dedicated to everyone out there trying to catch a lightning bolt* of their own. Keep your eyes on the clouds. Yours is on its way.

*Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to physically catch a lightning bolt. That is insane…but is it just insane enough? No, no it is not. Refrain from such a bold action at all costs and leave them for us writers. We desperately need them to spark our imaginations.

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Contents

Catching Lightning

The Trial of Nabybee

Clark the Herald Sings

The Pale Horse Janky

Dice with Death

Groundhog’s Raid

ZizaCorp Merger

Goodnight, Model 44-X07

Itsuki’s Snowflake

Fire and Water

Trending

In a Silent World

The Great, the Terrible, and the Left Behind

The Ragtime

Making Thunder

The World Cries in Storm

Empty Sky, Mountain Tomb

Hello from the Children of Earth

The Cordwainer

The World’s Largest

When Pinky Met Sally

The Church of Luke

What Horror Excalibur Brings

Witness Protection

A Zombie, a Vampire, and a Genie Walk into a Bar

The Wyrms of IT

Noctis Labyrinthus Bazaar

Rings of the Reaper

Catching Lightning

You’re going to…try to catch lightning?

Yes.

And…put it in a jar?

Mhm.

Seymour, the patent officer, peered quizzically at me over the top of his spectacles. He scrunched his forehead until the lines began to look like wheat fields.

Fine, I’ll bite. With what are you planning to catch said lightning with, Mr. Faulkner?

Why, my hands, of course. It was as if he never caught a baseball or held a socket wrench. There was no difference with catching lightning; it was simply bolder. How else?

The patent officer sighed, removed his spectacles, carefully folding them shut, and set them on his desk between us. He shifted the photograph of him and his family, facing it away from me, and took a sip from a mug labeled, World’s Best Patent Officer. This must have been the only mug with that monogram in existence, and that was a little impressive.

He steepled his fingers. His mouth opened and closed a few times like the goldfish in the tank behind him, then he sighed again. To what end, dare I ask?

To having caught lightning, sir. I thought at least that much was apparent.

No, Mr. Faulkner. Let it be on record that I do not condone this sort of asinine, dangerous behavior. I want nothing to do with this ‘catching lightning.’ Please, leave my office before I’m forced to call security. I’m a senior partner. I do not have time for this…nonsense. I would advise you do something more productive with your time. Something your parents can be proud of.

I gathered my papers, stuffed them into my leather briefcase, and stood to leave. But, before I did, I turned and raised a finger.

Can I please—

He began dialing. I’m calling now, Mr. Faulkner.

Right. I tilted my hat. Good afternoon, then.

You see, I was something of a liar back then. I made things up, and people paid me to read those made-up things. Well, sometimes. Most of the time, they were ready to pay me to go away. Before I became a visionary—The Catcher of Lightning—before I won the Nobel Prize for Physics and Literature, I told stories about the last dragons and dark wizards, programmable automatons and anthropomorphic deities. I still tell those stories, mostly in my head, but I’m busy traveling the world to share my discovery with eager young minds.

But that’s not all there is to my story. It isn’t even the most important part.

The first time I was struck by lightning I was washing dishes. It wasn’t a particularly nasty thunderstorm, and there weren’t any signs to indicate that I should be worried about my well-being. I was only scrubbing plates, after all. 

A new episode of Cheers was playing in the background. If I listened carefully, I could hear laugh tracks and the clanking of beer glasses. There was the gentle tinkling of the shower upstairs, too. My wife. I warned her, Don’t you think you should wait until the lightning passes, but she insisted. It was her time of the day to wash away the disappointments. I hoped I hadn’t been one of them, but I never imagined it was actually me who had to worry about the lightning that day.

All I remember is a blinding flash of light. I was frozen; the pain was so bad, like my whole body was being pressed flat onto the stove top. Then, as quickly as it began, I was released, flung backward across the kitchen into our Michigan oak dining room table. Other than crispy around the edges, and smoking a bit from the ears, I felt okay. In fact, I felt amazing.

My mind raced, filled with images and scenes, characters and stories. I grabbed a notebook without hesitation. Three broken pencils later, I had filled six books and written my first four novels. Looking back, I don’t remember a single word I wrote, but they were among the first of many. My dream had begun.

Huzzah!

The Collective laughed in my face.

They claimed to be bigger than Shark Tank. They said their money, their brand, and their products were shaping the future. A deal with them meant success and riches beyond your wildest dreams, but they were exclusive. Very exclusive.

But they laughed until tears streamed down their polished cheeks. They laughed until they fell onto the floor, and then they laughed some more until I thought their sides might split one rib at a time.

The Boardroom was much larger than it had any right to be, and much higher off the ground. We were twenty-eight floors up in a room the size of a soccer pitch with nothing but a twelve-foot Ikea table in the center and a rolling, farmhouse-modern bar cart off to the side. If you ask me, staying grounded makes much more sense when it comes to cultivating ideas. That’s where, more often than not—and without any sort of rod—lightning strikes.

So, I said once they composed themselves, will you fund my project? It’s really a no brain—

I’m going to stop you there. Chad, the guy in charge, wiped tears off his face. He had creased his Armani suit in his hysteria, but the gel glooped into his hair held. Losing his do would probably have been the worst thing to ever happen to him. Yeah, no, my guy, he said. We’re not gonna be doing that.

Karen stroked her perfect blonde hair. We don’t invest in fantasy. She said fantasy like she had burned her mouth on a chai tea latte. Besides, how are we going to make money on lightning?

Well, all you have to do is—

It was rhetoric, my guy.

Julia smiled, and I felt a little better. She seemed like the designated dreamer of the group when I first walked in, and that gave me hope. Maybe someone might yet see reason.

Thank you for considering the Collective, Mr. Faulkner. Your pitch was…unique. Inspired, even. Unfortunately, your vision does not align with ours. We wish you all the best in finding the right investors for…What was it, again?

Catching lightning.

Right, that. Anyway, we hope you consider us for any future endeavors. Please, see yourself out, Mr. Faulkner.

We shook hands. I heard them laughing some more after the door closed behind me.

It’s hard for our visions to align, I thought, when you have no vision at all.

The second time I was struck by lightning I was walking home from school with Amelia Kramer. She was a tiny little thing, blonde with frog-like blue eyes and a tragic case of, No, thank you. I’m not hungry right now.

Before I was struck by lightning, I was too afraid to hold her hand. It was right there, brushing against my outer thigh as we meandered through the suburbs, each house a clone of the last. Where it was better to fit in than to stand out, to keep quiet than to make bold statements.

After I was struck by lightning, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how to say it. I composed an epic poem in eight colors of jelly roll, wrote the entire notebook full. I confessed my Shakespearean love to her in sonnets under the full moon. She wept. I wept. The neighbor’s cat wept. We were each other’s destiny: The girl who might float away and the boy with permanently spikey, silverish-blue-streaked hair.

Then, she moved to a facility on the other side of town. While I never saw Amelia again, she wrote me a letter that first week. Her letter said:

You’re going places, kid. Catch that lightning and share it with everyone you can. The world’s a sad, tired place. It needs a good recharging. Xoxo, Amelia.

Nothing about us. Nothing about herself or what she was going through. Just that: a brief word of encouragement and two ink-scrawled kisses and hugs. Somedays I can still feel the pressure of her pen on my cheek.

I gave a lot of speeches over the years. Small auditoriums filled with eager, under-engaged teenagers; theaters of desperate, middle-aged, working-class people who were never encouraged to chase their dreams; stadiums of geriatrics, using their last days to finally figure out who they were and what they wanted their legacies to be. Each speech left its lasting impressions on me. But my first, when I accepted my Nobel prizes, will always burn the brightest. 

To conclude, I said, "I’d like to say a few words to all of those who helped me get here today. Not for supporting me, not for giving me the tools and resources to accomplish the seemingly impossible, but for telling me no. For laughing in my face when I told you, ‘I’m going to catch lightning someday.’ You responded, ‘You’re crazy. You’ll do no such thing.’

"But I did it, didn’t I? I did it again and again and again. Now, we all live in a world of boundless possibility. We live in cities where dreams come true, dragons soar the skies, and people live together in intellectual harmony and abundance. We put a woman on Mars, we charted the deepest depths of the oceans, we unlocked the secret to eternal life, and more. We build monsters, for science’s sake. We can be whoever we want to be, do whatever we can imagine, and go wherever our feet desire. These things didn’t happen by accident. They happened because visionaries were in the right place at the right time, armed with one of my flasks. They allowed themselves to be receptive to the bolts of inspiration that otherwise miss us every single day of our lives.

In short, they caught lightning. And now you can, too.

The auditorium erupted in applause. Cameras flashed in rapid succession. Microphones were shoved in my face from every angle, questions assaulting me from close behind.

All I could do was smile. That was a moment I knew I would never forget.

The third time I was struck by lightning my heart stopped. But that’s okay. I’d already secured my legacy; it was someone else’s turn. Besides, humanity has everything it could ever want. All because some crazy kid dreamed it so.

Without further ado, here are my parting words. A few of those early pages, written in the heat of an electrifying moment. There are many, many more, but those will be revealed in due time.

The Trial of Nabybee

They brought Nabybee before the court in shackles, guarded by drawn witchfire and bound by a petrification weave so complex it made my head spin. He might as well have been crucified with the way they had his arms and legs strapped to the rack. Leave it to a magistrate of the High Court to make a martyr out of a monster.

We all stood to honor the magistrate, regardless of the trial’s outcome.

Magistrate Apocaplex guided Nabybee past my row. His eyes, so filled with hate and bloodlust, snapped to me, his lower lip quivered. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. Not with the number of protections they had in place. He should have been dead-frozen while they paraded him across the courtroom floor, but this man, remember, was Nabybee.

Bastion. His voice, like the hiss of a thousand serpents or the last sands of an hourglass counting my final hours, penetrated my mind. It wasn’t his voice; I’d heard his true voice every evening in my dreams since that night on the cliff side. It was the voice he wanted me to hear. Bastion, stand against me and you’ll regret it. This trial won’t change a thing. Your life and the memory of your little girl are the only things at stake here. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

But it is, Nabybee. It was too late as soon as you unleashed the storm. If anything, you brought this upon yourself.

He couldn’t hear me; I wasn’t cursed with the Gift. I didn’t hold such heresies above the Great Good. I wasn’t trapped by the same preconceived notions of power. I still feared God and his sway over the forces of the earth and thought nothing of the so-called Four Powers.

Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. And, to men like Nabybee, Life and Death. Those were the pillars of their profane existence.

When the dark wizard first came to be known, everyone in the kingdom had an opinion. Even my wife, despite my position, joined the conversation. But I don’t blame her. The news, and the rumors, spread like wildfire to all walks of life.

Bastion, it is our right by birth to wield the Gift. Why would we squander such pure, arcane power when it’s done so much for the prosperity of the kingdom? Julianna asked. Sure, your kind has helped in your way, but nothing like what we’ve provided.

My kind. Giftless.

If she’d been there…If only she’d stuck around long enough to see what the Gift had wrought upon those poor villagers…upon our sweet, precious little girl. My wife had other plans; she experimented with one too many dark magics and lost herself to a fate worse than death. When they took her from our cottage in the dark of night, I hadn’t the energy left to save her.

I’m not saying we should completely eliminate magic, I told her. I’m only saying…

But everything to follow was moot, as I was now weak in her eyes. Why would those with the Gift ever relinquish it? There was no way I could possibly understand, and she refused to take the time to teach me. After the magic took her, I took it upon myself to study with one of the masters—a man I found through patient inquiry and dumb luck. I wanted to understand; I wanted to see it through my wife’s eyes. What I learned added strength to my convictions. Magic was dangerous and needed to be restrained.

It was not, however, until Nabybee that I fostered enough courage to step forward.

Crimson magelight flared behind the magistrate’s bench.  Three nodes, representing the third day of the trial—three days of disappointment for the only real victim present. The only one left alive to tell the story, at least. Apocaplex astral projected, first to the stands to convene with the jury, then to his head bailiff, while he in the flesh organized the messy array of parchment laid out before him on his lectern.

As he snapped whole again, he boomed, Please, have a seat. This court is now in session.

Silence fell thick as fog. The familiar ringing in my ears came screaming back.

Release the weaves from the defendant. Order the prosecution forward.

Tendrils of blue-green energy poked their heads from the veins around Nabybee’s wrists and neck, retreating from his bloodstream and back into the air to rejoin themselves to the veil of power I did not—could not—understand. The shackles around his ankles, there mostly for show, snapped open and clattered onto the marble floor before disappearing in a sizzle of silver sparks. Nabybee gasped, hoarse and shallow, and fell to his knees as if he were taking his first breath. Four Prima Magi, wizards gifted solely with the ability to augment others, surrounded him before he could stand, staffs armed and eyes alert. The head bailiff ushered him to a crystalline dais in the center of the courtroom, summoning an impenetrable bubble of static around him.

Is all this really necessary? I heard him mutter, an arrogant half-grin on his face. It’s not as if I can go anywhere with you people breathing down my neck, is it?

The head bailiff could not answer even if he wanted. They rent his tongue from his mouth upon selection for High Court, but a look from him was ten times more persuasive than the most eloquent speech any practiced orator could muster.

Nabybee bowed. Very well, then. Proceed.

And the third day of Nabybee’s trial, my day to speak out against his many atrocities, officially began.

As Magistrate Apocaplex went through the mundane proceedings, my jaw chattered, and a terrible palsy came over my hands. My fingers shook so violently I worried they might shake straight off their knuckles. I worried my neighbors might sense my agitation and judge me not a credible witness. See this fidgety Giftless? they’d say. Who is he to dictate our ways? But no one noticed; they were all mesmerized by Nabybee.

The double, oaken courtroom doors swung open. The crowd turned with hushed anticipation towards the commotion. In swaggered a tall, white-haired man with flowing, emerald robes. Matching green tattoos swirled in perpetual motion across his cheeks and peaked above his piercing, silver eyes. He clanked his staff rhythmically on the tile as he approached the magistrate. To Giftless and Gifted alike, he needn’t an introduction.

Because of this man, Nabybee’s guilt was undeniable. On the first day, the inquisitor, Mace Balladuex, one of the most ruthless and efficient of his order—and the most arrogant—was called to the stands. I’m still not sure exactly what I witnessed, but there was fear—close to the level of fear I feel every day Nabybee and his like roam untethered—in the dark wizard’s eyes. Much like the magistrate’s astral projections, a black, demonic silhouette removed itself from the inquisitor’s body. With fingers like icicles, the shadow moved about Nabybee’s mind, prodding his hippocampus, awakening his darkest memories, until, scene by scene, the ritual replayed itself before our eyes. It had been so real I thought I was there.

Deep in the Great Mountain, down below into the depths of Hell we traveled. There, standing alone in a chamber forged by lava no larger than a common privy, but with a vast rocky ceiling higher than the clouds, he played. Surrounded by bones, covered in streaks of blood and flesh, Nabybee chanted. The timbre of his voice resonated throughout the courtroom. We could feel it in our hearts, hear it in the vibrations of our teeth. A young villager, snatched in her prime, was tied to a stake, hanging over a bed of spikes fashioned of bone. On her face, resignation. In her eyes, horror. She’d drowned herself in tears but had no more water to give. It was the end of her, this once beautiful, innocent young thing, and she knew it. We of the court knew it, too.

A roiling cloud appeared above them. Purple lightning flashed, tethering itself to Nabybee and to the woman. He cried out in pleasure. She screamed in pain. Columns of electricity built themselves into a living storm, striking the walls and the floor of the chamber. Her skin began to char, to peel from her bone. This is when I lost my breakfast and when I knew it had been too late for the girl and my village as soon as Nabybee had made up his mind.

All that was left was to show them my side of the story, to convince them something must be done to stop this from ever happening again. I’d have to face Mace Balladuex, open myself up to him completely. I’d have to abandon my convictions and everything I’d fought so hard for, if only for a few, vulnerable moments. It was up to me to show the world of magic how serious their problem had grown and how much worse it could get if they continued to do nothing.

Ser Bastion James, the magistrate called. I gulped sharp rocks. Take the stand, please. The court would like to hear your testimony now.

I felt like a ghost as I rose and inched past the anonymous family sitting next to me. The ringing amplified. Sonorous whispers from the crowd surrounded and battered me as I took the spotlight. The closer I drew to where Nabybee stood, the more pungent the aroma of his static ward became. It was singed hair and melted iron.

I remembered watching my grandparent’s cottage burn as a child. The woodsy vapors of the timber, and the sickly, sweetness of them left a lasting impression on me. Now, in his presence, the horrible loss of two people who had always been a staple in my life came rushing back. They too had been taken by a power-maddened wizard like Nabybee. An abomination. A false god.

Nabybee winked at me. You’ll never see them again, you know?

If I were a braver man, I would have lashed at him then, strangled him with my bare hands in front of everyone. Then again, I knew not the properties of his ward. It was likely they were designed to keep others out as much as him in.

But it was not the dark wizard who frightened me the most.

There he was, in all his splendor and gold embroidery, sneering at me from the magistrate’s side: Mace Balladuex, the most dangerous man in the room. But he wielded his power for the right people, the people who wrote the history books. So, no matter the consequences, his powers were celebrated. His Gift was for the greater good.

He spoke reassurance to me, but his exact words were garbled by the thrumming in my ears. My mouth was barren, my palms moist. The closer I got to him, the further away he seemed to stretch. Maybe if I kept walking, he would fade into the distant courthouse walls. Maybe he’d fade out of existence altogether and this whole experience would turn out to be a fantasy.

There was no ceremony to it. The demon shadow separated from the inquisitor, floated like smoke towards me, and stabbed its formless fingers into my mind. A shout caught in my throat, suspended in time. Spasms gripped my every muscle. Ice spread through my veins, hot and cold at once, and inescapably empty. Then, like living it twice, every agonizing second played in my head in vivid color, projected also to an audience of disinterested strangers.

Come on! Natalia said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me towards the cliff. Her eyes twinkled in the morning sunlight. They’re going to start without us.

Clouds like cotton balls lazed across the sky. I followed her. The lapping of waves from a hundred meters below, the familiar call of gulls, and the taste of sea salt on the tip of my tongue reminded me how it felt to be alive. Our planting was done. The Spring Festival, one of two times each year we celebrated the glory of life, was upon us, and the others had already sewed their seeds in the valley, built their cairns along the cliff’s edge, and prayed for the bountiful times to come.

I, of course, had done the same. I had also spent the better part of the year studying magic, trying to understand. Maybe that could be a thing of the past. Now, I got to spend time with my daughter, reveling in the miracle of her being, and that was all that mattered.

But she looks so much like her mother. In her eyes the most.

Dad, we’re going to miss the whole dance!

Once a year, we danced for the soil and for the rain. We danced for our cattle and for the strength of the trees. We danced for the newborn children who graced our village over the last year. This year, we had a lot to dance for. It had been a joyous season of plenty.

The children were always the first ones to arrive at the cliff side. They ran circles around each other, trailing streamers of every color of the rainbow. When they tired of their dancing, they sat cross-legged in circles and clapped hands or played selkie-selkie-siren until the elders arrived. We were up to thirty-four children now, more than there’d ever been in Unndover, and that was all the magic we ever needed in this world.

It was too bad Julianna wasn’t around to see them. She would have cried tears of joy at the opportunity to teach so many little ones. Alas, some lessons are learned too hard and too late.

Natalia and I were managing, though. Sometimes I lost sight of everything we had to be grateful for. The Spring Festival was exactly what I needed—what everyone needed. An opportunity to put the past behind me, forget about the scarlet-robed men who came and took away the love of my life, and simply enjoy my daughter’s company.

As the day grew old, and the moon rose in the sky over the sea like an heirloom platter, the festivities moved into full swing. There was face painting, magic tricks, storytelling, and acrobatics. We even had a contortionist from the great city Donne, who awed both the children and adults alike. The elders came, gave their speeches, and offered their appreciations. My eldest cousin, Alexa James, was honored for delivering her fourteenth child last week. She’d been born infertile, but her purposes went beyond her own body. Without her midwifery, any number of the thirty-four might not have seen the light of life.

When the elders left, the instruments and mead came out. Old Man McCann carried the tune on his flute, while the Santarro sisters played along on lutes. Before long, the impromptu band had everyone, myself included, stamping their feet and clapping their hands. I let Natalia try a sip of my mead. She scrunched her nose—that was also her mother’s nose—and spit the honey-hued liquid onto the grass.

Around midnight, I took my leave from the festival. We’d been at it for quite a few hours and it was high time to relieve myself. I chose the relative protection of the Wednesday Willow and thought myself the luckiest man in the world.

Looking upward to the sky, my reverie was abruptly ended by a sudden angering of the night.

A clap of thunder boomed across the sea, rattling the branches hanging loosely around me. Lightning flashed blue, close and sinister. Suddenly, the clear sky was covered in thick, black clouds. They rushed towards us and the waves below could be heard breaking high on the cliff face. The hairs on my arms stood straight up. A tingling sensation crawled across my skin, burrowing into my flesh like sand fleas.

I heard Natalia’s scream first and buttoned midstream. I sprinted up the hill towards the festival, calling her name, but she didn’t answer. The screams of my loved ones, my neighbors—my kin—echoed.

When I reached the top, I saw what had elicited the wails and nearly fainted. But I kept my wits for my daughter’s sake. In the sky, well above the surface of the sea, an insidious visage was forming. First the body, lithe and larger than any vessel I’d ever seen, then a maw of sharp, thirsty teeth, and finally two horns like wheat scythes. The Devil, because this spirit could be no other, unleashed a guttural laugh from its belly as it stretched its arms towards us. It plucked one of the Santarro sisters off the ground by her pigtails and tossed her to the dark waters far below. Then, it crashed bodily upon the cliff, shrouding us in an impenetrable fog.

Desperate, I felt around in the darkness. Natalia. Natalia! My sweet Natalia, where are you, girl? I shoved my way around faces I no longer recognized. Faces twisted and disfigured with fright. Natalia!

Here, father, she answered, but I could not pinpoint where her voice had come from. I’m scared, father. Please, help me.

I never found her, for