The Collectors and Other Stories

By Daniel Fellows

The Collectors
Earth is a scorched wasteland.
Nothing more than a husk of its former self. Nothing else lives on the surface except for rats, cockroaches and other vermin.
An advanced alien race finally touches down on the surface of the dead Earth.
But they are greeted by more than the rats and the other scurrying vermin.

Flyby
Michelle and Peter have just had an argument, the worst agument they have ever had. And he has just given her an impossible ultimatum.
But amidst the traffic jam they find themselves in they witness, coming from the heavens, something which will change themselves, and the world, forever.
Something which helps Michelle to make the decision Peter has confronted her with.

Grave Mistakes
Mike is your every day, ordinary guy. He just wants to go to work, make his wife happy and, of course, make his boss happy too.
Making his boss happy, tonight, is going to be one of his biggest mistakes which could cost him his life and his immortal soul.
Mike Turner is visited by something which is making mistakes of its own.

Killing a Million Shadows
Patrick Neely is a good hard working kid, going to his very first job interview.
After a minor accident on the subway, Patrick starts to see his shadow do some
strange things; like wave at him, looking out the train window at the passing commuters.
What does his shadow want? Is it all in his mind? And why does his shadow call him a murderer?

Going Zombie
There has been a strange outbreak in an Australia suburb and the residents have been quarantined.
No one leaves and no one enters.
The outbreak only affects the female portion of the population, turning them temporarily into creatures that resemble the undead.
And slowly the change is lasting longer.....and there is a fear it is spreading to the male populace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Fellows
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201914950

Book preview

The Collectors and Other Stories

Daniel Fellows

Copyright © 2022 by Daniel Fellows

All rights reserved.

The Collectors © 2022 by Daniel Fellows

Flyby © 2022 by Daniel Fellows

Grave Mistakes © 2022 by Daniel Fellows

Killing a Million Shadows © 2019 by Daniel Fellows

Going Zombie © 2019 by Daniel Fellows

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This contains works of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in the fiction are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not reproducedin any form without permission.

Contents

The Collectors

Flyby

Grave Mistakes

Killing a Million Shadows

Going Zombie

Acknowledgments

About Author

Also By

THE COLLECTORS

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Agust of wind blew from the south, stale and dry, and clouds of dust lifted into the air and then gently rained down like grey snow onto the dead earth.

Once people had populated this planet.  Large crowds of intelligent bipeds traversed the planet in motorised lumps of metal, flew through the air in pressurised tubes with all useful amenities at hand.  The oceans, before the radiation and the poison, had not been neglected by the ape descendants, swimming and surfing on boards of foam, cruising and fishing, going to war on gargantuan ships, nation against nation, and also diving to incredible depths, seeking treasures and fame and glory.

Starting from one geographical area, less than a blink compared to the entire history of the planet and then finishing off dominating the planet and then slowly intruding into the deathly quiet of space.  

Like an infestation they grew.

Like a virus they spread.

Growing, consuming, destroying.

And then in a blink, in a conflagration of radiated fire, and billions of screams, it ended.

Extinguished.

The silence, if any human had survived to hear it, was truly deafening. 

All noises caused by modern transport, sporting events and communication devices that had become ubiquitous in the last fifty years or so of the earth’s existence suddenly ceased.  All transmissions and broadcasts went dead, the screams and terrified pleading caused by countless millions vanished in an instant. The face of the earth scorched black; the blue sky darkened from the rising ash.  

Billions gone.

Years passed, decades in fact, and the falling ash dissipated.  The ensuing winter caused by ash blocking the life-giving rays of the sun finally cleared enough and plant life started to take over.  At first the progress was slow, almost glacial, but eventually green flora surfaced through cracked and broken concrete, sprouting from the earth underneath. Flowers and freshly planted saplings, blown hither and thither with the wind from miles around, reached for the sky, in a gradual and silent show of victory of startling greenness.  

What had been once an ocean of freshly paved highway, white lines striped down the centre was now a roughly hewn dilapidation, cracked and torn asunder.  Vehicles of all descriptions had used this road once; cars, trucks, motor bikes and the occasional stretch limousine carrying self-important celebrities and businesspeople.  Now greenery was showing.  Flowers were starting to sprout, opening their petals to hug the

world they had once dominated centuries earlier, before the rise and rise of man.  But now, since the fall, it was theirs again. 

The greenery spread for miles, following the highway where the terrain changed from open fields of farmland to broken shards of concrete and twisted and melted metal.  What had once been proud and tall buildings, now lay in ruins.  Not one single building remained intact as the detonations that had spread around the world wreaked havoc and knocked over everything in its path.  Office buildings, apartment buildings, now home to dead memories and corpses long since decayed.  Former government buildings, charred emblems and tattered flags whipping in the wind, were a stark reminder of what had been. 

Old roads and laneways were buried in fallen debris, entire buildings and warehouses collapsed in on themselves, blocking any form of entrance or escape into the area, if anyone were alive to use them.  

There is movement though, small and hurried.  Frantic. 

Small black creatures, furry and disease infested, scurry from one shelter to another.  Its vision is impaired, not completely, but enough for it to be weary of other vermin in the area.  It has survived this long because of its other heightened senses and its awareness of the larger predators in the area.  Food, once plentiful, is now a much sought-after

commodity.

The rat raises its whiskered nose into the air and sniffs, catching the sweet aroma of decaying meat it knows is in the area.  She can’t see it, her vision isn’t that good, passed down through the generations, a hallmark of the radiation.  But the rat doesn’t know this.  It just knows food, water and shelter.  And survival.

Survival is its first priority.  Without survival everything else is moot.  Without survival there is no food to be caught, no water to be drunk, no shelter at the end of a very busy day.

Survival.

The rat twitches its nose and scratches behind its left with sharp claws and it ruminates on its next move.  The lack of vision does not impede its ability to sense danger, rather it enhances it, allowing it to focus on its other senses, senses it has come to trust more than sight.  Its ears twist this way and that, scanning for any threats ahead, and to its relief nothing comes to its attention.

But it still waits.

A feeling is still there, a deep dread down inside the rat’s stomach and a feeling within a region of its radiated brain. Caution is its friend, but hunger urges it on.  The rat takes a step forward out from under a slab of concrete, the sun’s rays beat down on the greying fur of the rat and it quickly makes the decision to rush forward to the next shelter it can sense is only a short distance.

The thing zig zags as it scurries forward, tiny paw prints appear in the sand and dust created and just as quickly disappears with gentle gusts of wind blowing from the west.

The rat knows threats don’t just come from the ground, from its own kind and other critters eager to feed on ground dwellers.  But most of the threats it has to be aware of are from above.  As the rat scurries from overhanging concrete shelter to overturned signs, red with age and rust, it sniffs at the sky, listening for the flapping of wings or feeling for the approaching shadows it knows are caused by these flying creatures.  The rat has felt, rather than seen, its fellow rodent being swooped upon and lifted into the sky, loud screeches dwindling in volume as their predators fly higher and higher into the sky.  Only to release their prey from hesitant talons.  

Its mates and children had suffered this fate.  Far too many of its kind.  

The rat crawls over detritus and broken things hurriedly as it senses the closeness of the meat, its sweet aroma nearing with each step.  It feels saliva forming in its mouth and its tongue moves hungry inside its own mouth, lapping it up.  It crawls from slab to slab, finding shelter when it can, extending its senses out