The Five Hundred: Short Stories 2019-2020

By S.G. Kubrak

These thought-provoking stories and vignettes sample a range of science fiction sub-genres: solarpunk, post-industrial, post-apocalyptic, science fantasy, paranormal romance, and many others. Inspired by the author's childhood on the Jersey Shore, or ripped out of his nightmares, "The 500" is a short collection filled with short stories for short attention spans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.G. Kubrak
• Release date: Jul 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781737592242

S.G. Kubrak

S.G. Kubrak grew up in Jersey City, just across the Hudson from NYC, where he spent his youth running barefoot on concrete and unsuccessfully avoiding trouble. Ever the wanderer, S.G. has traveled the world in search of new experiences but has always lived within a few hours' drive of home. Compelling, character-driven science fiction is S.G.’s genre of choice but because of his wayfaring nature, he will venture into urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and horror. S.G. is always looking for the best way to relay the "hero’s journey” without the use of visual aids, tired tropes, or two-dimensional characterization. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in suburban Virginia, but his heart is always in his native New Jersey.

Book preview

Inquefish

Iwatched the sea from the beach, waiting. The purple-black waves crashed on the shore with a loud but comforting crash. The full moon shone overhead in a cloudless inky black star-filled sky.

Beyond the breakers, the featureless ocean stretched to the horizon, partially hidden in grey haze.

I passed the time while I sat by watching horseshoe crabs emerge from the waves. They were venturing to the beach to lay their eggs and then return to the sea. They were so primitive, and yet perfect, not evolving in millions of years.

The beach was filled with the noises of nocturnal life. A mockingbird called in the stand of pine trees which lay behind the beach. The local pack of dogs barked in the distance. There were dolphins feeding beyond the breakers, and occasionally I could hear a splash as one of them breached.

I sat there on the beach as I had almost every summer night since my childhood. I buried my feet in the cool sand and my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt. Autumn drew near, and I would soon have to leave my family's summer beach house and head to the university.

But going to college to begin my undergraduate degree in marine biology did not hold the same excitement as this particular night. Both had me nervous and excited, but this was real-life fieldwork, I told myself, not sitting in a lab dissecting fetal pigs. I hoped tonight would be the first night I would see them.

The school moved up slowly from the equator where they had been spotted. At first, they meandered in the doldrums. For a year they drifted listlessly in that warm, breezeless stretch of ocean. Then, last spring, they caught the Gulf Stream and had been riding up the coast ever since.

Sometimes they would get off the great river in the ocean, staying within sight of the coast for weeks, always heading north. They would sit offshore during the nights, the lights from their eyes glinting in the distance like fireflies blown out to sea. As if they were watching us.  

No one knew where they came from. There were theories they were a newly discovered species of flying fish or eel. Others believed they might have been native to an undersea thermal vent, and some catastrophe brought them to the surface. Still, there were others, myself included, who thought their appearance directly connected to an unexpected meteor shower over Ascension Island last year.

Research vessels had been dispatched to study our new visitors. They were captured and dissected with relative ease, offering no resistance.

They were deemed primitive and harmless possessing simple organs and no offensive capabilities. The single eye perched on the solitary eyestalk glowed with a form of bioluminescence, like the anglerfish. But these eyes glowed blue-white with the brilliance of a spotlight. Biologists believed they were powered like electric eels, electrolytes that ran the length of what could best be described