Sunday, January 4, 2015

Short Story: "Killer Clothes"

Introduction

          I want to share with you a very short piece I wrote, being a fan of science fiction, that was more for the absurdity and the unusual than anything else.  Myself, I am seldom completely serious when I write, and this piece is a good display of what happens when my silly side takes over.  I won't bore you with my process, this pieces was short and sweet, and to the point.  I do hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.  Thank you.





                                                                   "Killer Clothes"


            “Before you open the portal, remember, it is a different reality.  The longer you spend in that reality, the more it takes hold on you”.
            There they stood in that stereotypical basement lab of drab concrete and stainless steel counters, an open space cleared and squared off with yellow and black tape defining the portal area.  The doctor, a white haired man in his sixties wearing a bright red bowtie and a lab coat…his adventurous assistant, a young woman in her thirties with shoulder length blue hair, thick black framed glasses, and dressed in white tank top with  a turquoise cardigan over it and khaki capris and a pair of comfortable black lo-top chucks on.  Rather than safety gear for the lab, they had decided a normal appearance might not be as much of a shock.
If only she knew…
            “Doc, I’ve got this…I’ll only be there long enough to observe..”, as she spoke, holding the handheld portal reactor, she started to dial in, using the phasing frequency for her own reality as a base to return to…the Doc really had thought of everything.  When the portal opened, it’s silvery vortex shining and rippling, both stood in awe for a moment before the Doc urged her forward silently, turning, she nodded at him and then stepped through…
            …and as soon as her feet hit the ground, the portal dissipating behind her, she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up, her skin tingling beneath her clothes in the warm air.  Something in this reality was very different, and it was fascinating! 
            Also scary.
            Looking around, she’d managed to step out into a mostly modern world, except that there was an important feature missing that brought color to her cheeks.  The people around her that stared at her with awe and pity were all nude!  Why though? It didn’t make any sense.  Everyone gave her a wide berth as she walked down the street, making her way to the sidewalk.  Another thing she noted in her mental observations was that it seemed there was no fabric.  The only other clothing she saw was alone and unbothered, oddly on mannequins set out on a street corner with chains hook to the fabric…so odd.  Why would they need to hook chains to clothes?
            Deciding it was time to do a little extra observation to better understand this, she stepped off the curb, looking both ways down an oddly empty street in what appeared to be a clean version of a post-apocalypse.  As she started across, the first person to approach her at all spoke to her in a shaky, fearful voice that sent shivers up her spine.
            “If you’re still you…take them off before they consume you!”
            Running off, the person left her standing there perplexed as she looked herself over, touching her glasses, of which the arms kept ticking her hair, and looking over her clothes.  She didn’t understand…consume her?  Also, she knew it was warm, but why were her feet sweating so profusely?  She was starting to squelch with every step.  It was a bit much.  Shrugging off the strange warning, though it nagged at her, she had to get a closer look.
            At first inspection, it looked like nothing more than a blood red cocktail dress and a pair of matching high heels.  The other mannequins looked more disheveled the clothes looked tattered, and oddly…shriveled?  Turning her attention to the dress, she walked closer, touching it.  It was warm, possibly from the sun.  A loc of hair at the side of her head fell free, the arm of her glasses tickling her ear again, brushing it away absently, not even noticing the plastic near her ear lobe, she continued her inspection.   It almost seemed the dress was moving a little.  It had to be the breeze.  So she decided to bend down and look at the shoes.  Not much of a person for high heels, they still weren’t bad…oddly, they appeared her size too…she almost wanted to take them.   Right up until the sun glinted off of something around the edges of them. 
            Suddenly, she couldn’t scramble back away from the display fast enough.  It was a fluid she readily identified as saliva, by it’s long term affect on the mannequin.  Standing in the middle of the street, suddenly everything about why these people were nude made sense…she couldn’t wait to tell the Doc!  Brushing at her ear again to get the hair away from it, her fingers swiped plastic. 
            Plastic?  Slowly, fearfully, her hands slid up to her ears.  Smooth plastic , the plastic arms of her glasses, it was curled around the bottom of her ears and slowly trying to protrude INTO HER EARS!  Grabbing and clawing at them in a panic, she started pulling and ripping frantically at the stubborn eyewear to get it from her head as it curled around her fingers and squirmed in it’s silent struggle.  As though coated in glue, the frames clung to the bridge of her nose, fighting vigorously.  It was at this point, that she could feel her other clothing items betraying her.
            Her shoes weren’t wet with sweat, it was the saliva of hungry creatures trying to devour her!  Pins and needles over her legs and torso was her shirt and pants injecting their tendrils into her bloodstream, her underwear was trying to attack her nether regions, and her bra was attempting to milk her somehow.  It was all so surreal!  But it was happening, and happening now as with a final painful tug she ripped the glasses from her face as they tried to  wrap around her wrists like a pair of intertwined snakes, she immediately let go shaking her hands violently to be rid of them dancing back, her steps suddenly awkward as she realized she was covered in living and hungry organisms that had once been her clothes.  The remote forgotten in frenzy as she had shoved it in a pocket, she frantically ripped the cardigan off, which felt like it had been part of her skin as she removed it, dropping it to the ground, the remote skittering out of it. 
            It was the bra and underwear she needed off so badly with their intimate advances.  Looking around as she struggled out of her tank top, hands shaking with fearful hurry, the nude people around her gathered to watch.  Peeling the tank top from her skin was like tearing away metal siding from a hangar bay.  As she struggled with the shirt, suddenly the sensation of something wrapping around her ankles made her pause, looking down just in time to see the laces of her chucks extended to wrap around her legs, yanking her feet together with such force that she was left tottering for long agonizing seconds, bending forward, then arching backwards as she teetered on the balls of her feet before crashing onto her back in the street.
            Woozy and still struggling with the shirt, terror racing through her like fire in her veins, it’s icy touch on her spine making her shudder, unable to get the shit off fast enough, but when she did, as it writhed in her grip, she flung it away, the crowd flowing away from it, and as she started on her pants, she looked down.
            “HOLY SHIT!”, in horror, her eyes as wide as they could go, she saw her shoes transform into a growing, gaping canvas maw as they coalesced into one large living blob that was intent on swallowing her whole, not unlike a python would.  For a few long moments, she didn’t move.  Then panic gave way to the need to survive as she kicked furiously, bending forward to use her hands too to peel the large mass off of her ankles, and it was like having a sack that had been soaked shellac wrapped around her feet.  Writhing and growling, she felt it clamp down on her toes firmly as she started to get it off of her.  Without thinking, she balled up a fist and hammered it a few times.            
            That did the trick, suddenly it just fell away, the insoles hanging out of the black canvas mass like a pair of tongues in a cartoonish fashion.   Scrabbling away from it before it woke up, and tearing her pants away, she started peeling them away down her legs as she tried to rid herself of them.  That final kick as she struggled out of her khakis and she was dancing for a different reason, as her bra and panties were attacking her ways that made her cheeks color more deeply, peeling the bra off was the easy part.  It was the panties that made her pause before pushing them down to hop out of them with a sharp, “Hey!”, as they made one last attack at her.     
            Stumbling backwards awkwardly onto the sidewalk, her skin red where she’d worn clothing, and having to squint so she could see clearly, she panted, looking around bewildered.  Suddenly she remembered the remote and started looking around, seeing it where she had dropped the cardigan, and picking it up whilst trying to somehow cover herself.
            Remote in hand, her right arm was across her chest, her feet and knees turned inwards as her other hands tried to cover herself below.  It was completely awkward, and at some point after she looked around, she gave up…she had more curves than most of the women…it made sense now.  Canting her head and jutting her jaw forward, she clicked the button to charge the portal back to her reality with all of the casualness of changing the channel on the tv.
            When the assistant did walk through back into the lab nude, the portal allowed to dissipate behind her, all she did was set the remote on the table, holding up a hand forcefully to cut the doctor off as she stared straight ahead.
            “I’ll write it all down later….”, as he nodded, she let her hand drop and her shoulders slump forward, “I am going to get a cup of coffee and just…be nude for a while…”
            As she walked off in a huff and slapping bare feet, the Doc just stood there in stunned silence…only to stare at the remote.

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