Little Dead Monsters (21 page)

Jocelyn never had an appreciation for jazz before but listening to the fiery sounds of Miles Davis, which seemed to defy the norms of musical tradition, she grew to love it along with all music she was exposed to.

The cottage became their secret little place, one that only she and Sandor shared. Jocelyn felt guilty at first for not telling Danielle but Sandor convinced her otherwise.

“She’ll just hog everything for herself, like she always does,” he had said.

“Danielle’s not like that.”

“You don’t know my sister very well. She’d steal your left sock just because you had two. She thinks she deserves at least one of everything.”

Jocelyn allowed Sandor to keep this place a secret. After all, they could spend quality time alone together, at the expense of sleep of course. 

They were having such a wonderful time that Jocelyn at moments forgot the world around them was ending.

And then Sandor caught pneumonia, hacked out blood and mucus for a week, and eventually died. He was so thin and pale when he drew his last breath that Jocelyn hardly recognized him.

He was the first person that Jocelyn cared for to die—that was if her mother was still living. He wasn’t going to be the last.

After Sandor’s death, Ralph Leclair seemed to give up on life altogether. He struggled to wake from his bed and do all the things he did to ensure everyone’s survival, such as hunting and ice fishing.

It was obvious to Jocelyn that Sandor had been his favorite of his two children.

It was left to Jocelyn and Danielle to carry on the heavy burden of keeping them all alive. By midwinter, Danielle and Jocelyn had become quite adept at ice fishing.

However, on one unusually warm day during the long winter, the ice beneath Danielle’s feet caved in. Just like that she was gone, swallowed up by the lake.

Sadness radiated from her belly all the way to her tear ducts and Jocelyn cried the entire way home. She felt guilty.

Jocelyn should have shared her and Sandor’s secret place with Danielle. It was a place that made them most happy and with the world in the state it was, didn’t happiness deserve to be shared with everyone?

And now Danielle was dead and she’d never get the opportunity to listen to jazz or read comics books or play with bobbleheads.

The very next day, Ralph Leclair decided he needed to go for a walk. He never returned.

Jocelyn was abandoned once again—first by her father, then by her mother, and finally by Ralph.

It was only a matter of time before Jocelyn also caught pneumonia too. She was chained to her bed, buried underneath layers of blankets that Sandor, Danielle, and Ralph once used. Her coughs were violent and at times, specs of blood littered the sheets.

She was going to die, she concluded. Jocelyn wished she had the strength to visit the cottage full of treasures one last time, to fall asleep forever to the sounds of glorious music, but she just didn’t have it in her to move. 

Jocelyn closed her eyes and waited for death to come, with his long bony hand gripping his crescent moon scythe.

Moments after, the front door burst wide open. In strolled one of the aliens, just in time to hear Jocelyn go through one of her coughing fits. He headed to the bedroom. His face was a mask of ambivalence.

Jocelyn’s heart leapt out of her chest when the alien appeared at the bedroom doorway. She was too tired to fight or even sit up in bed. Instead, she closed her eyes and hoped the pneumonia would put her out of her misery before the butcher could.

Much to her surprise the alien didn’t end up murdering her. Instead, he lifted her in his massive arms, cradling her as if she were a new born baby, and carried her out of the cottage and into a ship, smaller than the ones she had seen tearing open the sky.

He laid her in the passenger seat, covering her with a blanket, and then switched on the ignition.

He remained silent the entire time.

As the ship made its ascension through the clouds, past the earth’s atmosphere, and towards the mysteries of the star-speckled universe, Jocelyn managed to catch a final glimpse of earth.

Fire, ash, and a mountain of bones—that was the last memory she’d ever have of her home planet.

Unlike its birth, the earth did not go out with a bang.

It died with a whimper.

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About Kieran Song

I’m an author, sorcerer, and Overlord. I also write books that typically involve: gods, monsters, magic, spaceships, heroes, villains, aliens, knights, princesses, eunuchs, frickin’ lasers, the undead, collywobbies, and crazy cat women.

I have inconclusive evidence that the Universe revolves around my uvula.

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Author’s Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events 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.

The following works, falling under the public domain, are referenced in this work of fiction:

William Blake.
Songs of Experience - “The Tyger”.
1794

Alexander Dumas.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
France. 1844

Miguel De Cervantes.
Don Quixote.
Juan de la Cuesta. 1612

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via Internet or any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Published By: Beyond Infinity Publications

Published in Canada

Copyright © 2016 Kieran Song

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-9917728-0-3