Fan Fics, Original Fiction, and Fantasy

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Dee Cee

 

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Umm, enough so you feel the need to do a Culture fan fic?

Do you think we should start an Iain M Banks thead for our american cousins who might not have heard of him?
Lets not forget his friend, ken Mcleod, who has been influenced by Banks, but has his own interestingly different take on things.

 

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Sounds like an idea. Considering current world events 'consider phlebas' is becoming something of a parable.
Hey guthrie Have you tried 'Light' by John Harrison? It has more than a touch of banks about it?
Dee Cee

 

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I find myself developing my characters and worlds in this manner. Writing little shorts with them. This one is part of the background on some of the little critters that serve him.

 

By the way, who might be willing to compile all the fics written here? It will be fun (I guess) if bookstores have a story collection full of these stories? I am aware that none of the fics here are long enough to be made into a novel alone, so, that's my idea.

 

Dee Cee, how do you suggest Consider Phlebas as a parable? I'm no use at parables, i see things just as they are, not parables, but its interesting to consider which side relates to which. I htink I'll start a thread, since you havnt.
AS for M John Harrison, I dont think I've read anything of his, I might buy light, if its out in paperback and I can find a copy. Ive been trying to catch up with new authors in the past couple of months, whilst I have the money to buy new books.

Gifted- thats probably a good way to start. Myself, I think up bits and pieces of ideas, discard some, come up with set pieces, and they are all aligned with the aim of the story, i start with an idea, then it expands in a large overview fashion, and I fill in the gaps.

 

This thread isn't getting any play. *BUMP*

 

Thats cause we're all playing with ourselves.

 

I'm even outof ideas........ Maybe I'll be looking for my old fics and post em here, I forgot where I put them......

 

The Press of Other Worlds

A Horror of Unusual Subject

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Event

I hesitate now to speak of my experience in that inherited monstrosity which my deceased grandparents were pleased to call a house. Even to recall it fills me with dread, as if the things I saw there could reach beyond its crumbled walls. The deed is done - that house is burned, and some things are better left forgotten and buried. I only put pen to paper now to record this story in the hope that, should another fearful antique of my ancestors arise, its discoverer should not hesitate to remove it from the world.

In the year of 2002 I received notice in the mail that my grandparents Ethel and Grady Wilson, both aged beyond belief, had finally passed on within hours of one another. For reasons not immediately clear to me they had named myself as their sole inheritor, and so the Wilson Estate - a single-story edifice with a tile roof in the 1990's suburban style, and vinyl siding reminiscent of the early '80s. Having at best temporary living quarters at this point I elected to move into my new house at the earliest opportunity. Would that I had not! but I did not know then what horrors would befall me; I was well pleased to take possession of an entire house, free from the oppressive noises and smells attendant on living in a cheap apartment.

Upon entering the house for the first time I was struck by the conventionality of its decoration: the foyer tiled with a square bluish tile in a flower motif, the walls papered with vague waffle textures, the kitchen with its walnut-tone plywood cabinets and arborite countertops. A more detailed examination of the dwelling and its furnishings yielded no surprises, for the most part, and I was content to leave it as it was, apart from some brief dusting and vacuuming.

As it was still early afternoon and I had little to do that day, I was inspired to examine the backyard. Surveying its green expanse of medium-length grass, I had a sudden desire as I often do to romp and play among the short, even vegetation. For many happy hours I exercised and amused myself rolling about in the grass, heedless of the verdant and stainful injustice that this wrought upon my clothes.

At last, the chill of night began to come upon the air. Grass-stained and out of breath, I mounted the stairs to the back porch and entered the house in the waning light of the autumn afternoon. Upon entering I immediately undertook to draw myself a bath, and relaxed away the fatigue of the afternoon's exertions in pleasantly hot water. My clothes, so lately misused, sat in a pile by the bathtub, but I paid them no mind. They were only a minor difficulty, when all else seemed right in the world.

 

Chapter 2: The Laundry Room

After a long soak I resolved to tidy up and prepare for a well-deserved night's sleep. The only obstacle to my repose was, in fact, the condition of the clothes I had worn while playing in the grass. I regarded them as I sat dripping on the edge of the bathtub; they had impacted the grass, it seemed, on every side, and now there was barely any spot on pants and shirt that did not bear the thin, verdigriginous residue that clothes take on from close contact with those plants.

So, taking my clothes in hand, I walked languidly to the only part of the house I had not previously examined. During the course of my brief, damp walk across the tile floors I considered the stained garments. They were truly impregnated with the grassy ichor, so shot through with the verdant substance that I felt I could have planted them in the ground and grown some sort of plant life alien to the region, a low, stunted shrub that grew slimy pants and shirts. This idea did not appeal to me, and I opened the door of the laundry room where I had lately arrived.

Within the laundry room, which was in the interior of the house and thus had no windows, all was dark, and peculiar shapes abided within. I was unprepared, however, for when I snapped on the light switch and the fluorescent bulb flickered into life, I saw before me the most grotesquely antique and archaic laundry equipment I had ever seen, or will ever see.

The washing machine was a rusting, aged top-loading cube which looked like it had survived the Deluge; the dryer a front-loading belt-driven monster, choked with decades of lint. A rotten string hung across the scene, supported by two sagging pulleys. In the corner, most horrible of all, rose an ancient steam clothes-press so scratched and rusty it looked like a sacrificial altar.

I stood, appalled, and looked at the scratched and rusting heart of my new home for long anguished minutes. At length, unable to bear the sight of those mouldering machines any longer, I snapped off the light and shut the door, backing away from it.

I tried to reassure myself that I would simply buy new laundry equipment and throw out these rusting hulks, and that in the meantime I would simply make use of the local coin laundry. My demeanour quickly lightened at this prospect, and soon I was clad in appropriate clothing, my beslimed shirt and pants in a laundry-bag, walking through the falling evening to the coin laundry.

Upon my arrival at the establishment I noticed that a number of its lights were off, and I feared that it might be closed; my fears were quickly assuaged by the "OPEN" sign readily observed in the front window, and I stepped inside to commence the washing of my ichorous clothing.

 

Chapter 3: A Terrible Discovery

On entering the coin laundry I was struck by its clean, yet tenebrous appearance; over every pass was cast a shadow of advancing night, and the entire place palled with a peculiar darkness that put the flickering fluorescent lights at bay. All the same I was drawn by the gleaming white flanks of the immense washers and dryers, and I drew closer, determined that my clothes should soon be clean.

I threw my soiled shirt and pants into the nearest washer, slamming the door shut with the conviction of the experienced launderer of clothes, but only after laying a benediction of soap upon the clothes therein. Placing the appropriate number of coins in the slider I pushed it home, and was pleased to hear the mechanism begin to function. I bided the time with a few quick contemplations of recent movies and math problems, and at length the machine ceased to wash, finished with its damp, revolving cycle.

At this point I did not realize that anything was wrong. I extracted the clothes - those pants and shirt - from the washer and made immediately for the dryer. Some moving thing outside the window distracted my eye, and so it was not until I had placed the clothes within the dryer that my gaze happened to fall on them.

The clothes which had been so lately in my hand now lay haphazardly upon the bottom of the drum, and yet even in the darkness within the machine they seemed still faintly tinged with a chlorophyllic hue. I immediately retrieved them from the dryer and examined them in the blue, shrunken light.

They were no cleaner than before I had washed them. I was at a loss to explain this mystery, and glibly cursed the time and money I had wasted washing them the first time, electing to do so again but with a different machine. The first one, I reasoned, was obviously malfunctioning in some capacity, and so I selected its immediate companion to the right and commenced the same process - clothes, soap, close the door, pay. This time I waited uneasily, with occasional laughs to myself about the absurdity of a broken washer, and an outfit that would not come clean.

As the washer finished on this second attempt I began to feel a sense of growing agitation, unfamiliar to me in this context; it did not occur to me until later what this feeling was. I looked for long moments at the door of the silent machine, but it was only when I opened that portal and extracted my pants and shirt from the recesses within that I knew the feeling for what it was. Within my chest I felt a tightening of dread; those garments were every bit as soiled, or even more, than when I had taken them off.

How long I spent in that laundromat I will never know, but I do know that at each washer in turn I soaped, paid, and slammed the door in the hopes of washing my fouled clothing clean. The stars no doubt wheeled by outside, but I knew nothing of their eternal cycle, for my eyes were locked upon those smaller rotations of the clothes-washer. Each time I drew forth the shirt I laughed awkwardly that I had gotten grass stains in its armpits, though I knew not how. Each time the pants came from the laving depths of the washer I giggled without mirth that such a thick green stain could have formed on their knees in just a single wearing.

It was at the last machine that I found myself, watching as the water and suds inside made their oscillating circle. I told myself, in a moment of comic melodrama, that if this machine could not do for my clothes where the others had failed, then I would be forced to discard the filthy garments and buy new. As I tried desperately to laugh at my own amusement, I noticed a new development about the washer; where before the front of the device had been pristine and white there now dripped a thin green thread of liquid from the waterproof seal of the door.

 

Part 4: The Terror in the Drum

I stood transfixed as I watched the liquid, virulent with chlorophyll, run thickly down the front of the washer. There was no mystery as to its source; its course came clearly from the door of the washer. The supposedly impregnible seal around the portal had still somehow allowed this fluid to pass through. The washer laboured loudly with its load, the water slopping thickly and greenly inside, and I only waited, too dumb even to make excuses for the situation as I previously had.

My stupor continued as the labouring of the machine grew noisier and more torturous, and I imagined as it did so that the dripping thread of green liquid, now forming an appreciable puddle on the floor, grew wider as the noise grew louder. The appearance of the spreading pool of slimy water was more than I could suffer to be near me, and I slowly backed away from that filthy puddle until I backed into an obstruction and nearly jumped away from the sudden contact. It was only a dryer, but in my now nearly unhinged state any unexpected encounter would have unsettled me. I could not dwell on this, could not think clearly - I could only focus on the thundering washer, now dancing on its metal stubs, and the terrible burden thrashing inside.

Those who dispute my story still cannot explain the condition in which that laundromat was found; its deplorable state is the strongest evidence for the case I have made. What shall I say except the truth? The laboured washer, exhausted and worn with its cleaning efforts, finally gave... and disgorged towards me a shower of green, slimy water, a torrent of filth in which neither soap, nor any memory of cleanliness was to be found. As it flooded towards me I was obliged to leap atop the dryer that had so lately checked my rearward motion, staying just ahead of that wave of green horror. It flooded everywhere, pouring out of the washer with hideous abandon, washing up to the edge of the dryer-top where I huddled and threatening to creep across the top.

I waited as the level slowly rose, paralyzed with fear and unable to think of any means of escape, until there finally came a distant gurgling sound, as of a drain somewhere being unplugged by the sheer force and weight of the substance pressing upon it. The flow from the washer had slowly subsided until it was no more than a greenish trickle of dirty water, and the flood that had swamped my dryer was now draining slowly away. I thanked providence that the substance had not touched me. At length it had drained down to the level of the floor and was gone, leaving a marshy sedimentation of damp verdigris and stripped grass stems layered thickly on the tiles.

I picked my way across the morass and numbly looked into the shattered washer, the door having been pushed nearly off its hinges by the tremendous flow of slime that had lately issued forth from behind it. Within the washer, upon the bottom of the drum and now hardly damp, were my soiled shirt and pants, as green and bespattered with grassy essence as when I had entered the laundromat. I took them gingerly in one hand and transferred them to my laundry bag, trying to tell myself that I had other shirts and pants, and that these were now of no use; I could be rid of them. I left the laundromat, unable to form a further thought except that I must get home.

It was only in the street that I chanced to look down, perhaps to examine the state of my shoes after wading through the grassy residue. No one remembers hearing any noises that night, but I know I screamed loud enough that no one, neither the sleeping nor the dead, could have ignored me. Even the deaf must have heard me, for when I looked down I saw the unthinkable; as I had replaced the defiled clothes into the laundry bag they must have fallen against my shirt, leaving a thick, indelible greenish stain.

 

Chapter 5: The Inescapable

After my terrified scream I found myself enervated and unable to do anything but look at the stain that defiled my shirt front, and after long minutes of that dreadful contemplation I began to walk, feet moving of their own accord, taking me home by reflex, not out of any hope of safety. I walked, the lonely streetlights passing one by one overhead.

I thought it was my own tortured imagination that made the stain on my shirt seem to increase, a mad hallucination that the sickening, grassy blotch spread down across my shirt, onto my pants, around my body. Only a mind undone by the terrors I had seen in the laundromat could now imagine that I was slowly being enveloped with the substance, and that my every step was attended by a dripping trail of greenish, glistening slime. The laundry bag in my hand was so heavy with the horrifying humidity that it dragged on the ground, pulled along by the drawstring still clutched numbly in my hand.

I have since understood that this was by no means my imagination, if the evidences of others' eyes are to be believed; photographs of the hideous trail I left, along with a plethora of sightings of green, slimy creatures from outer space reported that night, make the presence of that nightmarish outpouring of foul liquid indisputable.

It seeped into every article of clothing I wore, squelching through my clothes, oozing into my shoes. I noticed with no sense of joy that the uncanny stuff would not adhere to my skin, but seemed perversely interested in my clothes, as if it would embrace them forever in its sticky grasp. My pace was only a dragging shamble, plowing slowly forward through the ever-growing amount of the thick, verdigriginous liquid that dripped from my hunched, shuffling form, leaving a wide, uneven wake of filth behind me.

In my distraught state I walked numbly, almost blind, finding the way by some dim memory of the house, until I finally staggered against the front door, leaving a filthy spot the size of my upper body where my clothes came in contact with the paint. I somehow withdrew the house key from my stained and blasphemous pocket, opened the door, and stumbled into the darkness within.

 

Chapter 6: The Final Horror

It was pitch black within the house as I stumbled through the foyer, not caring if I struck against the walls or furniture. After a moment I stopped, trying with little effort to collect my scattered, useless thoughts. With a last effort of will, I determined that I should remove all of my clothes and leave them in the front room, where the tiles would be less damaged by the horrible stain. I would then go to my bedroom and sleep, leaving this hideous night behind and postponing my consideration of the problem until tomorrow. Thus resolved, I began to disrobe as I made my way through the night-black house where no light shone.

As I struggled to remove my clothing I noticed a faint, watery sound which came from all about. In my stupor I did not seek to locate its source or even the direction that it must come from, but plodded forward into the darkness toward my room.

Such was my state of mind that I did not think to drop the clothes in the tiled area when I reached the door to my bedroom, but still held them in my one nerveless hand as I reached to open the door with the other. From within the opened door came a hollow sound of water dripping, as I had heard before but louder. I stepped inside, wondering if the sound came from nearby plumbing, and did not realize my mistake until I put forth my hand to feel for my bedroom furniture. As I groped blindly into the room I encountered, not my bed, but a scratched and rusting metal surface. I stood dumbly in the dark, my fingers telling me what my mind would not believe: that I had stumbled, not into my own room, but into the terrible laundry room that squatted hideously at the centre of my home!

What happened then I can only describe dimly, as it was impossible to see the sources of the terrible noises that I heard. I only know that my clothes were torn from my hand by some unseen agency, and at the same time the most dreadful cacophony sprang up all around - sloshings of water, the roaring of engines and the creak of rusty metal, and behind it all, a terrible, rising hiss like that of a wakening dragon. Unable to bear the terrible sounds about me I tried to run, but collided with the door which closed from the force of the impact. I fell nearly senseless both from the impact and from the terrible noises that pressed in upon me from every side.

The next hour was the most miserable and hellish I have spent upon this Earth, an eternity of rusted screechings, watery vibrations, and the dreadful, deep hissing sound; I could not move for fear of my situation and crouched in the corner, my arms about my face in the hope of warding off the sounds that struck me from all sides. I feared for the darkness that made me so helpless, but I have since realized that I would not have remained as stable of mind as I am, had I been able to witness the horrific wonders that must have attended upon that hour.

The engine noises subsided; the water drained slowly away. The draconian hissing that underlaid the activity faded to an inaudible noise and was gone. Still I sat numb with horror for several minutes, unable to move beyond shivering with the terror of the unknown.

After a long, silent wait in the dark my resolve was sufficiently recovered for me to move my limbs again, and I slowly rose, fearful that my movement would trigger another landslide of sound. I felt my way carefully, fearful that the world might have changed amid the noise, and finally found the light switch. A long, long second later, I snapped on the light.

Again, what can I say but the truth? There are no words to adequately describe my horror at what I saw, and no person who has not endured what I had lately felt would truly know the reason for my fear. Superficially the laundry room was as I had last seen it, but the cubic washer and dryer, nearly crumbling with neglect, nonetheless radiated a malignant joy. The dangling, rotten clothesline was like a corpse's smile across the entire room, its pulleys two greying plastic circles that bracketed that hellish grin like hungry, empty eyes. The clothes-press was a rusted ruin, and yet stood in the corner of that laundry-room like a demonic throne or altar, where the gifts of hell are laid out for poor, foolish mortals to lay claim to them. But it was that diabolical gift, not the altar, that most horrified me.

If there is any sanity to be had in the world, there will never be any again for me in the laundry; all such places will hold a shadow of the terror that I beheld on that grim and empty night, when I looked upon that ancient clothes-press and saw the object of my unlimited fear.

There, amid the peeled paint and corrosion, perfectly clean and pressed, lay my two pairs of pants, and my two shirts.

 

That was great. I don't go much for horror or stuff like that, but the ending cracked me up.

 

I hate that style of writing. But it shows youve got intelligence and ability to invent stuff.

 

I don't usually write in this style, Guthrie, you'll have to forgive me... sometimes I get a stupid idea and it needs to be gotten out so I don't have to think about it anymore.

I still need to record a lounge piano version of "Come to Daddy" -
"Hey! I will eat your soul, yeah." But at least my laundry horror is finished.

(This is a pretty transparent Lovecraft ripoff, hence the title "The Press of Other Worlds", which is a reference to one of his literary essays.)

 

So anyway, no more whining about "I got no ideas!"

I just wrote a horror story about laundry!

Surely y'all can do better than this...

 

C'mon... it's out there... the story...