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Oh, yeah! That’s right, it had been Halloween! That explained (maybe) why Marnie was wearing a fish on her lower half. And why he had part of one on his upper half. And, he now noticed, the giant foam fish head laying behind the coffee table…

Treat bag. A pillowcase worked as well last night as it had when he was a kid, and he grabbed for it. Time to sort out the stash.

There were little airline bottles of liquor, great score. He cracked open a teeny bottle of Crown, downed it, went back in for some vodka. No Absolut. Cheapskates. He pulled out the Popov instead and a bar of chocolate and–wait a minute.

Interesting. A book…

Marnie appeared over his shoulder. “What’s that? Oo, vodka!” No way was he getting all that booze to himself. She swiped it, pointed at the book again. “Someone put that in your bag?”

“I guess so. It came out of the bag.”

“Don’t be an ass. You want some eggs?” She headed for the kitchen, fish tail flopping around her legs, not waiting for an answer. Hal always wanted eggs, and she’d rather cook than look at some dusty old book. As long as he was happy.

Except it wasn’t dusty. It was smooth and not oily, but somehow slick. Not what he had expected.

He dug out another bottle without looking and took a sip, pacing himself, and wiped his hands on his pants before opening the book. It opened easily, not stiff or crumbling like most old books. The writing was odd, incomprehensible. “Hey, hon! It’s gibberish! Arabic or something.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, not really listening. He mumbled something back and she went on with her eggs. Maybe some parsley. He was still mumbling.

Mumbling he was, but not because he wanted to be. Hal’s eyes got bigger and bigger as the sounds flowed from his lips. It almost… it did feel like he was reading the book! The longer he read, the dizzier he felt. He couldn’t breathe, felt something bubbling up in his throat. Panicked, he tried to close the book. Couldn’t. Turned the page, kept reading even as salty water gurgled out his nose and mouth.

Marnie popped in some toast, began whistling as she pulled orange juice from the fridge. Nothing better than good ol’ OJ for the morning after. Hal was coughing in there, and it was pretty good for a cold, too. Whistling turned to humming, and she was balancing plates on her arm when she heard the crash.

Plates crashed too as she ran into the other room. “Hal? HAL!” He was on the floor, bloated, sopping wet. He coughed and a spout of water gushed from his mouth. She screamed at him again, rolled him on his side. Hal’s eyes were wide and staring, but Marnie was pretty sure he couldn’t see her. She called 911, sobbing.

There was water everywhere.

~~~~

“And you’re sure he was in here the whole time?”

“Of course I’m sure! Where else would he go?”

“And…” Patterson cast around for something else intelligent to ask. Damndest thing, man drowned in a third floor apartment. “And he hadn’t been drinking.”

“Hal?” Marnie snorted. “Yeah, he’d been drinking. Had a lot last night and I guess a little bit this morning. How does that matter?” She still sat on the floor holding his hand and gestured with the other. “Do you see all this? Are you drinking?”

“No, ma’am. Ma’am.” He put his hand gently on her shoulder. “He’s gone. You have to let us do our job.” And take you in for more questioning, he mentally added, but he didn’t say it and she came with him. He was the people person.

Charlie Casey moved around the room, taking care of technical considerations. They made a good team that way. The old book was conspicuous and Casey zeroed in on it.

Patterson handed Marnie off to the EMT and turned back. “Whatcha got?”

“Book. Floating in the water.” He passed it over, and Patterson took it with a gloved hand.

Interesting. He cracked it and saw that it wasn’t in English. And then…

Then he snapped it shut and slid it into the evidence bag. “Damndest thing. All of it. You think she did it?”

Casey shrugged. “How? If she did, she’s smarter than I thought she was. What do you think?”

“I think this is gonna sit in evidence forever and a day, ’cause we’re never gonna close this case.” He hated weird things like this. Just hanging out, being… weird. More of them every day. It wasn’t right. Patterson sighed. “Pack it up, Charlie. Weird damned thing.”

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^HINT

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Of course, if someone wants to add stories based on this prompt, we’d love to read them. Just remember they’re not eligible for prizes (which, I have just been informed, include having to French kiss John). But your votes will count for two more days and nights.

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HERE IS MY ACTUAL SUBMISSION! I hope the last one can be deleted to not add to the confusion

Gates
Part 7 of 12 – The Room, The Robot, The Tourist

*Pitch black, a few snapping sounds, then some buzzing and whirring, followed by metal tinkling and clanking, then back to the buzzing and whirring*

Voiceover: I always hated that sound. The bastards were crafted and assembled in a factory far off, then transported, lugged out and installed into a facility somewhere. But that whole time, no one bothered to turn them on until they were hooked up to their wall.

*Brass gears interlock, little bursts of steam zip out of hoses before they animate themselves and touch, connecting and forming solid*

Voiceover: First time the juice flowed through them, they finished assembling themselves, their robotic brain started shifting, completing connections. The robots were often very childlike for their first few hours hanging there, taking everything in for the first time, learning how to process new information and their surroundings

*robotic fingers begin moving, wriggling in front of an empty wine glass, as the the hand turns over several times, and then reaches out, grasping the wine glass with elegance*

Someone once told me if you dangled a set of keys in front of them during these first few hours, they would just stare, and a smile would cross their face. Maybe if I had actually seen that smile, I wouldn’t have shoved a makeshift pike through the head of the one who talked with me.

*The voiceover fades out, and the scene once again fades to black, then slowly coming into focus out of the black is a man lying naked on a floor, as the camera moves slowly around him, you see he is lying on a large red rug, a fireplace roars against one wall, a table near him*

*The man stands up, and steadies himself on the small table, before taking in his surroundings of the fireplace, the table, the red rug. He shambles over to the fire, and sitting beside it is a loose fitting tunic and pants, which he quickly throws on, obviously cold even with the fire raging near him*

Robotic Voice: Hello, I hope you had a pleasant sleep.

*The man whips around to see on the far wall half the body of a robotic man, no legs to be seen. The robotic man is a patchwork of color, ranging from bronze and platinum to darker steels and black. His right hand is modeled after a human hand, and seems highly articulate, while the left is simply a pincer of some sort, not sharp, but dull like a clamp*

Man: Where am I?

Robot: First, let me introduce myself, I am L.E.O.N.A. which stand for **cutoff by man**

Man: *much louder* WHERE AM I?

Robot: Sir, had you not interrupted, I had a wonderfully created Acronym for myself made of other acronyms, a party pleaser for sure, even if there are only two at this party. But, you can just call me Leo for short *robotic sigh*

*The man stares as the robot intensely, his head cocks slightly to the right*

Leo(formerly Robot): I must advise against what is obviously going through your head. I am simply a robot attached to a wall, but I do have many means at my disposal to defend myself, none of them pleasant to a squishy meatbag like yourself. Humans are so delicate.

*The man turns around and sits down in front of the fire cross legged, closing his eyes, bringing his hands to his chest, then together in a prayer, slowly and quietly saying a little prayer*

Leo: Sir, I do not mean to interrupt, but we must begin now. I know you are a time traveler, and I know you have been sent back to adjust something in the time stream. Thing is, none of us can figure it out,nothing makes sense to change at this time in this country.

*The man continues his prayer*

Leo: We know about your connection to what, in your time, used to be the Catholic church. I told my superiors you would cooperate, but we don’t have much time. We are not the evil you think we are, I promise you that. The men I work for just want what is best for everyone, while your group want what is best for you, which seems mighty unfair to the rest fo the world, don’t you think?

*The man stops his prayer, his eyes open to focus on the fire, then shift upwards above the fire, a painting of Cardinal Wright adorns the mantle*

Leo: Ahh, I can see in by the change in your posture and body language you have finally seen the painting. Beautiful, isn’t it? Seeing this, you have to know the jig is up, you have to know we know what you know. You have two options . . .

*The man turns to stare at the machine on the wall, stands up quickly, letting out a bellowing yell, rage streaks across his face as he runs towards the robot, fist in the air ready to hammer down a blow upon his metal captor*

*The Man reaches the robot, and even lands a strike on the robots torso a few times, before the robotic hand catches his hand, and clamps down hard, sending the man down to his knees, then with a twist and a snap, breaks the mans forearm. The man lets out a sick scream, his face full of pain, the robotic arm lets go and the man quickly crawls/squirms away while holding his bad arm*

Leo: I take no pleasure in doing that. I want your death to be quick, for you to not suffer. Heck, sir, I even want you to give us a chance to give you a chance to live. You can live through this, you really can. You will need to understand we can never let you go, but we can let you live.

*The man clutches at his arm, closing his eyes as he again begins to pray, this time a little less silent, but obviously through clenched teeth as he is in great pain*

Leo: Patience is my strong suit, and quite frankly, I would love to talk to you for days and weeks, because you are an insanely interesting man. But sadly, they told me I had thirty minutes before they come in and carry out the execution orders. And you haven’t said a word to me, just “ahhhhhh” as you ran at me. How can I use that to persuade them? I can’t. And you lazy bum, spent most of that 30 minutes sleeping.

*Man continues prayer*

Leo: This reminds me of a story of one of our guards recently. His name was Keto. Yes, I do want to stress “was” is in the past tense. Keto made plenty of mistakes in his life, including one instance about a year ago. He had spent three days on a drunken bender and had nothing to show for it except for a body full of bruises and three missing teeth. You see, you show up to work looking that rough, people start to get suspicious that maybe someone got a hold of him, made him tell some secrets. Well, lets just say his life was miserable for the last remaining two weeks. And for what? Because he loved whiskey and mouthing off?

*Man stops his prayer to look up at the robot, but quickly resumes his prayer*

Leo: I’m sorry, you have a much better reason to die than our guard Keto did,and he begged and pleaded for his life, promised he didn’t tell anyone about anything. But we just couldn’t believe him. It was extra sad when we found out he was telling the truth later. Sad. You know what sadness is all about, don’t you? All the pain and hardships you endured for your family. But all in all, you are just greedy and selfish, while we want the best for everyone.

*door opens and in steps two guards, immediately their guns point the the back of the mans head, who begins to pray faster, tears streaming down his face*

Leo: I will miss you. It didn’t have to be this way. Let me put on some music so your last moments are pleasant.

*Over the speakers comes crackling out “Hotel California”*

Man: I always hated the Eagles. My old man fucking loved them, but I hated them.

Leo: Goodbye

*The camera zooms in on the robotic face, as several gunshots ring out over top of the music, as the face of the robot Leo begins to frown. Fade to black*

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