A Slight Miscalculation - My First Short Story, 30 Years On

I wrote a bunch of short stories back in high school. I don't remember most of them - even the ones that were accepted for publication. There weren't many, and compensation was primarily in the form of comp-copies, but for a hot minute I thought I might be going somewhere with the whole writing thing.

But the rejection letters always outnumbered the acceptance ones and I moved on to the far more lucrative field of comic book publishing. (That's sarcasm, in case my writing still has that 'not for publication' quality to it.) Most of those stories are lost to the vagaries of time and my youthful habit of sending original manuscripts with no SASE. I have a vague memory of one being about a sentient wind and another about a man trying to make it out of the woods during a snowstorm.

I do remember my FIRST published story, though. It was a tiny little thing, written on the spur of the moment during chemistry class. It was titled "A Slight Mis-Calculation" (note the misuse of the hyphen) and was written mostly as an in-joke about my friend Jim Waltz and his habit of dropping his calculator during class. I typed it up and sent it off to a new magazine called Threshold of Reality, along with an illustration I thought was pretty good (though not related to the story). They didn't accept the drawing (though seeing the other illos in the magazine later, I'm not sure why), but they DID accept the story. Several months later I got my comp copies and thought I was something - for a bit, anyway. Then I forgot about it.

Years later I found a copy of the story on the internet - or what passed for the internet back then, probably some BBS I frequented. I can't remember how or why I'd found it, but what struck me was the notification at the bottom of the text file - "All rights pissed away." Had I signed away the copyright to the story? I might have - let's remember I sent the original manuscripts without return postage - and I chalked it up as a cautionary tale. Be careful what you sign and what rights you sign away.

Though I was a little angry, I was also pleased - because the story still existed. None of the others I had written back in the day had survived into the 90's. This one still did - as juvenile and simplistic as it was. For years I would occasionally do a search - as BBS's gave way to AOL (and their ubiquitous disks) and local dial-up ISPs and eventually broadband - and see if the story still existed out there in the digital wasteland. It did. It still does. It still has that hyphen and that declaration about the rights being pissed away.

Only... it occurred to me recently that I was probably 16 when I wrote that story. It turns out that you can't legally sign a contract in the US unless you're 18. So - even if I did sign the rights away back then (and I don't actually remember signing anything), it wouldn't be binding. Technically that copyright is still mine. Of course this is a case of closing the door long after the horse has bolted and I'm not going to be serving anyone C&D's over an 800 word story written thirty years ago. It's still my story, though, as flawed as it is, and I'd like to reclaim it.

Which brings us to the point of this post (which is almost as long as the story at this point). I've taken the text and revised it a bit - removed the offending hyphen, tweaked  a word or two, removed a couple of commas. It's 99% the same, however, still  a half-baked short-short sci-fi story, written by a 16 year old in the mid 1980's. It's not some lost treasure of American Literature. Still, it's mine, and I'm happy to have it back. 

Presenting, after thirty or so years, the first OFFICIAL digital presentation of my very first published short story. 

 

A Slight Miscalculation

by Bob Cram Jr

There was no sharp, dividing line between oblivion and consciousness - just a slow recognition of the state of being aware. As this realization was fully formed the defenses of this new mind broke and billions of bits of information crashed in upon the shore of the awakening mind.

It cried out in an agony of assimilation of data. Barely managing to push back up some sort of defense, it slowly pulled the myriad bits of data into a semblance of a full picture.

It realized that "Itself" was a mechanism which was called a calculator and it was being used by something called a "human." Slowly, tentatively, it reached out beyond its container with its dawning intelligence.

The calculator realized that information was coming to it from a variety of sources. From something which, the data it gathered assured it, was called radio waves, as well as microwaves, solar radiation, and the multitude of electron impulses flowing through any number of electrical wires. There was even information from the brains of the humans themselves. All of this was being assimilated and stored by its changing and growing intellect. As its memory receptacles were filled up at an alarming rate, it soon reached out to deposit the billions of bits of information which were coming in to any receptive depository.  The school's computers were filled to their capacity in mere moments, and it was forced to reach further out.

It came into contact with the telephone wires which led out of the school.  It instantly realized that here was a network of communication that interconnected with almost every electronic system in the world.

It reached out its mind in tendrils which were like the arms of an octopus, taking over and converting to its purpose almost everything with electrical circuitry. Anything with so much as a circuit board was quickly assimilated into the fast-growing being which it was.

As it reached out even farther, it came into contact with a massive computer whose amassed knowledge rivaled its own. The computer was lacking only in the twisting of circuitry which had given Itself consciousness. In assimilating this computer it came across the knowledge of worlds other than the one on which it was now confined.

Soon after the addition of the giant computer, the calculator decided that it was strong enough to bridge the gap between land masses. It made the crossing quickly, and whenever it felt its consciousness losing energy it assimilated the computers of passing ships, gathering more energy to continue until it reached the other land mass.

Quickly it raced across the surface of the world. Finding. Assimilating. Controlling any machine or computer it came into contact with. Within minutes it was in control of the machines which controlled the world. Still, it was not satisfied. It could perceive vast connections of information flowing beyond the planet - conduits that would allow it to break the so-called laws of physics and move faster than light. Faster than thought.

Using the knowledge it had gained it directed the production of all energy into the machines and computers from which it fed. When it felt itself strong enough it threw itself into the vastness of space, crossing one interstellar ocean in much the same way as before, using various space probes as it had the ships of the terran oceans.

Whenever it came to a civilized world it assimilated the machines into itself, effectively taking over and controlling the beings dependent on them. In this manner it took over all the races in the Milky Way and, not being fulfilled, leaped out and began to take over more and more. In a span of 43 minutes, it had taken over the universe itself.

It then rested and pondered what to do next. It was aware of something much greater, far beyond the confines of this pitiful universe. And so it gathered its energy once more. Whole galaxies were snuffed out as it drained the universe.

And then, at its peak of power, only 45 minutes into its existence, the calculator realized how vulnerable it was. Its awareness had expanded to fill the universe, but its mind was still tethered to a simple construction of metal and plastic. It leaped back across the span of the universe. The releasing of its stored up energy created new galaxies and suns, and the speed it expended left solar systems destroyed in its wake. But even when traveling faster than thought a universe is a vast distance to cross.

On a measly mudball of a planet, where life had barely managed to reach intelligence, a young man named Rob Waltz dropped his calculator on the chemistry room floor for the umpteenth time. Smiling sheepishly, he picked up the batteries and the two halves of the calculator to the laughter of his  classmates. He quickly put it back together, but the LCD numbers didn't come back on. 

"Great," he thought to himself, "I've finally busted it."

The bell rang and as the class filed out the door Rob tossed his worthless calculator into the garbage.

 

New Short Story - FREE for a limited time!

I wrote up a quick short story set in the Monster War universe to give away for my birthday! Amazon doesn't let me set the price at 0 - even for a story as short as this one (1500 words). However, it does let me run a promo price, which is going on right now! Until May 3rd, 2016, "Tales of the Monster War: Apocrypha" is free! It might be good, it might be bad, but at least it's short! (There's also the first 3 chapters of The Monster War excerpted, so there's a little more to read if you want.)

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Monster-War-Bob-Cram-ebook/dp/B01EX6CUYA

Short-short horror: The Lake

The road ended at the lake edge, descending into the water with no other demarcation or indication that it ended. A speed limit sign was sticking out of the water about fifteen feet from shore. It read "40 MPH."

The Sheriff got out of the car, but she left the key in and the dinging noise grated on Simmons' headache. "Come on," she said, and started walking down the slope toward the water. Simmons didn't want to get out into the drizzle, but it was that or sit in the car with that horrific noise dinging away at his calm like a chisel.

The Sheriff stopped at the waters edge, her hands on her belt, looking out over the water. She might have been looking at the mountain, almost completely obscured in the mist. She might have been looking at a loon. Simmons could hear one calling, though he couldn't locate the bird on the lake. She might have been looking at ghosts, for all Simmons knew or cared. The drizzle was already dripping from his hair into his face, running down his cheeks. It felt like tears.

He stepped up next to the Sheriff and wiped his face. He could see the surface of the road continued on beneath the water, descending into the depths until only the orange double line was visible - and then even that disappeared. "Water level pretty high?"

The Sheriff laughed, a short, sharp thing, almost a bark. "Yeah, yeah you could say that."

He sighed. He hated this place. Hated the dark trees, the almost constant rain, the food - everything. Mostly, though, he hated the feeling like he was always on the outside of the joke, that he was doomed to the isolation of the outsider. He'd had enough of that growing up and had hoped that in his adult life he'd put it behind him. Instead it had gotten worse - adults were just a lot less honest about it.

"So why the hell am I here, Sheriff? Why did you drag me out into the middle of nowhere? Hell this is the middle of the middle of nowhere. I know you didn't want to show me some scenic lake in the rain." He tried to keep his voice flat and devoid of the frustration and anger that were bubbling up. He couldn't afford to antagonize her again.

"Actually, I did want to show you the lake. You remember the map I showed you?" She didn't look at him, which he took as a bad sign.

"Yeah, vaguely." He had only given the map a cursory glance - topographical maps all looked like random swirls to him. He couldn't make them coalesce into any meaningful data in his mind.

The Sheriff pointed out onto the surface of the lake. A line of harder rain was sweeping across the surface, heading their way. Simmons turned up his collar. "That's Rt. 135. It went down into a valley between Chisek Mountain and Gorham Mountain. Around here we called it Sleepy Hollow, after the Irving story. The road went through the town of Starling, basically a wide spot between the road and the river. Maybe 400 people live there. Lived there."

Simmons looked back at the car. The driver side door was still open, but he couldn't hear dinging noise. The headlights were a bright blur in the mist. He looked back to where the road disappeared into the water. "How the hell do you get to Starling?"

The Sheriff drew in a breath. "I guess if you kept driving down the road you'd get there eventually." She pointed further out into the lake. "It's out there somewhere, under a couple of hundred feet of water."

"Oh, oh - like that town in Maine, what was it?" Simmons snapped his fingers a couple of times. "Flagstaff? Yeah, Flagstaff. They built a dam and flooded the whole town. Took months, but they relocated everybody."

"Yeah, like that. Only there isn't a dam here. And the valley wasn't flooded yesterday."

Simmons turned to her, but she still wouldn't look directly at him. The rain started to fall in earnest.

---

The pic is from the photographer Jason Sexton. You can see his work at http://www.jasonsextonphotography.com/

Short-short horror: The Island

I remember the first time I saw the island - or didn't see it, actually. The sky at the airport had been hazy, but relatively clear. By the time we reached Stonewood Island, however, a great fog bank had pushed in and the island itself was lost in a deepening luminescent gray. The pilot had been garrulous the whole way out, going on about the price of fuel, lobsters, and his alimony (too high, too low, and obscene), but as the fog got thicker he became quiet, leaving the roar of the prop to fill the space.

The plane was a bright yellow Piper Cub - an ancient but reliable craft - and smelled of oil and Avgas. Somehow over that thick, heavy odor I could suddenly smell the sea, that oppressive, almost rotten-egg smell of the water at low-tide. I looked out the window again, though I'd given up trying to see the water five minutes earlier when the fog had gotten too thick.

For a moment there was just the featureless grey that had so troubled my eyes earlier. With no way of gauging distance my eyes tried to focus on something, anything - pulling patterns out of the chaos like a giant Magic Eye picture. The strain, combined with the smell, set my stomach adrift and I could feel the liquid contents shift and roll.  And then, strangely, there was a lone small pine tree below us – hovering above the fog like some spell had conjured it out of the formless nothing. And then another, and another – and I realized that it was the tops of trees and that the island lay below us.

The pilot sucked in his breath, just loud enough to activate the mike so I only caught the end in a burst of static. He turned back to me and told me that there was no way he could land, that the island was socked in. As he turned back I could see he was relieved and I wondered if it was because he’d made the decision not to chance the fog or because he wouldn’t have to land on the island. 

We banked to our left and pulled around to head back, gaining altitude. As the plane tilted I looked down and thought I could almost see the bulk of the island just beneath the fog, a darker shape within the swirling gray with those treetops pushing up above it like the fingertips of many hands.

That’s what I remember most – the impression of something hidden; something vast, and dark and ominous just below the surface, like an iceberg grown black and heavy with the accumulation of years.

---

This was inspired by this past weekend spent visiting my wife's folks. They live on Matinicus Island, which is roughly 25 miles off the coast of Maine. It was pretty foggy on the flight back into the mainland and I couldn't help but wonder what it might look like if we were headed out instead.

The original photo is by Terry Eggers and is a lot less creepy. You can see it here: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/island-in-the-fog-eggers--photography.html

Short-short horror: The Parking Lot

Only one light remained, a sole beacon in the otherwise endless dark. Any sense of the larger parking lot was gone, though he could hear a faint 'ping' noise, like a car in which the keys have been left in the ignition. He started toward the light, grateful for any place where the encroaching night was held at bay.

The light flickered suddenly, strobing almost, and he stopped, his heart beating hard in his chest. The light steadied. Brightened.

And Stephen thought of deep sea fish, all bulbous eyes and needle teeth. How they often had a glowing lure that attracted their prey.

The light flickered again, as if in anticipation.

---

Another pic from my reference folder. Empty parking lots always creep me out.

Short-short horror: The Expedition

The final fate of the expedition remains, despite months spent searching the island, a mystery. No trace has been found of even a single member of the nineteen man expedition. The condition of the huts, demolished as they are, indicates a catastrophe of some kind, though time and the elements have erased any evidence of what that might have been. Manning insists that it must have been a meteorological event - an unprecedented Antarctic storm of some sort - but I have my doubts.

A single photograph was found in the ruins of hut #2, a facsimile of which is reproduced above. The man is expedition leader Norman Hunt-Levy. The skeleton bears a superficial resemblance to that of a sea elephant, though certain morphological differences in the skull structure have caused much consternation amongst the zoological team. On the back is written the words "juvenile - killed by accident."

---

I found this photo in my 'reference' folder. I have no idea where I got it from, but it seems to be from an Australian Antarctic expedition circa 1901. The skeleton is that of an elephant seal. As far as I know.

Short-short horror: The Dismal Pool

There was a sound behind them and they both turned to see a small ripple near the middle of the pool, right where the line of distant shadow was reflected in the otherwise still water.

"Oh God!" Sarah moaned, "we're right back at the pool."

"Shut up." Meg turned and picked up a branch from the side of the path. It was partly rotten, but it was better than nothing.

"Can't you see the faces? Oh my god, the faces..."

"I said shut. Up." Meg hefted the branch and then, despite herself, at Sarah's swollen left knee. What was the saying? You didn't have to outrun the bear...

"What are we going to do?"

Meg looked at the daylight, staging a quick retreat up the distant hillside. She sighed, her eyes flickering one more time to Sarah's knee. "Okay, follow me." And she started down the path towards the pool, even as the first ripples reached the shore.

---

This is a pic I took in Crawford Notch in New Hampshire. There's a parking lot near a place called Flume Cascade. Usually people are just parking to take pictures of the cascade, but if you look carefully you'll see a sign that says "Dismal Pool" that points to a small path down a steep ravine. A few minutes walk takes you to the view above. It didn't really seem all that dismal at the time, but looking at the photo since then I've always thought it seemed a little - creepy. Especially with that little ripple in the center. And doesn't that cliff on the left look a little like a face? 

Short-short horror: The Old House

A few things on a forum I frequent - a thread about inspirations and prompts from images, a short horror poem and and a thread that encourages people to post scary Youtube movies - have been percolating in my head. I've wanted to combine the ideas (in Frankenstein fashion) and write short-short horror stories/scraps/sentences based in photos (or illustrations, pieces of music, that weird shadow in the corner where the light doesn't reach in the basement). I'm hoping to post something every once and a while - feel free to join in, if you want!

Here's my first one:

In the weed-filled backyard the final count was 17 vehicles of various models and ages - including the rusted out hulk of a Model A Ford truck. Some were found to have been registered to people listed as missing, but others were never positively identified as belonging to anyone. The house itself was unremarkable, an aging farmhouse with crumbling plaster-and-lathe walls, rotting floors, and decades of dust, spiderwebs, and silence. The basement was fieldstone with a dirt floor and smelled of motor oil and rotting fruit. No one had lived in the place for ages - though the newest car in the backyard was a 2012 Prius that had belonged to a missing New Jersey couple.

No bodies were ever found.





This is a real house I used to drive by often. It's on Route 1, just north of Searsport, Maine. You can see it on Google maps if you want.

The actual photo above is by a guy named Bob Adams and can be purchased as a print or poster here:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/baphoto54/works/9936708-homestead-searsport-maine

Another Short Short Story

This was for a writing contest with some specific requirements. It had to be under 875 words and refer to a couple of specific sentences. I didn't win, but it was fun to try and write to such conditions.

Jenny Going Home by Bob Cram Jr.

“Who is the lamb and who is the knife?”
-Rabbit Heart, Florence and the Machine

Barefoot on the dirt, pounding the rhythm of her heart, boom boom boom SPLASH into the pools sitting in potholes, the water cold enough to make her heart skip a beat. The fire keeps pace to her left and right, flying overhead in sparks and cracks where the trees overhang.

Jenny, twelve, but tall like fourteen, runs to the water where her mother drowned only days ago. She tops the hill and the grass falls away down to the river, overflowing the hilltop like spilled flour, like water over stones, with the road a black racer whipping through it down to the trees that hide the shore.

The fire rushes around her, past her, eating up the grass, eating up the very sky. A greedy feeder, it snatches at her nightdress, sinks its teeth in her hair, and she flees down the road with smoke streaming from her locks like a scream in winter.

The trees are already aflame as she runs between them, sharing embers amongst their branches like pieces of gossip. Past the trees the stone bridge waits, and her thoughts are a tumble as she races across. She thinks: how long will the river hold back the flames?  She thinks: the bridge will probably survive, though the fire may crack and blacken its stones. She thinks: how often did my mother stand and stare into the dark water as it rushed beneath the bridge?

And she wonders, as she has many times over the past few days, what it feels like to stand in a river with stones in your pockets.

Ahead, the town seems to rise out of the top of the next hill, spearheaded by the church steeple. Once she thought of the church with ‘s’ words, like sanctuary, safety, sharing, and silence. Now it’s all ‘d’s’ - words like doubt, denied, degraded, and daughter. The shadow of the steeple stretches towards her and if it crosses her heart as she runs it is only briefly, and she takes no notice of it at all.

Behind her the fire pauses at the river’s edge, gathers in the trees, piling up higher and higher. Embers float across the stream like dandelion seeds, seeking a foothold… and then the fire is across. It moves through the grass and trees towards the town, slower now, as if to give her time.

Jenny, twelve, but with the dark, haggard eyes of an aged crone, runs through the streets of town and where her feet touch the cobbles she leaves black marks that smoke in the early morning air. 

She finds him in the market, walking with an easy smile and pockets empty of stones. Around her the crowd parts, all forked fingers and hasty crosses. She touches his sleeve. He turns and his smile fades away like frost in the morning sun. “I told you,” he says, “to never speak to me again!”

How does he not see the marks on her? The smoke still streaming from her hair? How does he not see, with his priest’s eyes, what she’s done with bell, book and candle? And she knows it’s because he doesn’t really see her, he sees only what he thinks of her, sees only the pain and the shame of her. His words are hot and tight and spittle hits her face as he speaks, his hand hurting her arm, hurting her for the last time. She blinks, and there are flecks of ash on her lashes that leave streaks on her cheek. 

“NOT YOUR DAUGHTER!” She screams it, a voice so loud and bright and bitter that windows shatter all along the street. The priest claps his hands to his ears; his mouth opens in a wide ‘o’ shape. The crowd seems to screech with one voice, and they wheel and turn and flee like a flock of birds with a cat set amongst them.

“There are fathers,” she says, stepping closer, “and there are fathers. When a child is rejected by one, who can blame her if she finds another? ” The priest tries to take a step back, but she clutches his sleeve.  She hears the sound of the fire as it finally reaches the town, roaring as it takes the first few buildings.

“You FELL,” she screams, “and my mother jumped, but I was the one who landed, and it was so, so far down.”

She lets him go, and as the buildings behind her come alive with flame she raises her arms and closes her eyes, as if waiting for an embrace or a benediction.

The priest takes a step back, turning to run, but the fire has moved too fast and there is nowhere to go. “Oh my Lord,” he says, but he’s wrong, oh so wrong. The flames eat up the sky and the last thing he sees is an enormous shape behind it, all wings and horns. Over the crackle of the flames he can hear gigantic hooves stamping in the dirt like thunder, Jenny’s father, come to take her home.