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 (That's sarcasm, in case my writing still has that 'not for publication' quality to it.)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.

 

The inevitable 'crap, I've neglected the blog!' post

2016 and I've been off the writing wagon for a bit. Lots of stuff going on, but the bottom line is I fell off and need to get back on. I've got short stories at various levels of completion, a novel about 3/4 and I actually dug out an old screenplay to revisit.  All good, but I'm really feeling the rust and I think I need to bang around a bit with something a bit smaller and easier to get back into the rhythm.

So on that front, I'll be returning to doing a few horror movie reviews again (which is primarily what I've been posting here anyway). I'll be starting out small and probably rough with a re-watch of the Friday the 13th series. It's been a long time since I've watched any of the original run of films and I'm kind of interested in how they hold up for me now.

I'm hoping this primes the writing pump for the other projects, but also gets me back into doing more regular horror movie reviews, which I've always enjoyed doing.

Lending credence to the idea that love of horror movies is genetic, my cousin Nate is now doing horror reviews as well! He started off with a review of the recent film The Boy and then plunged headlong into an epic watch of all the Wrong Turn movies. Take a look, if you get a chance:

http://horrorforlife.blogspot.com/

More soon!

-bob

Rewrites begin!

The rewrites begin in earnest! The new book is tentatively called Seeing Byzantium and just for giggles here's the first paragraph of chapter 2:

Grekov's store, Ivan's Trading Post, was closed on Saturdays. He called it 'Ivan's' even though Grekov's first name was actually Trofim. "Nobody knows Trofim," he'd say, "they expect a Russian to be Ivan or Anatoly or Dmitry. Don't confuse customers - give them what they expect and they'll be comfortable. People who are comfortable are more likely to spend money. Besides," he'd tap his chest with both hands, "my middle name is Ivan." Of course, depending on who he was talking to, Grekov's middle name was also Arkady, Vladimir, or Mikhail. He wore middle names like new shirts, trying them on for comfort.

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

First Chapter From the New Book

Work is progressing on the new book, tentatively titled In Darkness. It's a full-on horror story this time around. It's going slower than I'd like, but that's always the case with writing for me. Anyway, I thought I'd share the very first scene in its first-draft state. Hope you enjoy.

Spring 1981

It had been three days since the boys had disappeared, vanished off the river like morning mist, and Maggie Gray was giving up. She stood on the sand at the town rec area wearing her husband’s old red and black hunting coat, her arms wrapped so tightly around herself that it might as well have been a straitjacket. She wondered why people said ‘giving up’ like it was easy, like it was a relief. As if it was a relaxing of effort instead of the lifting up of a burden.

The sun had already gone down behind the ridge on the other side of the river, and everything was turning to shades of gray. The water was smooth, black in the low light. Volunteers were shadows, hauling canoes out of the water, making sounds on the sand like snakes through dry grass.

“We’ll try again in the morning, Maggie. Don’t lose hope.” Hands reached out to touch her, looking to comfort and be comforted. She stood straight, still, eyes on the water. People waited in uncomfortable silence and then moved on.

Hope. She almost spit. Hope was an ice cube, held in warm hands. Hope hurt to grasp and dwindled the longer you tried to keep it. She’d had enough of hope. She was ready to let it go.

The boys were dead. Both her boys. This thought had appeared the first night, when they’d found the canoe. The little, battered Old Town the boys had gotten for Christmas. It had been found miles downstream, at the Little Salmon dam. Cooler and paddles still in it. The cooler had been full of fiddleheads. That was when she’d first had the thought that maybe the boys weren’t just lost. Maybe something bad had happened. The idea had been nothing more than a little sprout then, but now its roots had spread all through her mind and she found it difficult to think anything else past its insistent repetition. 

Dead. Both of them. Her boys. Dead.

There was another world on the other side of that thought. She had the idea that once it had worked its way through her entire mind, once it had become real, that the world would somehow tilt even further on its axis. That the sun would fade, grow cold and distant. That the air itself would smell and taste different, like ashes maybe, or camphor. That somehow everything would grow dim. 

She hadn’t gotten there yet, hadn’t crossed that Rubicon. She was tired, though. So tired. Of holding herself upright and strong. Standing on the shore of the river every day like she was a beacon, like she could call them out of wherever they were by her presence alone. Standing until her spine felt like a red hot wire and the cramps ran up and down her legs like wolf spiders on old lumber. She was tired of hoping.

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.