‘Oh my god,’ I thought to myself. ‘What is that noise coming from outside? Who or what is out there?’ I hear voices and footsteps all around me.

‘Go away!’ I started screaming. What was it that I did that was so wrong? I also was worried about them startling my children, which thankfully, were able to sleep through this terrible noise.

It’s not like I’m some sort of monster. I’m just your average typical guy. I started thinking of all the things I may have done to anger someone, but it sounds like more than one person out there. What should I do? I’m too afraid to open the door and try to reason with them.

Now I hear them yelling from the streets and my yard. ‘Murderer, Killer, you sick bastard, come out!’ they yelled. All of a sudden I heard police sirens coming closer. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘The police are here and they will make that mob go away.’ I finally managed a smile.

‘Come on out Eddie, we know your in there,’ I heard the police call out.

‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked aloud, as if someone could answer me. Let me think about this, should I just go outside to the police. This must be some sort of mistake and I can explain whatever it is they need explained. But my children, what about my children? Should I just leave them in here alone? I may as well, at least if I go outside the crowd would finally, hopefully settle down and I can show them I’m probably not the person they are looking for.

‘I’m coming out!’ I hollered.

As soon as I opened the door I was charged by the police and thrown to the floor. ‘Where are they?’ one of the officers asked.

‘Where are who?’ I questioned right back.

‘The children, tell me where they are right now!’ he demanded.

‘What children? The only children I know anything about are my own children that are still sleeping in the house’ I replied. I was lifted off the ground, thankfully. I was in so much pain from being thrown on the ground, that I think they actually broke my nose. Yes they did, as I felt blood trickle from my nose onto my lips.

Two officers, one for each of my arms, escorted me back into my house. ‘Tell us where they are,’ they asked more angrily than before.

‘If your talking about my children they are right upstairs sleeping, which by they way, I’m surprised they haven’t been woken up by all this nonsense.’

We headed up the stairs and went in to my children’s room. ‘Oh my god,’ one officer said. Another officer started to vomit as if he just had eaten some bad food. The other officers just stared upon my children in what looked like utter horror.

‘You see,’ I said. ‘These are the only children I know about. My children, my lovely children.’ I kept their heads perfectly near their bodies so I can always tell which one is which. I always got them confused with one another. ‘I’m so sorry officers, this place is such a mess, I told them over and over to clean up this room. You know how kids are.’

Next thing I knew I was carried off and thrown into the back of a police car. Once we got down to the station, they kept asking me questions about the children. Why did I kill them, why did I take them from their families?

‘But they are and always were my children,’ I told them over and over again.

‘If they were your children, why did you murder them?’ the detective asked.

‘Murder,’ I chuckled. ‘I didn’t murder my children. I just had to discipline them. Children are supposed to listen to their daddy.’

Well it turns out that the judge and just about everyone else did not agree with my version of discipline. So now I’m sitting in this cell for the rest of my life or until they allow the death penalty. Which, to be honest with you, I don’t mind it so much at all. I just miss my children. My lovely children.

Oceans of tall grass yielded to the desperate strides of the ruler of Olympus and king of the Gods, Zeus. His skin glistened and heaved as he lunged down the base of the mountain into a grouping of elm trees. His tightly cropped beard and thinning silver hair were soaked with sweat and his eyes darted around the forest for predators. His lungs burned; his chiseled face was flushed purple, and bore a small, fresh scab running just below his left eye. He had been running without rest for over a week, and he still felt himself no further from the relentless assassin.

Rumbling shook the trees and lifted the ground under Zeus’s feet. He grasped a tree and steadied himself, then pulled himself forward off the bulging hill. As Zeus sprinted through the trees, the Earth settled as if nothing happened.

The dry forest morphed to a hot, wet jungle. Vines snaked down and grasped at Zeus. He attempted to push through, but they tightened around his body. He scanned the trees, took a deep breath, and then exhaled. With a jerk, he snapped free and was flung skyward into the forest canopy. The ground swelled again, opening enough to reveal a scaly, slithering beast winding through the dirt.

A thin, black figure darted through the jungle. It moved with inhuman grace, and then disappeared into the walls of vegetation. Zeus lowered himself to the ground. Once he found his footing, the jungle opened a path and he quickly escaped back onto the open plains.

Hawks circled above, a warning that the predator was approaching again. Zeus sprinted towards a small pond populated with hundreds of fish grouped near the surface. Zeus ran to the pond, and skidded across the surface without breaking stride. He turned and glanced over his right shoulder as the scaled beast surfaced through the bottom of the pond. The enormous serpentine monster raced along the silt floor before plunging beneath the earth again. The tainted water flooded with dark mud and the fish surfaced belly-up, smothered by the beast’s poison.

A violent tremor knocked Zeus to the ground. He raised his hands and electricity danced from his fingertips. He pounded his hands against the ground, sending Olympic sized electrical surges through the dirt and the grass. The Earth hemorrhaged the serpent beast, spitting it high into the sky. Zeus watched it reach an apex, then come tumbling down beside him. Unperturbed, the serpent beast slithered toward Zeus and raised its head. Zeus backed away. The serpent’s hood flared and it released a shrill, deafening scream.

The force shoved Zeus down to the ground. He covered his ears as blood trickled from his eardrums. The serpent beast hissed and dove back into the ground. Zeus’s vision blurred and his ears rang. He was momentarily incapacitated.
The black-veiled figure watched Zeus push himself up and stagger forward. A second serpent beast loomed above him, and a third appeared behind him. Together they screamed, sending Zeus to his knees, prone forward holding his bloodied ears. The dirt gave away underneath him and engulfed him like water. Zeus disappeared into the ground. One of the serpent beasts licked the ground where Zeus’s body disappeared. A blue spark shot upwards and outwards, causing the beast to flail backwards and coiled.

The figure approached, put her hands up to warn the serpents. She pulled her veil away, revealing a thin, sculpted body with tone as exquisite as Zeus’s. She had black, curled hair that fell far down her back. Her eyes glowed green with long, black, oval pupils. Her curled fingernails stretched three inches from her fingers. Most notably, her silhouette did not cast a shadow in the warm evening sun. She let the veil drop, exposing her bare body. She knelt down to feel the ground, tracing her long fingernail in the dirt where Zeus’s body was buried.

“This is ridiculous, my Lord,” she called. Under the lush voice was a slight hiss trailing each sound. “It is time to end this; I am trying to help you.”

She sighed, tapping her fingernails impatiently against the dirt.

“Just let me talk to you for a moment,” the woman said. She turned her fingernail and stuck it into the ground. A small spark sent her hand darting back. She chuckled. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

“Back away,” a muffled voice replied.

The woman’s long, thin tongue slid across her lips and she rose to her feet. She lifted the veil and wrapped it around her waist.

The ground slid away and raised Zeus’s body to the surface. He quickly jumped to his feet and crouched defensively, watching the serpents. The woman motioned, and they both disappeared into the ground.

The woman turned back to Zeus, and they stared at each other for several moments. Zeus’s eyes slid down her body, and she smiled.

“What are you?” Zeus asked, raising his eyes back to hers.

“I’m a woman.”

“No you’re not.”

“Don’t I look like a woman?” she asked, trailing the curve of her breast and abdomen with her long fingernails. Zeus surveyed her body, watched as she whipped her hair back and allowed her tongue to surface along her upper lip.

“I am a woman who is trying to save you from this fantasy.”

“What fantasy?” Zeus asked.

“The fantasy that you are a god.”

Zeus’s eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her, challenging her, but she didn’t flinch. He began to take another step, but stopped.

“For years you have lived under this delusion,” she continued. “But you are just a man.”

“That’s absurd,” he snapped.

“Is it?” she asked, walking up to him. She lifted her long fingernail to his left eye, and traced the fresh scab. “I have hurt you these past few days, haven’t I? Could that happen to a god?”

Zeus pushed her hand and backed away from her. He raised his hand, palm upward, and a ball of white and blue energy formed. He let it grow, and then threw it at the woman. She raised both hands upwards and let it pass into her body. The electricity danced along her body while she writhed and tensed. Finally, she relaxed and let out a long, rapturous grin.

“Mmm,” she moaned, staring at Zeus. Zeus backed from her, stunned.

“No, please continue,” she purred, as she approached.

“What do you want from me?”

“To admit what you are. It is time for you to finally come to terms with your destiny.”

“I am a god! I am the king of gods!”

“You are a man,” she replied. “An ordinary, unexceptional man.”

“Leave me!” he shouted, sending a long bolt of lightening into her body. She didn’t even flinch, continuing to walk toward him as electricity traveled through her body.

“Where is your family, Zeus? If this is your realm, then why don’t they defend their king?”

Zeus turned away from her to run, but instead of endless hills of fertile grasslands, he faced a vast, dark pit. The grass cut off into cliff and the desolate view stretched out to a distant horizon of tall, vicious mountains. Storm clouds swirled over the wasteland. Below, the ground seemed to move and Zeus realized that the canyon floor was a quilt of millions of serpent beasts writhing and coiling around each other. Deep below, caverns cut into the cliffs pour more of the giant serpents into the pit.

Zeus sighed and turned around.

“I know where you want to go,” the woman said, walking up behind him. She dropped the veil and pressed her naked body against his, wrapping her arms around him. She opened her mouth, revealing rows of small, sharp teeth. She reached up to his ear and pressed her fangs gently against the earlobe. He shoved her away. She straightened and grinned.

“Come with me,” she whispered, the hiss growing in her voice. “It will be easier just to return to reality with me.”

Zeus turned away from her, his eyes on the distant mountains. He scanned the acres and acres of serpents, before spotting a light brown speck. He walked along the cliff, watching the small object gradually move close. It was a boat! The boat rocked as it floated over the serpents; but it remained upright no matter how hard the beasts pushed against it.

“Who is that?” Zeus asked.

“A mirage, just something you invented with your mind.”

“Who is in that boat?”

“It doesn’t matter who is in that boat, it’s just a hallucination,” the woman replied, sounding irritated and nervous. “You can’t go to them, you would not survive. The serpents would devour you.”

“My wife, Athena!” Zeus shouted, waving at the boat. “It’s my wife and children!”

“They aren’t real,” the woman continued, rushing to catch up to Zeus. “You can’t reach them, they aren’t real. They could not take you across even if they were real!”

Zeus turned to the woman and studied her.

“You’re afraid,” he shouted. “Why?”

“Because I came here to bring you back to reality, I am trying to help you. Down there is pain. If you continue on with this ridiculous fantasy, it will destroy you. If you don’t return with me, you will suffer and die, and you will take your family down with you.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am trying to help you!”

Zeus searched the cliffs for a way to climb down, but the rock face was treacherously steep. Zeus knelt to watch the boat approach the cliff. His wife, barely discernable, cast anchor into the sea of beasts. She looked skyward and beckoned to Zeus.

“Don’t do this,” the woman called, grabbing Zeus’s arm and pulling him away from the edge. “You will kill yourself. Come back with me and save yourself!”

Zeus ripped his arm from her grip, grabbing the woman by the wrist. He held her steady. His eyes were narrow and his body glowed, godlike. A violent shock burst from him to the woman, jolting her backwards 20 feet. Zeus watched her crawl to her feet and stagger toward him. He turned, took a deep breath and leaped into the sea of beasts.

---

Charles Martin lives in Edmond, Oklahoma with his wife and kids, working as a reporter for the Edmond Sun. He graduated in 1998 Oklahoma Baptist University with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Creative Writing, and has diligently developed his writing style. Martin has published creatively with short stories and poems and has won awards for his novel, “Initial Contact.” Martin continues to focus on shorter fiction to sharpen his style until he feels capable of taking on a career as a novelist.

Once I watched this geezer spend all day trying to shake bugs from his hair. It didn’t do him no good though. You can’t just shake these things out. They’d be no good loose in your hair so’s you could get rid of ‘em with a good scratch and a shake. Oh, he probably thought it worked, but I know different.

What did you say? No, mate. That’s what the wife thought. I don’t mean bugs as in creepy-crawlies. Or bugs as in those little electronic devices MI5 and MI6 used to plant in the telephones. They’re not that sort of bug. I mean bug as in control thingamajig. Bug as in bugger the brain. That’s why I calls ‘em bugs: bug-ger the brain. They’re small, yeah. Electronic, yeah. But that’s all they’ve got in common with those old-fashioned devices.

These bugs have people thinking and doing what the government wants. And they’re not attached to the outside of your head, your scalp I s’pose you’d say. No, they’re nothing the nit nurse at school could’ve laid her hands on. Squeezed between her nails so’s you heard this loud crack and said ta-ta louse. These things are real good implants. Made by the best electronics experts. Course, it was years ago when I saw that bloke trying to shake ‘em out. They’ve improved ‘em no end since then. You can’t even feel ‘em now, let alone see ‘em. And they’re put in at birth. When they whisk babies off to be weighed they also pop these blighters inside their heads. Only takes a jiffy. They do some with lasers, burn the tiniest of holes through the skull, and bob’s your uncle. You can’t even feel the hole it’s so tiny.

Nah. It don’t hurt. The skull’s soft at that age. And babies have this gap called the fontanel.

Yeah, the fontanel. It’s where the bones haven’t joined together yet. I know that cos I made it me business to find out. Had to so’s I could understand everything proper like. Anyway, they pop some of them bugs through these fontanels, but they still have to make holes for the rest. There’s lobes in the brain and they all have to be implanted. But that’s how they do it now. Back then they just popped ‘em under the skin so there was a way to get rid of ‘em. And I discovered it. But I’ll come to that all in good time.

You ever wondered why people go to work every day? Why they go home at the end of the day tired and exhausted and not wanting to do nothing ‘cept sit in front of the box and watch them rubbish quizzes and soaps? What’s it for? Nothing, I tell you. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Nil. They could get paid the social but they don’t. Nah, the government wouldn’t like it if everyone went asking for money, so they control you with these bugs–make you go out to work. Most of the time they got people so well controlled they don’t even wonder why they’re doing it, they just goes and does it every day ’til they’re old and knackered and not much good no more. Then the government stops sending that ‘go to work’ message and people start thinking of retiring. That’s about the only time anyone gets anything back.

Then there’s the kids all wanting the same toy, the latest computer game. It’s the bugs. And those creams that women think’ll make ‘em younger. They don’t work. Just look around and you’ll see I’m right. How many sexy bits of skirt are there?

Right. You have to look hard to find one good-looking bird. Blimey! I wouldn’t mind so much if it gave us something worth having. A nice bit a crumpet. Then I’d be glad the wife had divorced me. I kid meself though. My pulling days are well and truly over with this ugly mug of mine. But I’m drifting off the subject. If the creams did work, and the shampoos, and the toothpastes, then wouldn’t all them birds look eighteen and be wiggling them cute little arses at us? So why do they buy ‘em?

You’re wrong. It’s not the adverts. That’s what the government wants you to think. People ain’t that stupid. Most people ain’t anyway. Ignorant, yes. But that’s different. That’s when you ain’t been schooled proper. But it don’t stop you from learning, or mean you can’t learn. And anyway, even yer lawyers and yer doctors buy the stuff. You can’t tell me they’re stupid.

So, you want to know what’s in it for the government? Simple. It’s the economy they’re concerned about. Keeps these same controlled people in jobs. Someone has to research the stuff, make it, sell it, and advertise it like you just pointed out. Millions of jobs are created because people are made to go and buy all these things that’re totally useless.

And people do get to keep some of the money they earn. Not all of it, not even much of it. The government takes more than its fair share through taxes and stuff. But that’s in the government’s interest, too. How else would they pay for all them implants if we weren’t going and giving ‘em the money? And they need to keep everyone in line, make ‘em do what they wants ‘em to do. Oh yeah, they’ve even got everyone voting the way they want ‘em to vote when those elections roll around. That’s why they don’t let me vote, see. Cos I got rid of me bugs. Can’t control me the way they want.

You still listening, mate?

Good. Thought for a minute you was off with the cuckoos. Seen enough of that type over the years to know. And just for a moment there, it seemed like I’d lost you. Anyway, as you are still with me, I’ll carry on with what I was saying.

So you gets the idea. They put those little buggers inside your head and control you. The real amazing thing is, each and every one of you has a different frequency. That’s how they still gets people to behave like individuals. Stops your average geezer on the street from becoming suspicious. Genius, right?

Yeah. Thought you’d agree. Funny thing is, them women seem to know more than us blokes. Most of ‘em anyway. Us blokes are easier to control. Something to do with that multitasking thing women are so good at. The bugs are limited in the number of thoughts, applications you might say, that they can operate at any one time. But, again, the government keeps this knowledge to a minimum. When women gets to wondering like, they sends out messages to tell ‘em it’s their hormones. Works too. How many times you heard a woman say, “I just had to have it,” or, “I couldn’t resist it”?

And babies? Don’t most of ‘em have this burning desire to have a kid? Even when everyone knows what a pain in the arse they are. How they gets you up in the middle of the night when all you want to do is sleep. Then, when the kid gets older, you can’t go out cos you haven’t got a babysitter, or you can’t afford a holiday cos kids cost too much money. Same thing, they’re being controlled. Told to go and get pregnant. But it’s subtle like. It’s put in such a way that these women thinks they wants kids. Ah, but they don’t really. And, unlike us geezers, they know it on a subconscious level cos they’re not controlled proper. Don’t s’pose you will, but if you ever gets a chance to listen to a group of women, have an ear full. They says things like, “If I had me chance again, I wouldn’t go getting meself in the club”. Oh yeah, they do.

But there’s one thing the government’s researching at this very moment, and that’s reading yer mind. They can’t do it without making you sicker than a baby in pig shit. That’s how I managed to get rid of me bugs. If they’d been reading me mind, then they’d've stopped me. But I told you, I’ll come to that later.

First, I’ve got to tell you about this research thingy they’re doing. Way back they used all them TV masts to send out the signals. You know, like that one at Crystal Palace, the one that looks like it’s got a ginormous fag stuck on top of it. But them things can only transmit, so they had to come up with some other way of reading thoughts. Had all them scientists working on it for years, they did. And, eventually, they comes up with this idea of mobile phones. Think about it. They’re a two-way thing. So be warned, I wouldn’t go using that phone of yours too often if I was you.

Anyway, it gave ‘em a reason to build all them little masts–the ones with those funny dishes fixed to the top. You see ‘em all over the country now. Then all they had to do was get geezers like you and me to buy phones.

Yeah, you got it. They sent out messages telling everyone they wanted a mobile. Even kids as young as five was told they needed one. Now, wherever you look, there’s people with the things glued to their ears. On the train, in the car, walking along the streets. Everywhere. People was even crying out for new aerials to be stuck up. They wanted a good signal wherever they went. Even in the countryside, though Gawd knows why. And that’s when they came unstuck. Brain tumours–you must of seen it on the news.

Given the government quite a headache. It’s cos of the bugs that this cancer thing’s happening. Them bugs draws the signals straight into the brain, and that’s the problem. Concentrates the radiation, it does. Course, the government don’t want us all dying–

Nah, they don’t. Where d’you think they’d get the dosh from if we was all ill and dying? And they’d have to spend what they did have on that National Health, now, wouldn’t they? Everyone in hospital getting treated and nobody out working means no money and no-one to control. Big problem.

But I ain’t worried cos they can’t control me. They can take away me voting rights just cos they don’t like me ugly boat.

Sorry, mate, rhyming slang. Boat race: face. And they can give me pills; not that I take ‘em or nothing. Oh no, they can’t control me that way neither. I’m a free man. They can’t bang me up cos I ain’t done nothing wrong, and they can’t stick me inside one of them nut houses cos I ain’t done no-one no harm. It’s only meself they say is harmed.

Which brings me nicely to why I look such a bloody mess. And it’s not to frighten off the birds, although it does have that effect, more’s the pity. But there’s a price for everything and this is the price I had to pay for me freedom. You don’t think I like walking around with no hair growing on me head and a face so full of scars that I’ve got less bum fluff than a new born baby. Even me old Ma wouldn’t recognise me if she was still alive–God rest ‘er soul. But I likes to look on the bright side. No beard means I don’t have to shave.

Remember I told you they used to implant them bugs under the scalp. Can’t do what I did if you’ve got them newfangled contraptions inside your skull though. I’m lucky, I was able to set fire to me head and destroy all me bugs. Burned the lot, I did. Just a load of melted plastic and fused metal under me skin now. Won’t work nor nothing.

And that’s why I wanted this chat. There’s a good chance you have them old-fashioned bugs fitted. You know, the ones that can be burnt out. There’s one way to find out for certain.

Yeah, I know it’s cold at first. Petrol always is. But don’t worry, we’ll soon have you nice ‘n’ hot. It only takes a minute. Mm! Matches smell great.

Now to get rid of them bugs for you.