The Vanishing Of Betty Bines
The Vanishing Of Betty Bines
An original EARTHLOOP TRILOGY story + FREE FICTION FRIDAY time!
I might relaunch crowdfundr for Earthloop sometime, when I am confident WHO KILLED THE HUMANS? is good to go. Gives me time to have a go at querying it. If I do it myself, the crowdfundr will have weird goodies, such as 3D printed EARTHLOOP toys. That was the original plan in 2022.
EARTHLOOP
PILOT
The thing waited in the air soundlessly, its bleak silhouette looming like a hole punched into the night sky. It called out across the desert, whispering its evil message into the warm air of the Bines’ household like a draft from a deep and forgotten catacomb. Still, the family slept. The thing called out again and again, waking Betty Bines from her sleep. As she rose, the little girl caught images of star systems and corridors in her mind, flashing through like prophecy, or the ending to a dream. Quietly she got out of bed and stared out of the little circular window of her bedroom, hoping to compress some image of the thing from the impenetrable darkness. It was out there, lonely. It could be her friend.
Betty Bines turned her nightlight on briefly, glancing at her crayon drawings as her young mind tried to reconcile the messages with the pictures. The thing was showing her images from her dreams, her nightmares, her fears. She was compelled to visit it. She had to visit it. It knew how the drawing should end, which way the paths went.
She left her pink bedroom, turning off the light, and tiptoed downstairs. Her father had put a new latch in, but that would be no problem. Betty dragged a coffee table over from the living room and climbed onto it. She reached the chain latch and opened it. The door rattled in its frame as the wind pressed against it. Betty climbed down from the coffee table and put it back in its place. Upstairs, her father stirred against the encroaching cold. Now, unhindered, Betty opened the front door slowly, peering out into the night alone.
The wheat fields whispered their secrets through the velvet blackness of midnight. With all the lights in the house turned off, the only light out here was the dim porch lamp and the pale blue reflection from the moon, periscoping the sun’s rays into the wheat and the desert, turning those undulating crops into an ocean of shifting lights.
The thing was louder now, angry, impatient. Betty was afraid, but her fear was overwritten by something more powerful. A mind was walking around inside her own, treading heavy over her underdeveloped brain. Something louder and more confident than her own mind was taking over.
Betty walked out onto the sheltered wooden porch and turned to her right, watching the rocking chair carefully. Beyond the chair and the porch, the wheat fields rustled as if they were laughing. She stepped down into the dirt, feeling the Earth’s coolness against her bare feet. She felt as if the world might open and eat her, but she had to keep walking. She turned and headed into the desert, following the nagging voice behind her own that told her where to go and where to stop. The voice did not speak in a language she understood, but she could tell where it was coming from, even if she could only hear it inside her aching head.
Its intentions rode gently on the wind. The thing had woken her up because she had had enough fun on Earth now. It was time to go home. Because Betty Bines did not belong on this planet anymore. She was no longer safe here.
The child kept walking into the soundless desert. Where once there were snakes and insects, now there was nothing. Not even the bushes rustled out here. It was as if the desert was frozen in time. Betty looked up at the stars for a moment, waiting. The ship materialised. It was dark and massive, its triangular shape marked out only by the void it left in the stars above. Betty picked up pace, moving automatically even as her fear resurfaced. She looked back and saw how small her house had gotten, how the warm glow of the night lamp was now a pinprick of yellow against an infinite darkness. The starship spoke to Betty in its strange voice. It felt like the noise was a living creature crawling around the inside of her skull. She kept walking until she felt the desert grow suddenly colder, until a dark shadow loomed over her, suffocating the last embers of the moonlight.
She was underneath the ship now.
After several long and cold minutes, several thin beams slipped down from the ship’s circular edge, each radiating a column of warmth and noise that overwhelmed Betty’s senses. The human fear snapped the child out of her trance now, but it was too late. The beams snapped inward as she started to run, capturing her in white-green light. The rocks and dust and bugs around her were swept up into the beams. Betty’s feet left the Earth. She panicked, but it was over quickly. The beams moved like a predator’s claws, throwing her helpless body up into the underbelly of the starship. The aperture spiralled shut behind her like a leech’s mouth, and her little body fell against a metal panel somewhere dark and warm. The air in here was hot with the smell of vegetation. But there was something else, something almost floral.
The smell got into her lungs, and soon enough Betty slipped into a deep and endless sleep.
END
This was the first scene from EARTHLOOP 1, THE FURUKAWA PARADOX. There are more scenes in this chapter, including a young Nori Furukawa watching an old Lax Morales show on his uni TV, and a slightly older Lax Morales vandalising the memorial for this missing alien abductee. It gets weird.
DON’T YOU WONDER SOMETIMES,
ABOUT SOUND AND VISION?
I’ve been experimenting with my podcast for the last few weeks. I’ve played with audio editing software, recorded an episode with my comedian friend Remy Scott, and even been offered a potential job in the USA as a podcast goblin if I can sort a Visa out in time.
But before then, I’m going to America this summer to visit my friends (and to write EARTHLOOP on location in Roswell). It’s going to cost everything I’ve got, including what old books and toys I can flog, but I need to do it. I pushed it back two months so the flights are cheaper, and I’ll still be cutting it close, but it needs to be done. I don’t think EL will be nearly as good if I just pretend to know what it’s like over there. So I’m going. I will walk the path of Lax Morales and I will taste the air of those UFO hotspots. When I return, I will have stories.
But back to the podcast.
My long-term goal with it is for talk show presenting to be my main thing. I love the silly-but-serious vibe my existing podcast has, and it would be brilliant if that could become my full-time job. I’ve got experience hosting open mics in my city, and from Lego Masters I know I’m comfortable in front of cameras. It satisfies my need to teach as well, in a fun and adaptable way.
My last episode was a massive, unscripted thing with DevilishBookworms and fellow COSMIC COMEDY COLLECTION author
, during which we talked about everything from quantum physics to how to make your stories more interesting, and I rebuilt our book cover in Minecraft blocks at the same time.It was suitably weird. I want to do that again.
So you can expect some more podcast stuff soon. I had a really good title for a show which isn’t THE PHILLIP CARTER SHOW so I’m honestly tempted to have two podcasts: My regular comedy one on spotify, and the sci-fi/bookish talk show thing, which can live here! Either that, or I have a subsection to TPCS which is specifically for when I’ve got guests, sort of like Bill Burr’s podcast.
My goal is to hire an editor and be able to make this my full-time thing (I’ll still be writing books, but I love entertainment). To manage that, I’m thinking of hosting the podcast here within Substack, and letting the handful of you who are on a paid tier get access to bonus recordings, cut content, etc.
What do you think?
FREE FICTION FRIDAY
Today’s free fiction bookshelf is Vault of Heroes. This one’s a healthy mix of sci-fi and fantasy, with some steampunk thrown in too!
Fun fact: I quite like the steampunk aesthetic but I’ve only written steampunk once and didn’t enjoy it so much. But, my entire Minecraft world is steampunk themed, and I once built a giant Lego airship in a steampunk style. I still need to bring that back! It used Lego techniques never seen before…
Anyway.
