A NATION IN FLAMES poems
- NICK ARMBRISTER/JBS
- May 4, 2020
- 5 min read
A NATION IN FLAMES
Short Stories WITH A GOTHIC, MILITARY & SF FLAVOUR
by
Nick Armbrister
This is Nick Armbrister's first collection of short stories, written from the late 90's to the present day. They cover several topics, like his poems, but in much more depth-from satanic actions by people worshipping an evil god ('Loss of the Ice Queen') to warriors of the sky using man's most powerful weapons in anger ('Final Flight'), to an attempt to control fate ('Spell to Find Amelia Earhart'), and to a post-nuclear townscape ('Second History', set in Oldham).
Two of the stories are fragments of larger uncompleted/lost work that deserve inclusion here. One day these projects may well see the light of day, but for now, the author hopes the reader will enjoy his 'dark work'-in time he hopes to do a follow-up. These stories span his entire writing career. Though he prefers poetry as a means of incisive, concentrated power of expression, he loves short stories for their fun; even those that give one a glimpse into the dark side that lurks beneath the surface of life!
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Opening the hatch on the left wing/fuselage fairing, he earthed both bowser and aircraft with special rubber straps to stop any sparks. Just like filling your car up: fuel hatch open, fuel cap off, fuel nozzle in place onto the connector, turn on the pumps. All automatic, hydraulic controlled and finished in five minutes. When the tanks were full a sensor stopped fuel flow so none was wasted or spilled. A manual back up allowed a slower operation from hand held drums if need be; on a wartime mission this would be routine. Pump shut off, cap on, hatch shut, move the bowser back to position and check the fuel amount – yes, half fuel load of fifteen hundred pounds on board for the short test flight. An hour or so of flying at full throttle, more at a slower speed.
He opened the massive teardrop canopy, climbed aboard into the front cockpit. Main power online, flight computers spooling up in two minutes to be displayed on three medium size multi-function displays. Flight data, engine data, navigation maps and weapons data was shown on each screen, in any order as a matter of personal choice. He liked his nav data and maps on the left screen, flight instrument data on the right and simulated weapon info on the middle screen. Taking ten minutes to flick through the menus on each screen, he checked his airplanes condition. Navigation data indicated a map of his location; he was marked by a simple “x”, the runway and hangar could be clearly seen, as could the surrounding area in clear computer graphics. The airfield was shown at an indicated height of 831 feet above sea level, sensors on the plane checked and adjusted height at any airfield which they landed at. Many an old plane had been lost due to wrong airfield height which a pilot had to input into his altimeter. A single push of a button changed the scale of the map to any of ten different scales; more sensors scanned the heavens for Russian or Western navigation satellites giving accuracy of a metre. If the constellation of satellites failed, a disc containing information could be downloaded into the nav computer in minutes; this could be target data or purely maps.
In a roar and blast of flame the bomber exploded and jolted the ice with violence and debris, black smoke coiling into the sky mixing with the snow – a nightmare vision, not of this place. Yet as real as tomorrow and as deadly as today.
One injured crewman crawled through the snow, whimpering in pain like a wounded animal, away from his comrades, slowly to the shore. Of course he never made it; instead, he came across the girl, the lost Norwegian girl, the dying ice queen. She shouldn’t have been there – this wasn’t her place, was it? In utter disbelief the injured man cradled her head in his hands like a baby; like himself, he knew she was soon to leave this world, that nothing could save them. She managed to open her eyes and focus on the foreign flyer, not seeing his face but that of her dead soulmate. She called his name, silently and smiled. Again she spoke and the other flyer could just hear her but not understand her – then she was gone.
With a sudden rush she felt herself drawn to the dark black place, not of this world or of this time. Then a light so blinding was all around her: he was here, he enveloped her, came to her, reassured her – it’s okay, really. We are together now, finally, forever. One last feeling of pure love and happiness filled her mortal body and took her over the edge, forever out of this terror torn beautiful mortal world of fjords, lakes, valleys and mountains…
On the ice the men died, as did their machine of war. Those crew huddled together perished soon after the single man who crawled to the girl. His last act brought some tenderness to the evil girl, helped her pass over into the abyss away from here, to a better place. He followed her but to a different place, yet equally as peaceful and far away from there.
The old business buildings, flats and shops are now home to vagrants, the homeless and a plethora of others. A lot are people with little or nothing in terms of wealth. That can be measured in many ways and taken in as many, from killing a man for his warm clothes to rubbing out a gang member for his automatic weapon.
If an old soldier from the Second World War saw the frozen blood, windowless buildings and slow death of the town, he would be half forgiven for thinking that time had stood still. Maybe it had in a way. There was little transport on the roads, other than remnants of the English army in ten-year-old armoured personnel carriers to the odd moonshine-powered car. Petrol scarcely flows and the single tankers that arrive quarterly are heavily guarded by the army. Petrol is used sparingly in army vehicles not yet converted to run on gas. Normal people would be shot if they tried to obtain any legal fuel. So a moonshine derivative is used when necessary. Most of the petrol and oil refineries are gone, bombed flat.
The once great cultural centre of Oldham is now a dead horse. The once glitzy clubs, museum and art gallery are now empty and derelict. Who wants to party after the death of millions of people? Maybe God has outlawed such things; it now seems like that in a powerless and dark town.
A sudden burst of heavy gunfire cuts through the night sending streams of pretty tracer shells into the January heavens. No one knows who or why the shooting occurs, it just does. Maybe some drugged-up idiot having a laugh? Sarah is jolted awake from a restless sleep. She can’t remember her dreams but they were bad.
The cold grips her like an unwelcome friend, telling her she is alive and has to face another day. Noticing her awake, John offers her a bottle of spirit to warm her body. She takes the bottle and has a generous swig of the clear liquid. Lee still sleeps, oblivious to the waking of his friends.
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