FRESH NEW ALL HALLOW’S READ!
Show the ones you love a scary time with a fresh new spooky short from C. M. Weller!
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This years’ All Hallows Read free story is finally all fixed up and ready for readers!
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These short stories still available for FREE!
That’s right, you can own these short tales for the low, low price of absolutely nothing!
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This Halloween… read a free story from your favourite author.
Or. Y'know. Just some loser on Tumblr who keeps pretending they can write.
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Sahra was on the opposite side of the station to Ore Processing when it blew up. She, like all the other tunnel rats, closed her hands over her ears and stayed rigidly stock still until the echoes died down. Alarms, shrill and piping to human ears, were still filling the air with their near-musical noise.
She knew what to do. Follow procedure, and maybe nobody would get hurt.
No smoke in the air. Good. She had to take herself and as many other tunnel rats to the nearest checkpoint. Sahra re-oriented herself and hollered, “Ullyully uxinfree!” At the top of her lungs. Human code for ‘come out of hiding and follow me, I know the way’.
Important things had to be communicated quickly or they wouldn’t be communicated at all.
Sahra crawled slow and patient, hollering, “Ullyully uxinfree!” At every tunnel seam. Those following her, big or small, joined the chorus once they were on her tail.
Once out, they lined up with their carts disconnected from their body-harnesses, neatly by their left sides. Sitting down with their ankles tucked under their bottoms and their hands on their heads. They had to remain that way until a supervisor got to them and told them what to do.
Disobedient slaves got shot.
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Her hands and legs were throbbing by the time she came out the other side. She took a look at them while the masters checked her cart and the other things they put on her.
Her hands and legs were red with blood.
And dripping.
One of the higher masters noticed and made a squawk of disgust. “Clean that animal up.”
A young male, judging by the newness of his boots and the sharpness of his claws, grabbed her roughly and scrubbed her hands and legs with harsh-smelling stinging stuff.
Struggling would get her worse, so Sahra did her best to stay still and let him. He patched her hands and legs with bandages and sent her through the cattle-scrubber early.
After that, another master took her off to sort fruit from the station gardens. It was all horrible stuff the masters liked and no smart human would even try to eat. And not just because they made humans sick. Anyone stealing off the masters was bound to get shot.
All she had to remember was that the black ones were good and the red ones were bad. All other colours passed down the line to other sorters.
Once she figured out a quick way of doing the job, she got quicker. It was almost kind of fun. Except for the really horrible smell from the red ones.
Her stomach growled way before the lunch siren. Really loud.
Water and breakfast had not been enough. Sahra ignored her noisy insides and kept sorting fruit. Her face heated up at the thought of it, all the same.
Er, yuk. The red ones squished if she grabbed them too hard. And their juices smelled even worse. Ugh.
Better not get it on both hands, then.
Sahra focussed on only using her clumsy-hand, her stained-bandages hand, to find and move the squishy red ones. Her more able hand found and moved the black ones.
The masters were laughing. Possibly at her. Sahra hated the hg'ssh, hg'ssh noise they made when they did it.
“Hey, little white one.” Called one of them. A younger female, from the sound of her voice. “Are you hungry, little white one?”
And since she was the only really pale and really small one in the sorting line… “All'us hunger, me,” Sahra managed.
Now three of the masters were going hg'ssh, hg'ssh at her.
“Want some of our lunch, little white one?”
Hg'ssh, hg'sssh, hg'ssh, hg'ssh…
Sahra had been taught the polite answer by rote, even then she tended to get the phrases jumbled up. “For slaves people, Master’s food not good, all the time, slaves people food, good for masters not.”
Loud hg'ssh-ing, this time. And lots of it.
Sahra knew she’d said it wrong. Her face got hotter and hotter and her eyes stung something criminal, but she never stopped working.
“Look at the pretty color she turns.”
Male slaves had it worse, Sahra guessed. Until what Mama called ‘secondary characteristics’ made themselves public, all slaves were female until further notice. And no slave dared correct a master. Right now, nobody could tell her this, since her eyes stung worse and her face felt hotter and hotter. All she wanted to do was crawl into a small, dark place and hide until the feeling went away.
But a good slave, a proper slave, did what they were told until there was no other option but 'stop’.
“How the pale feathers show, now.”
“Pity they never figured out how to turn them red full time…”
Sahra’s stomach roared. It actually hurt. But not as much as the masters’ hg'ssh-ing. Some of the others on the line were snorting into their chests as they sorted.
A fat, heavy tear dropped from her face and splashed the moving belt.
“Careful, little white one. You might get your salt on the fruit.”
“You’ll spoil it.”
She felt like her whole self was turning red. And her stomach was eating her from the inside. She made her hands move faster. Attacking the black ones and rejecting the red ones like she secretly wished she could attack the hg'ssh-ing masters.
“The more you red her up, the faster she goes!”
“Insult her some more!”
“How do you insult her slave? That’s a tunnel rat. They’re already dirt.”
Hevun’s Rebel. Available soon in all good eBook stores everywhere.
The info-station squawked and sputtered, making half her family jump.
“…blow for freedom,” said the low voice of someone. “our agents… (sizz) …victorious.”
Everyone was looking at everyone else. Sahra sat there with her mouth open and her hands pressed flat on the table. She’d never heard anything like this before. No-one was allowed to get up without Mama or current-Papa’s say-so. It was the rules.
“Tonight… (whreeee) …ore processing centre, killing… (dattledadattle) …oppressors including the vicious freak known as Eon. Celebrate, for tonight our…. (hiss) …struck at the heart of the Majestrix herself.”
“Someone turn that off,” said Mama.
“(swowr) …been known that the decadent… (zzwish) …entertained herself in base ways with the shape-shifter–”
Seventh-Papa stretched over and pulled a wire out. The info-station gave a final shriek and fell silent.
Chills played up and down her spine.
“What wuz that?” Sahra asked.
“(cough-spongebrain-cough),” managed Darvan. Then he smiled and said, “Excuse me. Gristle.”
Mama puckered her mouth at him, but did no more.
“Just a bunch of idiots tryin’ to change the natural order,” said Seventh-Papa. “Pay it no mind. All of you.”
“But he said they were the ones blowed up ore proc'ssing…”
“Butts are for smacking if some little girls don’t shut their mouths. We didn’t hear nothing about nothing. Understand?”
Sahra tried to think of a better way to protest that didn’t start with a ‘but’, and had to shut her mouth. “Yes’m,” she lied.
She watched the rest of her family eat while she filled up on water. Seventh-Papa knew something he wasn’t telling. Mama knew more. And she was scared. The elder sibs knew enough to be scared, too. Except Darvan.
Coming soon to all good eBookstores everywhere. Hevun’s Rebel.
Got your copy yet?
COMING SOON
Or, more accurately, as soon as I can get my dear Beta-Readers to get any found mistakes back to me.
If I can get all edits done by the 25th of October, I can publish on the 29th - just in time for All Hallows’ Read.
IF YOU VOLUNTEERED TO BETA-READ, NOW IS THE TIME TO GET BACK TO ME ABOUT WHAT, IF ANYTHING, YOU FOUND.
‘Cause I’m publishing on the 29th, come hay, hell or high water.
I just want it to look its best when it gets there.