"Once upon a time," the Scoutmaster, Ben Richardson, began, with Cub Scout Troop 17 gathered around a large, crackling fire at the end of the first day of their camping trip. "There was a young man who went hiking in these very woods, in search of the witch's cavern."
Quincy Dedham peered uncertainly out at the living room. "I don't know, it seems like there are an awful lot of windows."
Detective Lieutenant Philip McNulty, talking to himself but talking out loud, said, "At a certain point, this has got to be bad for business."
Sometimes you fall in love with an idea and no matter what you do or what you experience you can’t shake it, can’t fall out of love with it.
For Steve, walking the red carpet with Alison was that idea.
"You just need to relax," Alison said. "I'm going for a run. Why don't you take a break and come along?" She smiled. "I'll pace myself so you can keep up."
Captain Jane Shackleton, commanding the container ship Miranda, no longer needed her binoculars to track the phenomena approaching her ship. "Captain," Ensign Tom Waterman said, "We're picking up something big in that squall. On a direct intercept course at… 40 knots."
It's big enough to hide a battleship, Shackleton thought.
Rachael thought the "Scooby Gang" thing had run its course but she did her best to hide her annoyance with Scott. He was such a puppy dog and you have to be patient with puppy dogs. "Well," she said. "I'd have to go with Velma."
Eric MacKenzie, CEO of MKZ Pharma, noticed the island first as a dull spot in the distance - a broken mirror in an ocean of mirrors reflecting the mid-morning sun. "How much longer?" he shouted. The pilot's voice crackled in his headset. "Fifteen minutes. Twenty tops." MacKenzie sat back in his seat, checked his watch, and tugged the seat belt and shoulder restraints tighter. He hated flying. Or rather, he feared crashing. The frequency of the risk was low but - no pun intended or hoped for - the impact was high and potentially tragic.
The four men in charcoal grey suits, with thin black ties and pork pie hats, walked into Jake's Car Works, each one carrying a briefcase. They approached the service desk counter where they were greeted by the owner himself, Jake Weatherbee, a tall, lean man with strong, callused hands and a face was all eyebrows and mustache.
He had made his way to the coast, to the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. The house and the grounds were empty. This was hardly a surprise. Raleigh was a ghost town, stinking of the dead, of uncollected garbage, of rotting food in empty stores. There were a few survivors, like himself, but he just couldn't think of himself as lucky. He had seen too much death and still feared for his own. Was it crazy to think he was being watched? Was anything crazy in this insane world? Maybe the truth itself was crazy. Knowing the truth. How had he been left to save the world? He didn't know but he had made it this far and as long as he had life, he would hold onto hope...
"Can you believe this 'Adam and Eve' nonsense?" Dr. Jackson Firestone took a bite of his avocado toast and a sip of coffee. "I didn't think this world could get any more delusional but I have clearly miscalculated."
Lieutenant Florence Franklin pulled back the hood of her parka as she returned to the bridge from the observation deck to report to Captain Katrina Townsend. "I know this is going to sound crazy, Captain." She paused. "There's something on that iceberg off the port bow."
Henrietta Hen shook out her feathers and clucked. It was morning. The sky was clear and blue. Today was the day. It would be a good day, Henrietta clucked.
Steven K lay on the couch in Dr. Ash Granger's office, recounting a dream. "It's like every night this past week. I'm at the grocery store and I'm shopping. Stock boys are putting goods on the shelves, other people are shopping. They smile as we pass each other. Their carts are full of food and household goods and I see some of them lined up to check out but I'm pushing an empty cart. Up and down the aisles. I'm checking items on the shelves, but I don't buy anything. But here's the weird part," he said.
Detective Lieutenant Scott Truman looked on as Police Sergeant Zane Stillman took pictures of the body of the dead woman on the floor. He looked out of the small back room through the doorway to the store front window of Lady Vadoma's Fortune Emporium. "You'd think she would've seen this coming," he said.
"Post hoc ergo propter hoc," Glenn said. "Though I think I prefer the more colloquial, if less technically correct, 'correlation is not causation'."
It's hot, was the first thing that Steve thought. And I have sand in my mouth. Why do I have sand in my mouth? Steve's head hurt. Steve's everything hurt.
