by K.H. Koehler
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“Attention: Passengers. We are entering an unexpected wormhole. Please remain calm and seated.”
Easy for you to say, you think cryptically as you shrink back into your seat. You swallow about four Xanax and grit your teeth as the shuttle that was supposed to take you to a sci-fi convention at one of the new lunar hotels makes a sudden detour. It lurches suddenly, then spins like a badly weighed load of laundry as it’s swallowed by a giant vacuum existing in both time and space.
A half hour later, your pilot wrestles the shuttle through some angry grey cloud cover and you see the earth glittering far below, but it’s not the earth you know, the earth you grew up on. The earth you’ve left behind. For one thing, once you land and the passengers began to deplane the shuttle, you see something very peculiar. The walls of the terminal churn with a bizarre jigsaw of clockwork parts and a low, cold, London-esque fog seems to cling to everything. Women are dressed in long bustled gowns, and men prance by you, dressed in tweed suits and top hats. They stop to check the time on their watch fobs. They sport canes and spats. Their female companions carry parasols and wear huge feathered hats.
There’s a man in the terminal reading a newspaper, but he’s at least eight feet tall and looks, well, rather shaggy. Across the terminal you spot a man under suspicion. Five men in security uniform wrestle him against a wall in order to search his possessions, but instead of complying with them, he starts to morph into a creature half man and half leopard. The guards drag the were-leopard off while he screams about suing them and about his civil rights as a US citizen. One of the guards asserts that he has no rights.
Besides you stands a man who looks made up mostly of prosthetic clock parts. His head swivels to and fro hydraulically as he searches for his flight number on the lighted departure board.
OK, you think, I’m gonna stay calm. No need to get excited. Right?
You look around sheepishly, luggage in hand, and spot your name on a placecard being held up by a tall blond man. He’s quite the looker, young, not at all threatening. Maybe he knows what’s going on? Where did that damn wormhole deposit you? You feel like you’re in Wonderland…in some alternate, gadget-crazy, monster-ridden sci-fi universe. You start toward him, then realize he’s sporting a pair of impressive bronze wings! He looks pale, even for a blond, and when he smiles, he makes a concentrated effort not to flash any fang. Whoa, you think. My ride’s a vampire!
You have a surreal moment of indecision like when you were a teen and you were reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book and had to make a split decision: Should you go with the vampire or run away? He smiles as he cuts a path toward you and shakes your hand.
“Hey there, I’m Cesar, and I’m your tour guide,” the vampire states in a friendly manner.
You jump at his icy handshake.
“Welcome to New York.” He smiles cheerily, picks up your ultra-heavy luggage like it’s made of foam rubber, and heads out of the terminal.
You sigh and hurry after him. Somehow you know this will not end well.
The vampire passes through the doors of the airport and crosses the street toward a peculiar-looking streetcar. It looks like a cross between an old-fashioned San Francisco trolley and a steam locomotive. The streets of New York are packed with people and filled with more of that low-lying steam. You can barely see anyone through it all. Tall, art-deco-style buildings rear up on all sides of you, and everywhere you look you see people, monsters, and a few that look in between.
Oh man, you think as you board the steam trolley with Cesar, I am so not in Kansas anymore…
~end
Guest post created for October Trix-n-Treatz event by K.H. Koehler, author of A Clockwork Vampire
© 2011. All rights reserved.
Want to learn more about Mrs. McGillicuddy’s world of steampunk vamps and high technology?
DOWNLOAD: The Clockwork Companion: A Free Guide to Mrs. McGillicuddy's World Includes an original short story, excerpt, playlist, glossary, and introduction to steampunk literature by Louise Bohmer.
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by K.H. Koehler
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READ more about Mrs. McGillicuddy here...
by K.H. Koehler
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