Left To Die

Originally titled 'The Hole' and published on Yahoo Voices

The blazing sun tortured the partially dehydrated man laying in the sand. A trail of blood drops revealed the path Jim had crawled. Jim grimaced and placed his hand on his side. Under his hand, his shirt was soaked with blood. He was breathing heavily and used his other hand to wipe the sand off his sunburned face. There was nothing but sand for as far as he could see. No water. No shade. No sign of civilization. 50 yards behind him was the convertible he could no longer drive. The driver's door had several bullet holes in it. The car could provide no shade for him. The sand was almost unbearably hot.

The people who took revenge for a crime Jim did not commit had disappeared 24 hours ago. They left him without water and without food. They left him to die, but he was determined to live. He remembered exactly how it happened...

Three days ago, he was at his girl friend's house to gather his belongings. Their relationship had ended with loud arguments, punched holes in walls and warnings from her brothers to stay away from her. He knocked on the front door. Judy did not respond. He did not have a key. He walked around the house tapping on every window and calling for her. He figured that she was not answering the door because she was angry at him. He stood outside the bedroom window for a few moments before walking back to his car. Perhaps it would be better if he came back another day. A neighbor peered out her window as he drove away. She went to the phone and called the police.

Inside the second floor bedroom, Judy's beaten body laid on the floor. The room had been ransacked and the box of expensive jewelry was missing. The closet had been ransacked and the clothes Jim wanted to retrieve were missing.

He had known her brothers to be hot tempered. He had been in more than one scuffle with them. So he chose a time when they were not there to get his stuff. It normally to an hour to drive across the small desert to her house.

After Jim had left, the police and her brother's appeared at ther house. Her brothers also knew that Jim drove the same road across the desert to go to work. They waited for him,chased him and shot him.

The sand blowing in his face interrupted his memories. The hot breeze was welcome. Ten yards ahead of him, something was in the sand. He could not see it but he could hear it. The sound of a piano. Jim thought he was hearing things. He pulled his body forward to the spot where the sound orignated. There he found a hole big enough to lay in. The wind was increasing and the blowing sand was stinging his face. He crawled into the hole and laid there. He fell asleep and woke up an hour later.

He sat up and looked around. He was feeling good. He remembered his wound and wondered why it did not hurt. He put his hand on his side. His shirt was dry. No blood. The air was cool and the breeze was refreshing. He was not thirsty. He was not hungry. He crawled out of the hole and immediately felt excruciating pain in his side. He felt his side and looked at the blood dripping off his hand. He crawled back into the hole and looked at his hand and shirt. The blood had disappeared and the pain was gone. He laid there and drifted into unconciousness.

Jim looked down at a truck that came down the road and stopped by Jim's car. The man in the truck saw the body in the sand and used his cell phone to call the police. Everything was okay. Jim was feeling wonderful as he watched the ambulance come and carry his body away.

Trapped

 A Science Fiction Thriller

The dog whined and barked while digging with both paws.

"Tiger! No!" Joe yelled as he yanked the leash and pulled the dog toward him.

His mom had just planted the grass seed several weeks ago.  She spent a lot of time working in the back yard and Joe knew she would be very angry if the dog ruined it.

Tiger was pulling trying to get back to the spot of interest. He kept barking and barking.

"Ya think he buried a bone there?" asked his brother, Fred, as he walked into the yard from the side of the house.

"Not while I've been out here with him."  Joe gave the leash to Fred, "Hold him."

Joe walked up to the spot and looked at the small area that had been dug up.  After inspecting the area, he filled it back in by moving the dirt with his foot.

Fred opened up the back door
.
"Fred, did Tiger bury something out here?"

Fred walked in the back door, turned around and shrugged his shoulders.  "Ain't got time to watch that dumb dog!"

"Great." said Joe, "Just great."

Fred shook his head in disgust.

Tiger kept whining and barking.

"Quiet!" Joe grabbed the leash and entered the back door. He pulled the barking dog inside.  Then he closed the back door, took the leash off the dog and went up the stairs into his bedroom.

 Tiger whined and started scratching at the back door with his paws.

In the backyard, the dirt was being thrown to the side.  Something popped its head out of the hole and looked around.

Tiger started growling. Then the dog yelped once.

Silence.

"Oh crap!" said Joe as he came rushing down the stairs.

The back door was wide open.

"Who opened the door?" Joe peered into the back yard. "Dang it!" He said as he saw the hole in the lawn.

The yard was fenced in.  Joe searched all over the house for Tiger.  "Where the heck did he go?" Joe asked himself.

Fred approached Joe, "See? You don't watch the dog either."

Joe resented the snotty remark.  "Where could Tiger have disappeared to?  He's never jumped the fence."

"There's always a first time."  Fred paused as he heard a car pull into the driveway, "Mom's home. Now you're in real trouble."

"Did you leave this door open?"

"No, I thought you did."

"I closed it."

They heard mom's voice, "Fred, Joe. Come on out and help me with the groceries."

As Joe closed the door, he realized that there were more two holes in the back yard.

"Joe!" yelled mom, "Get over here!"

'I'm coming." Joe walked through the back hallway passed the cellar door and through the kitchen.  He walked through the living room and opened the front door.  The back of his mom's car was sticking out of the garage.

They brought the groceries inside and laid them on the table. Mom started putting the groceries away.
Fred and Joe looked out the living room window.

"Mom," yelled Fred, "There's six holes in the front lawn!"

Mom came running.  "We need help."

She got on the phone in her bedroom and called police. Then they all gathered in the kitchen as she prepared sandwiches and soda. Suddenly they felt a vibration as the wall cracked from ceiling to baseboard.  They ran to the front door as the house shook and all walls began to crack.  Mom tried to open the front door but it was stuck.  She heard something chewing on the wood in the attic. Suddenly a large chunk of ceiling crashed down on the kitchen table.  Holes appeared in the living room wall and the creatures revealed their heads. They looked like rats except for their sharp claws. Mom screamed and they ran through the kitchen into the back hallway and tried to open the back door without success. The house rumbled again and all the windows shattered. Then the kitchen floor collapsed into the cellar and they saw hundreds of creatures in the cellar.

When the police arrived, the complete front lawn had collapsed into the ground. The creatures had been digging deep underground tunnels all around the house. Then the sidewalk leading to the back of the house collapsed. Hundreds of creatures appeared in the huge hole in the front lawn.

The police phoned for help. Mom had managed to grab a broom and was poking the creatures with the broom to keep them away. Another chunk of ceiling fell down in mom's bedroom.  A joist came crashing down and landed on her bed.  In the kid's room the same was happening.

The creatures had all three trapped against the wall in the back hallway.  They could not get to the back door and there were no windows. Behind one wall were the stairway to the attic and the stairway to the cellar. Behind the other wall were the kitchen pantry and the bathroom.  The creatures curiously stared at Joe, Fred and Mom.

They heard the sounds of numerous gun shots followed by a police officer screaming in pain.  Joe and Fred hugged their mom.

There was the sound of a low flying plane followed by an explosion that shook the house.  Then they heard a voice.

"What'd you say?" yelled mom.

"Are you away from the back door?"

"Yes." yelled mom.

"Good. Say clear of it. We're coming in."

They heard a rumbling sound out back and a loud bang as something hit the back door. The back door was ripped off its hinges and came crashing down on the hallway floor, crushing the creatures.  And there, backing away from the door was an army tank.

Soldiers came in and guided mom and the kids out the back door.  The whole ceiling collapsed to the floor.  The surviving creatures scattered.

On the side of the house, the sidewalk had collapsed. On the other side there was a big hole in the lawn and the fence had collapsed from front to back.

The house frame was being destroyed by the creatures. A crowd gathered to watch as the whole house collapsed.  Then there was a rumbling so loud that people had to clog their ears.  Windows on other homes shattered.  People were screaming as the symptoms of a small localized earthquake shook and cracked the road in several places.  Water spouted out of one of the cracks causing people to panic and run.
The garage collapsed.  The ruins of the home started moving toward the street clearing the way for the surfacing of a large round object
.
Joe, Fred and mom ran down the street looking for a place to sit and recuperate from their experience.  It was hard to believe that their home was destroyed.  They found a small diner, sat down and ordered their meals and then asked the owner to turn on the local news on his radio.

Joe leaned his head against his mom. Tears were rolling down his cheeks as he realized that . . . the dog was gone.

While waiting for their meal, Fred and Joe got up and looked out the window. The alien space ship shaped like a flying saucer zoomed across the sky.  When the space ship was over open water a large tubular object appeared in the opposite corner of the sky. Its destination was moving toward it.  The aliens in the space ship realize that they were on a collision course and tried to avoid the tubular object.  But the tubular object's computerized radar system was locked on the space ship. The space ship climbed into the sky with the tubular object right behind it and closing in.

Then space ship made a sharp U-turn.  A second tubular object appeared. This one was traveling at a low altitude.  Both guided missiles hit the space ship at the same time.  The sky light up with a huge explosion. Fragments of the space ship fell to the water.