Gabriella Balcom - Issue 35

Gabriella Balcom lives in Texas, works full-time in the mental health field, and has loved reading and writing her entire life. She writes fantasy, horror, sci-fi, romance, literary fiction, and more, and loves great stories, forests, mountains, and back roads that lead who knows where. She has a weakness for lasagna, garlic bread, tacos, cheese, and chocolate, but not necessarily in that order, and adores Chinese, Italian, and Mexican food. Gabriella has had 653 works accepted for publication, and won the right to have a novel published by Clarendon House Publications when one of her short stories was voted best in the anthology in which it appeared. Her multi-genre book, On the Wings of Ideas, came out afterward. She was nominated for the Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Award, and won second place in JayZoMon/Dark Myth Company’s 2020 Open Contract Challenge (one hundred+ authors competed for cash prizes and contracts). Gabriella's romance novelette, Worth Waiting For, was then released. She self-published a novelette, Free’s Tale: No Home at Christmas- time, and Black Hare Press published her sci-fi novella, The Return. Dark Myth Publishing released her horror novella, Down with the Sickness and Other Chilling Tales. Her Facebook author page: https://m.facebook.com/GabriellaBalcom.lonestarauthor

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Where Could They Have Gone?

“They vanished!” Coal raced into his older brother’s den, nostrils flaring. Spittle flew from the wolf’s mouth when he spoke again. “Wherecouldtheyhavegone?”

“You’re babbling,” Charr snapped. “Are you rabid? Or have you been smoking wolfsbane again?”

“No! I swear it!”

Charr soon frowned. “You probably just didn’t notice them sneaking out.”

“They didn’t. I know because I never looked away. Those three pigs ran into the brick house and I blew it over. But they were gone when I searched.”

The brothers went to the demolished house and rummaged through part of the rubble, but found no bodies.

“This is a waste of time,” Coal complained.

“Oh, hush. I think I see something.” Charr moved more debris aside. “Look.”

Coal joined him in studying the foot-wide sphere lying on the ground. It was blue and shimmered. “What is that?”

“I think it’s a magic portal. I’ve heard of them. They lead to other worlds.”

“Maybe this one goes to a world of pigs.” The younger wolf’s eyes gleamed. “Can you imagine dozens and dozens of them?”

“Or hundreds. I’d love a gourmet meal.”

“Me, too. Lots and lots of yummy pork.”

“Come on.” Charr stepped onto the sphere and vanished.

Coal followed him, also disappearing.

Pigs weren’t the first things they saw. Boats were, dozens and dozens of them, but unlike any the wolves had ever seen before. Large with widespread sails, these boats soared through the air high above Charr and Coal’s heads. They stared wide-eyed as several of the flying crafts sped in their direction, descending to hover several feet above the ground.

“Boats are for the water, not the air,” Coal murmured. “I must be dreaming.”

“This is no dream, and those are bigger than boats. They’re ships.” Charr studied them. “Someone must be inside those things, and we need to know who.”

A ship landed about two hundred feet away, and a door opened in the side. Uniformed beings stepped out. They wore helmets with dark face shields concealing their faces, and black bands on their wrists with small devices attached. When one removed its headgear, the brothers saw it was a pig.

“Pork walking on two legs instead of four.” Coal smirked. “Now I’ve seen it all.”

Charr grinned, but his grin vanished when the pig tapped his wrist device and the ground began shaking.

Thumps sounded in the distance, steadily growing louder, and within moments, things approached, ranging in color from dark-green to shades of brown and gray. The closer they got, the more obvious it became that they were huge. Hundreds of feet tall, the monsters bared their long, jagged teeth, and uttered ear-shattering roars. Some ran on four legs, but a cluster of them ran on two and had short arms. One lunged at a smaller variety, attacking and devouring it.

“Not what you expected, I’m sure,” the pig said conversationally. “They’re called dinosaurs. And not that it matters, but the one that ate the other is a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That group coming toward us are meat-eaters, so you might want to run.”

He tapped his device again. All the carnivores turned in unison to stare at the wolves, then charged in their direction.

Coal and Charr panicked, uttering terrified yips. Tucking their tails between their legs, they ran as fast as they could toward a cave they saw off to the right. Roars and snarls sounded behind them, and they barely made it through the small entrance before a Tyrannosaurus Rex stuck its head inside. It snapped at Coal, missing him by mere inches. Charr yanked him backward, and they moved into a smaller area.

The creature yanked its head out, and the scary noises outside stopped, everything going silent.

“Maybe they left,” Charr whispered. “We need to get back to the portal, and out of this place.”

He and Coal crept toward the entrance. But when the top of the cavern was unexpectedly ripped off, they cowered to the ground.

A dinosaur even larger than the Tyrannosaurus Rex loomed over them. After grabbing Coal by his tail, it tossed him into the air, and bit him in half. His screams stopped abruptly.

Charr fled the cavern, but dozens of predators gave chase. They caught him within seconds, tearing his body into pieces.

The dinosaurs lumbered back over to the pigs, and stood motionless, awaiting orders.

The end.