The Fragrance of Orchids and Other Stories by Sally McBride

Author:Sally McBride [McBride, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: short, stories, alien, aliens, fantasy, science fiction, scifi, horror, weird, ghost, computer, garden, food, restaurant, eat, meal, elemental, spirit, building, dark, future
ISBN: 9781998795017
Publisher: Brain Lag
Published: 2023-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Things with too many legs are creepy. If a spider had four legs, and a cute little face (as some of them do), would it scare you? If, say, a building had multiple legs and was ready to take off on them, would it scare you?

As Far As Is Feasible

Just before story-time, Keisha’s mom’s office building started to shake.

Hoo boy, thought Keisha, it’s an earthquake. Her stomach clenched like just before jumping off the cliff at the lake. Which she’d never had the nerve to actually do.

Brianna shouted, “Everyone! Get down on the floor! Pretend you’re a little bug and curl up small!”

Joy, the other daycare lady, crawled around pulling the kids down.

Everyone covered their heads. The shaking stopped. Keisha peeked out from between her fingers. At eight, she was the oldest kid at the company daycare—here today only because it was Teacher Development Day, or Teacher Shopping Day as her mom said—and felt that she’d better help with the little kids or something. She was getting up when the whole building suddenly lurched sideways.

Everyone started screaming. Joy crawled toward the cribs, only one of which had a baby in it, fortunately. She made it just in time to catch the baby as the crib tipped.

Then the building lurched the other way, and, like a huge dog fresh out of a lake, shook all over.

There should be alarms and announcements coming over the speaker system, but all Keisha could hear were rumbles, crashes and squeals from far below. She flattened herself against the carpet again and squeezed her eyes shut.

The building heaved back the other way again. Like when you were playing in a cardboard box, moving it by flopping your body back and forth. The box would inch its way across the floor. The building was trying to do the same thing! She felt a moment of sympathy. The building must be afraid of the earthquake. Or—what if it was a terrorist bomb? When she and Mom watched the news, they sometimes talked about terrorist bombs.

Keisha realized that the floor was level again, and opened her eyes. Toys, art supplies and books lay all over the place. Joy, the baby tucked between her knees, started poking at her phone and making little wheezing noises. Keisha knew that everyone was probably dialing 911 and maybe the 911 people were way too busy right now. Maybe she should check outside, in case firemen were there to lower them to safety, like on TV.

She crawled on her hands and knees to the wall of windows and peered out. She couldn’t see straight down, but maybe she could figure out what was going on. Brianna shouted at her to get back, the windows were dangerous. But Joy said, “Bri, if they haven’t broken by now, they aren’t going to. It’s that smart glass. This whole building is state of the art.”

“Guess that’s why we aren’t squashed flat yet.”

“Bri! Shut up! The kids!”

Keisha ignored them. Everything outside looked okay. The trees that lined the parking lot weren’t shaking.

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