Thunderbolts and Lightning

Thunderbolts and Lightning

Short stories from Vbooks

By Vanda & Tom Denton

© 2022 Vanda & Tom Denton

All rights reserved by the authors. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers and/or authors.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4710-5911-7

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4710-5912-4

Published by Vbooks

This book is available from

www.vinctalin.com

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all eBooks

Think you know where you come from?

Think again.

And when you think they’ve given you the answer dig deeper, because they don’t always tell the truth. They use propaganda, torture, forced addiction, slavery. They commit genocide.

They are waiting.

No need to watch.

Their system never fails.

They’re bioengineers on a grand scale and at every level. They’re not so different from us. In fact, the more you discover, the more frightening the resemblance is.

The fifteen books of The Vinctalin legacy are written in the third person and none has multiple narrators (although a number of our other books do.) If you would care to express a view of the various writing devices employed in these short stories we’d love to hear from you at www.vinctalin.com. Also, ratings and/or reviews for the books, particularly on Amazon, would be greatly appreciated.  We ask only for your honest opinion both as feedback and to aid future readers in their choices.

Some of our novels from Vbooks

Pagan: The Rise of the Haliorunnae

& the sequel

Pagan: The Trials of the Haliorunnae

Think you know what witches are?

Think again.

Forget toads and revenge.

Everything here is new.

Habitat

Imagine where the science of synthetic biology might lead. Now imagine you live in a safe haven. A place where every act, every thought you have, is governed by the rules. A place where the Keepers of the Rules maintain a serene ambience, for the good of all. A place where you are kept ignorant of the existence of monsters.

Except…

This place is not safe for you.

This is Outer Shell Engineer, Rhys Buchanan’s, position. Isolated by choice, knowing his job description involves an underlying inevitability of an early, agonising death, he is beyond resentment.

There is only one free choice remaining.

The Smile

A young woman gradually comes to realise she has been the subject of a legitimization process in a violent male-dominated society. In order to make the subject of the enslavement of women accessible to the average reader I have created what I believe could be termed ‘a good read’. I have deliberately omitted explicit descriptions of the most extreme abuse, avoiding gratuitous sex and violence, thus focusing more closely on the cruel, insidious and generational obliteration of the human rights of women. As a universal, timeless topic limited to no particular religious or political ideals, I have placed my character, Abrins Wife, in an anachronistic setting outside of particular historical periods and geographical locations.

Following Meltdown

The world population, traumatised by a series of pandemics, is finally brought to its knees through a craze of keeping Congo rats as pets.

Draconian laws in this earthy dystopian society of the near future, spur the Baker twins into killing their teacher during a history lesson. The notably taciturn vet, Gabriel Harrison who has been conscripted into teaching, is alerted too late to the terrible crime taking place in the school.

Harrison has remained in good health and been well fed through successive widespread ordeals. It is the murder of his colleague that finally pricks his conscience, prompting him into helping a small group of vulnerable people.

Designated Conservation Zone

A secret organisation solves the problem of climate change. And humans are not high in their list of priorities. All else is balanced as a part of a global eco-system. This is a story of reversing and preventing the problems rather than one of living with the dire consequences of it. Except from the human perspective this is a holocaust.

Cacodaemus

This is the first in the Guy Edrich trilogy. The underlined names inform the reader of which character is narrating at any time.

Guy

As a child, I held a concept of another, a non-corporeal life which, as an adult, I could no longer perceive.

When I was left as the only willing defender of the human race, I began to grasp the concept of Parfait. I was hit by a tidal wave. A torrent of fluid motion I had no name for. It was beyond vocabulary.

Jerome

‘There are millions of them all over the world.’

‘No way,’ I breathed.

‘Oh yes!’ she grinned, ‘millions! Can you imagine the mayhem they’re causing? People will be hunted, mutilated and killed by demons. Eventually a small human population will survive, hidden from the prowling devils. And we will come out of hiding to claim our slaves.’

List of titles in order:

Bacchus

A Harvest Less Ordinary

Water

Sanctuary

Life Class

Ivors Wife

Spliced Genes

Galleon

Sun and Moon

Walker’s Incinerator

Giant Congo Rats

Tendanny

What Will You Be Doing Monday Evening?

Guilt

A Plague of Demons

Vinctalin

Wulpet

Becoming Me

The Vinctalin Invasion: Logs

Bacchus

They were throwing carcases on to the benches as usual when one that landed with a shlup captured my attention. It caught me off guard. Yes, even I can be shocked. What landed on the butcher’s block was not a side of beef, but a woman’s body. Naked. Obviously.

Yet, it wasn’t that that disturbed me. This was not uncommon. What was unusual was that I recognised her. In fact, it wasn’t many days earlier that I’d seen her walking around. Clothed.

Watching her being slapped on to the bench would not have become my problem, had Q P-S been doing his job effectively.

Needing to think, I dodged around to the back of the illegal slaughterhouse masquerading as a barn in the charming Yorkshire countryside. There I settled to more seriously assessing the results of Quentin Pilkington-Smythe’s incompetence.

I have an ability. Intuition let’s call it. A quality Q P-S lacked even the vaguest concept of.

It was reason, however, that had me tracking down the nature of the mess he could be landing me in. Q P-S’s workforce, the men I’d many times watched butchering the cows, sheep and other species, were no one’s average choppers and slicers. They worked in silence with no independent thinking, each performing the same repetitive task day in and day out. Q P-S had become lackadaisical in the keeping of their existence secret.

Human bodies were butchered in that illegal slaughterhouse and mixed with beef or lamb for pies as well as going into pet food. I’d fear Q P-S gave some to me if I ever ate the food he supplied. I also worried that his contact in the criminal world could know too much about us.

Several times in the past I’d hovered in the background when the buyers came. They were never allowed near the slaughterhouse, but they did go to the butchery. After the workers there had been sent home.

Milton always made a big fuss of me and talked to me. He asked inane questions such as: is this horse meat? Old zoo animals? Stray pets? It was the low price, giving him a sizeable profit margin, that let the cat out of the bag there.

He invariably added to that narrative: Bet you don’t eat it. He was something of a concrete thinker, yet even he could see more of my worth than Quentin Pilkington-Smythe did.

There was for me, a constant undercurrent in my mind, of having picked the wrong side in this, a more than incidental, ancient war, rumbling beneath the surface of all human societies. So old, in fact, that both sides had lost the identity of their almost forgotten enemy. Q P-S was even further distanced from that, thus missing the principle purpose of our mysterious provider of a free, dependable workforce.

I frequently found myself making the peculiar comparison of normal men working with livestock in the pastures, with those slaughtering and butchering these farm animals, alongside other species. I’d see him out in the large expanses supervising the normal ones one minute and then watch him with the others the next minute. The fool believed he could keep those two disparate worlds functioning in tandem, whilst losing sight of an imminent danger.

He owned an extensive acreage of meadow with huge, isolated barns set well away from any area the livestock workers operated in. Q P-S had an empire there. Too often I faced the truth of his tawdry lifestyle, painfully aware my companion was beneath me.

The buyers arrived on a weekly basis, driving past the fields of cows and sheep to the butchery where they bought packs of diced, mixed meats, purposefully ignorant of the undercurrents of this smooth-running enterprise. From Quentin’s limited point of view, this was far too big an operation to allow a greedy developer to push us out.

I, on the other hand, was aware of one possible escape route that could lift me above all that was involved in my companionship to a fool with no class. No charisma.

I knew of a guy with class who would be worthy of my service. In my mind, I could see him. I wanted to be with him. He was brave and wise, and he was royal. A king in fact. A king I was born to be with. I’d have left Quentin Pilkington-Smythe for Jean-Louis Rusch, if I knew how to get to him. If I could figure that out, I’d have been out of there years ago. Q P-S would accuse me of going over to the enemy. I’d accuse him of being too stupid to hang on to me. The longer I remained there, the more I felt obliged to pay attention to the details of the mess he was dragging me into.

That woman’s body, the last one slapped on to the butcher’s bench and by no means the first human meat to enter the food chain from a certain Yorkshire farm, had an identity. She had a name: Ann Richards. She was a Councillor. She first made contact at the home where only Quentin and I lived.

We had help in that home: a cleaner but no cook. Quentin ate out or had food delivered. I got my own meals. So, when Ann Richards visited, he couldn’t even offer her a cup of tea, unless she wanted it without milk. The man had no style. How hard would it have been to get some basic groceries delivered once a week even if he threw most of it out. All that money and he couldn’t even offer the woman a cup of tea.

He wasn’t to know that wasn’t a problem. That is, not until after discussing the weather at length and after she got around to asking if he ever thought about selling some of his land. He might have been able to dig up a modicum of charm over a cup of tea, but all he could manage was to tell her bluntly he had no intention of selling. In the event, she was not even vaguely put off pursuing her real purpose for being in our home. With that I began studying her as closely as Quentin did.

You could cut the air with a knife. While she put that down to having hit the wall of farmland versus housing development Q P-S panicked over having his secret uncovered. Which was peanuts compared to what could be unleashed if she acquired a compulsory purchase order. He wasn’t even thinking of that. I so needed to be in contact with a mind that could factor in all possibilities in such a precarious situation as this, rather than murder her without thought for the consequences.

She was a Councillor whose husband owned a large house building firm. They had a vested interest in buying farmland. In time, not much time because people like her think they live by different rules from the rest of us, she began working on a method to force the sale. The government had demanded thousands of new houses be built in Yorkshire and were in the process of relaxing greenbelt rules.

This woman thought she was on to a winner. A killing. How ironic. She had no idea who this man was, she was leaning on. That he had far more to lose than a livestock farm.

Quentin Pilkington-Smythe’s operation was enormous: the illegal slaughterhouse being only one of his side-lines. Those silent workmen were also employed in illegal mining operations. There were valuable deposits below the surface pastures no one had begun to imagine.

Above the surface in the huge, isolated barns and what appeared to be battery hen houses, there was even more for him to lose because that’s where his slaves were housed. There was no way he could move all of that for any amount of money. And no way he could allow a stranger to go nosing about there.

A few days later, because of her persistence, Q P-S lured her back to our home by giving the hope he could be persuaded to sell. And again, had he been able to offer a cup of tea, a natural toxin would have brought the beginning of a more efficient ending to her proposal. Instead, he bludgeoned her with the poker, leaving fragments of bone and splatters of blood all over the scullery. No amount of scrubbing would get rid of her DNA there, should anyone turn up to investigate.

Ann and her husband Clive had been bribing people throughout the area to get their farming land off them, so when she went missing he would be suspicious of the last person believed to have seen her. The person Clive could well have his pal the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, investigating.

Even then, the idiot did not move at speed, to deal with something much bigger than a murder charge. Oh no. He was considering running away to live in luxury by use of his offshore account.

That put me in the awkward position of approaching the slaves’ queen because only she could lead the men off the land in the dead of night, when no one would see them going to a new hiding place.

I was obliged to take care of what the fatuous oaf hadn’t taken into account or we’d both be exposed to a being far more dangerous than the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. But I made up my mind over one thing: once I’d saved his bacon I was going over to the other side.

Unpredictable as she was, I could take no chances with this queen. Naturally, I knew exactly where her lair was. When I say exactly, I mean exactly. Q P-S knew who was housing her, but I’d cased that complex manor house and knew precisely which room she occupied. Also, I could get to her without drawing attention.

There was no time to waste. I bounded across the fields, through the hamlets, and private gardens and cross-country, to that mansion and its vast estate.

Once there, I climbed a tree near her window and leapt from there to the stone sill, peering in through the window to watch her sitting on her throne. She was, as always, alone. She was ready to spawn. Her fertile men would be waiting in the next room, preparing the thermostatic water bath, where their sperm would fertilise her eggs. They’d kill me if they caught hold of me.

She’d be reluctant to leave at a time like this. More than reluctant.

There was only one way. She’d have to steal her men: the product of a five-year-old spawning. No way would stupid Q P-S give them to her even though that was his best hope of survival by that stage. By murdering the Councillor instead of creating an ‘accident’, with a body to be recovered, displaying all the signs of the unintentional ingestion of a natural contaminant, he’d risked exposing this entire secret world operating under the noses of humans.

For a moment, as I watched from outside the window, I doubted my ability to make contact with this human-looking woman but there was more animal in her than I’d given her credit for.

It was she who turned to see me, crouching on the old stone window ledge outside her room. It was she who made contact with me. It was she who grasped the entire story within seconds, and in the next few seconds issued orders to the fertile men to prepare a new place. A place earmarked for any emergency that might arise.

And it was she who threw up the sash window and flew from that second storey room, with me scurrying behind her.

It was just as well for Q P-S’s sake that he’d know nothing of this until the morning. Then rather than being thankful, he’d be furious to find all his slaves had gone missing.

She was far swifter even than me. I watched from some distance still, while her shadowy drones followed her in a clumsy mass across the fields.

Though I tried, I couldn’t catch up with them. My exhaustion was not natural. Not for me. She’d sapped my energy. Literally.

I’d hoped to search out Jean Louis-Rusch with the ability to make this offering. To be able to give him the location of one faction of his enemy. But the Gog was taking no chances. She disappeared from view and I was left with no clue as to the location of Gog and her Magog.

Still keen to become companion to the king of the haliorunnae, I considered I had much to offer him. Thus, I set out on a new path. One that would lead to the less elusive Lucia. A five-day, cross-country trek, catching and eating prey along the way, brought me to her home.

Interestingly, inside her house, as with Gog, Lucia, a being of an entirely different species, sensed my presence.

I chose to communicate very little to her. She already knew my worth. And my purpose. It was one that suited her well.

Weeks passed as I lived off the wildlife in her garden, before the opportunity arose. Then, at last, he came to her house.

She led the way into his presence. Oh, what a glorious presence! I felt his entire being flow over me, around me and through me, like a pleasing balm. I sat on the rug by the door, soaking him up, as he, man-shaped, lounged back in a sofa.

He was contemptuous of Lucia, ‘Do you really think you can win me over with a cat?’

I was outraged. A cat! Just a cat! Me!

I pounced on to his knee, raised my paws to his shoulders, looked him directly in the eye and delivered a sure message: I am Bacchus! A more handsome and gifted companion than you have ever known!

I felt the inward smile he refused to concede to Lucia, who was in the process of telling him a truth she didn’t realise he’d already accepted, ‘You know as well as I do that a cat of this calibre chooses you.’

As our minds met, I basked in his delight. This king of the haliorunnae had never met a creature as accomplished as I. No one ever notices the ever-present cat collecting knowledge. I had a great deal of information concerning my old master, for this enemy of his.

The story of Bacchus is based on Vanda M. Denton’s Pagan novels. These two books feature ancient genetic development, parallel evolution, hive minds and a clandestine bid to take over the human world.

Set in the present day, humanity is unwittingly approaching an apocalypse. The vast majority of people are unaware of an ancient war broiling and bubbling beneath the surface. An evil lurks at the heart of some of the most ordinary businesses around the world. There is talk of witches, ghosts and demons.

In the Pagan stories Jean-Louis Rusch finally accepts he was created for the purpose of defeating the enemy of the Haliorunnae but those who made him, expecting to control him, find they made him too well.

A Harvest Less Ordinary

Gorex Viy is a Guard of distinction, with ambitions for his personal life as well as his professional one.  Yet in spite of intensive training, he could not have anticipated this. He had no ability to comprehend the talents of Roselli’s people, and she no experience that could enable her to understand how he had arrived in her domain.

Gorex Viy

When we arrived at Dobetzlimen I was relieved to learn that I’d be taking charge of the landing craft rather than protecting festering Tendanny gerels. Though eager to breathe planet air I was in no hurry to take my ship down. No one had noticed my new relationship. I could spend time with Castel Henda without being accused of manipulating the rosters.

Close to me in charge of surveillance, was Sharma Lee. ‘No sign of Tajat activity. All Dobetzilems in our zone are most likely dead.’

Before boarding this vessel, I’d told Castel to take care but he floated past me dropping a remark that effectively questioned the Emperor’s judgement, ‘Why can’t we just number these poxin worlds?’

My grimaced response to a criticism Sharma hadn’t heard, made her curious.

Orders came through all too soon. We were to take the ship down and prepare the incinerators. I told my crew to grab hold of something, and began the descent. There was turbulence when we passed through the stratosphere but no one landed on their rump.  As for the bruising incurred from buffeting into fixtures, well, they heal soon enough.

Sharma gave me the old glance that told me I could have made the ride smoother, before looking to Castel who was rubbing his hip. I should have known she’d guess there was somebody new in my life.

There was nothing about our arrival to suggest aberrant Tajats dwelt here. I had Guards outside preparing conveyers when the first group of Tendanny, staggering atop a flatback travelling at speed, came hurtling towards us.

‘What in the name of all vile festering royals…’

‘Shut up, Castel! You’ll be heard!’

Sharma stepped closer to us, moments before the vehicle came to an abrupt halt, spilling half its passengers in varying states of unbalance.

She spoke to the Tendanny scum. ‘Whatever stinking effluence you think you saw…’

The crew leader did not make eye-contact but he did speak up with uncharacteristic firmness, ‘They are armed.’

I pushed past Sharma, aware she’d quarrel rather than get to the point.

‘Sir,’ the crew leader, knowing me of old, addressed me directly. ‘My lord, there are hundreds of them. Our weapons have no effect on them. Our supporting Guards have requested aid.’

I eyed the man fiercely, searching for a sign of cowardice, and on seeing none sought information. ‘The Guards’ weapons are effective?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very well. Stay in the ship.’ I hailed my crew of Guards with their superior weapon power and hoisted a fit young male Tendanny out of the group. ‘Show us the way.’ The idiot was terrified. ‘Now! And run you dim-witted gerel turd!’

I wanted to appoint Castel the Guard to stay safely with the ship but it would be the wrong operational choice. It had to be a Second Echelon because I must take all First Echelons with me due to our armour. Indeed, that was the specific purpose of our particular uniforms. And also, though not armoured, the whole point of Second Echelons with Castel’s level of bio-engineering, was that he could assess the technological nature of the enemy’s equipment. I’d be a fool not to have him help me expedite matters here. I am not a fool. So, instead of Castel, I left a young female with good implants but little practical experience. She was brimming with confidence when we left her in charge of Tendanny who had no immediate purpose. I judged she’d lose that smug smile within the hour.

We thundered after the Tendanny boy, some flanking him with annoyance for his non-enhanced slow progress. We seemed to be heading for a sheer rock face until Castel, with his specialised implants, called for us to take cover.

I had never before seen such advanced weaponry on a