Author: Dr. K

Screen Time [Sci-Fanuary]: The Outer Limits (1995): “Quality of Mercy” (S1: E13)

Dr. KLeave a comment

January sees the celebration of two notable dates in science-fiction history, with January 2 christened “National Science Fiction Day” to coincide with the birth date of the world renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and HAL 9000, the sophisticated artificial intelligence of Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), being created on 12 January. Accordingly, I’ve been dedicated every Sunday of January to celebrating sci-fi in all its forms.

Season One, Episode 13:
“Quality of Mercy”

Air Date: 16 June 1995
Director: Brad Turner
US Network: Showtime
UK Network: BBC 2
Stars: Robert Patrick, Nicole de Boer, and Mark McCracken

The Background:
The Twilight Zone (1959 to 1964; 1985 to 1989) wasn’t on when I was a kid; growing up, I only had the then-four channels of terrestrial television available to me so my sci-fi/horror anthology series of choice was The Outer Limits (1995 to 2002). A revival of the original 1960s show, The Outer Limits was an award-winning anthology series originally broadcast here in the United Kingdom on BBC 2; every week, a new tale would unfold, usually revolving around aliens, artificial intelligence, or other sci-fi, horror, or fantastical stories, though there were also a number of recurring themes, characters, and even semi-sequential stories to be found in the show’s long history. Considering my nostalgia and affection for the series, it’s great to see others also have a fondness for the show, and I’m always happy to revisit it when I get the opportunity.

The Plot:
Mankind is fighting a losing battle against an aggressive alien race; at the height of the conflict, Major John Skokes (Patrick) is captured and imprisoned alongside a young cadet, Bree Tristan (de Boer). While Stokes is determined to escape and return to the fight, his defiance is rattled when he discovers that the alien jailers have begun experimenting with grafting samples of their own skin onto Bree in an effort to make her one of them!

The Review:
“Quality of Mercy” begins with Major John Skokes being forcibly dragged and manhandled into a prison cell on an alien world but a physically superior, war-like race of aliens who have been locked in a one-sided battle against Earth’s United Nations Defense Forces (UNDF) for some time. An abrasive, proud, and stubborn military man, John’s first instinct in all things is to fight back, even when he’s clearly outmatched by his alien captors. This instinct extends not just to his defiance at being thrown into a cell, right when he’s at the peak of the war no less, but also to his determination to find a way out of the cell and to his initial militant attitude towards his cell-mate, the timid and terrified Bree Tristan. While John is a combat veteran who has fought on the front lines of the war for so long that he hasn’t actually been back to Earth in years, Brie is a cadet (second class) from Europa base who has only ever flown and fought in training missions. Captured during the “second Europa raid”, Brie estimates that she has been imprisoned and tortured for about three months and has been by herself for some time after her commander, Hartley, a much older and physically impaired man, died some time ago. She’s been kept there, in the dark and alone, ever since; forced to scavenge for food by chasing after the odd little rubbery parasites her captors toss to her and having lost all track of time and hope, Brie’s state of mind is only further fractured by the horrific experiments the aliens have been conducting on her as they have been routinely grafting their skin and DNA onto her body into an effort to physically transform her into one of them!

While John is determined to escape back to the fight, Brie is overcome by the futility of it all.

While Brie is off getting tortured, John busies himself exploring every inch of their cell, which is home to a pool of acid-like liquid and a curious red vegetation that seems more than a little inspired by the works of H. G. Wells. Although the diamond-hard walls cannot be breached, John is able to climb them to a barred ventilation shaft in the ceiling, through which he can hear the screams and desperate cries of Brie (and other humans) being tortured. After fashioning a cutting tool from a shard of the rock, John sets to work using all of his strength and free time trying to cut through the bars in the ceiling; although Brie is wracked by pain and despair at her condition, John offers her hope not only in his discovery but in giving her physical comfort. Having been caught up in the conflict, Brie has lived without love and passion or the touch of another, and derives much solace and comfort from even John’s hesitant attempts to console her. While Brie desperately tries to cling on the love and believes it’s what separates humanity from their enemy, John has been consumed by hatred; he is so resolute in his determination to escape that he’s even willing to go down fighting, if need be, but considers this a worst-case scenario. Feeling sympathy for her plight and virginity, having been so caught up in conflict that he has lost touch with the simple pleasures of life, John takes his sexual urges towards Brie and uses them as more motivation to cut through the bars, and pays the price for his stubbornness when his leg is shredded by a ravenous little creature in the vent and his hand is cut off at the wrist when he foolishly tries to keep Brie from being harmed further.

Brie is distraught as she loses more and more of her humanity and identity to the aliens’ experiments.

John’s determination stems from a deep-rooted need to get back into the fight because the future of humanity depends upon it; he was excited to deal a decisive blow against the enemy for the first time and to prove that they could be bested, and is angered at being captured right when he’s needed the most. John’s mindset contrasts heavily with Brie’s and both characters provide not only different perspectives on the conflict but to the world-building of this episode; John apparently embodies the single-minded, militaristic focus of those in the thick of the fight, while Brie seems very much against the war. Since John has been fighting pretty much non-stop for the last four years, he hasn’t seen what’s become of the Earth; Brie has however, and horror stories of a world turned into a police state, churning out munitions and training soldiers in a constant cycle to feed the war effort. John, however, remains adamant that humanity will come out of the war stronger than ever; he believes that the conflict will unite humankind, ending their petty squabbles and political and racial differences, to come together as one unified race. Forced into service by a standardised test and lacking John’s passion for the fight, Brie is ashamed to admit that she caved under torture and spilled everything she knew to spare herself further pain (though, as a mere cadet and a trainer, neither she nor Hartley had no information of real value) and she doesn’t share John’s fighting attitude or confidence that their enemy can be defeated. Of course, her will is only further sapped by the continual experiments and violations she suffers at the hands of their captors; the alien skin grafts cause her incredible physical pain and cannot be forcibly removed, despite John’s best efforts. Brie is taken away again and again, changing a little more each time, and her sense of identity and humanity degrade a little more each time she returns. At first, the graft is simply a leathery, reptilian wound on her arm but, soon, her entire back is converted into a sickening alien flesh and part of her face is lost to the aliens’ appalling visage.

John’s determination sees him gravely injured, but his resolve is shattered by Brie’s devastating revelation.

With Brie’s transformations becoming more and more severe, and John’s injuries effectively crippling any minor chance they had at escape, the two begin to realise that their options have become severely limited. With a heavy heart, John admits that he can’t fulfil his promise; earlier, Brie talked about how she and Hartley had planned to commit suicide but he was too weak to go through with it and she was too scared, and sadly John is unable to bring himself to put her out of his misery due to how attached to her he has become. Still, Brie is grateful that John was able to give her a brief, shining moment of hope for herself and for humanity and, with the end in sight, John tries one last time to comfort her with the knowledge that, although it may be the end for them, humanity will live on. John reveals that the UNDF has been feigning defeat and have held back a massive armada of their strongest fighters on the far side of the Sun, which were due to launch a devastating attack on the alien home world thirty days before John was captured. He fully believes that this desperate military strike will be a turning point in the war, and enough to strike a crippling blow against the enemy even though the two of them won’t live to see it, but he is left screaming in despair when Brie drops a bombshell of her own. When the alien jailer (McCracken) returns once more, Brie willingly goes to it and reveals that she was being changed back into one of them, thus exposing herself as a sleeper agent who has manipulated John into revealing humanity’s greatest military secret and assumedly dooming the human race to destruction.

The Summary:
“Quality of Mercy” is one of a handful (something like six to eight) episodes of The Outer Limits that really stuck with me, both as a kid when I first watched it and now, later in life. I remember enjoying this episode so much, being so influenced by it, that I plagiarised it for a short story assignment at secondary school! Although the episode is pretty much confined to one rather uninspiring location (an alien prison cell that looks to have taken a leaf out of Star Trek’s (1966 to 1969) playbook) and only really feature three character’s, its themes of human determination, and naivety, beautifully summed up as always by the narrator (or “Control Voice”; Kevin Conway): “Men of war have long known that warriors must often abandon those verities they defend. Peace, human kindness, love…for they hold no meaning to the enemy. And so, to win, do we become what we despise…and despise what we become? In the darkest of hours…in the greatest of battles…we must never forget who, or what, we are.“

The aliens are mysterious, physically imposing, and sadistic war-like race who have humanity endangered.

Although they’re not given a name, we are told quite a few things about the alien force that has imprisoned our main characters. They are a war-like race with little compassion and, though they can apparently understand human language and speak it through a machine, they have no understanding of concepts like “mercy”; they treat their prisoners like rats to be observed, forcibly experimented on, and dissected to learn more about their ways and their enemy. They seem oddly curious about human beings; they left Commander Hartley’s body in the cell with Brie for some time as if expecting her to do something with it (and John suspects that they eat their dead) and were fascinated by the differences between male and female bodies and sexual organs. Brie recounts with disgust and dismay how they forced her to strip down and violated her with probes and instruments, and of course she is horrified at the continued alterations being made to her body by their experiments. The aliens are depicted as huge, armoured creatures that tower over and physically dominate their captors, despite John’s best efforts to fight them back and, though we don’t see their forces in this episode, we do here many a horror story from John about how the alien’s ships have decimated humanity’s forces and proved to be a high-unconquerable enemy. And yet, despite Brie trying to encourage John to partake of the limited sustenance the aliens provide and talk him out of the futility of trying to escape or discover some weakness in their captors, John’s resolve remains absolute and steadfast His immediate focus is on learning the layout of their cell, figuring out how observed they are, and gathering as much information as he possibly can about where they are and what options are available to him, and he continually shouts defiance to his captors, taunting them with the revelation that he personally destroyed on of their capital ships and remaining adamant that they aren’t as indestructible as they immediately seem.

John’s desperation to give Brie hope may very well have doomed humanity to total destruction.

In the end, “Quality of Mercy” is a harrowing tale of desperation, deceit, and determination; John and Brie couldn’t be two more different, contrasting characters and they react to their hopeless situation in wildly different ways that both define and alter their characters and add to the intriguing lore of this world. Set in a future where humanity has been locked in an interstellar war for so long that Earth’s entire society has changed to become entirely focused on producing weapons, soldiers, and ships for the conflict and hatred for their aggressive, uncompromising alien enemy has become the norm, over-riding compassion, love, and the simple pleasures of life. John embodies this perfectly, being a good soldier who is frothing at the mouth to get back out there and fight, whether it means his death or not, and is defiant right up until the moment where he realises that the only way out is suicide. Of course, the most memorable moment of this episode is the shocking twist ending; this blew my mind as a kid, and I really think the episode does a great job of building up to this reveal as Brie is so timid and frightened and clinging to her humanity with everything she has and is positioned as an innocent victim of horrendous torture. The slow degradation of her body is juxtaposed with her failing hope for the future of humanity, and every action John takes is geared towards restoring that hope and finding a way out, and a way to fight! Ultimately, however, he is just another pawn manipulated by a superior alien force; the final shot of him screaming in hopeless defiance is extremely powerful and has stuck with me for decades. I’ve always enjoyed the bleak twist endings that closed out many episodes of The Outer Limits, and “Quality of Mercy” is easily one of the best for that thanks to how strong the two lead’s performances are and how well the episode uses every bit of its limited budget and run time.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Have you ever seen “Quality of Mercy” or the 1995 revival of The Outer Limits? If so, what did you think to it and what were some of your favourite episodes? Did you see the twist coming or were you as shocked as I was when I first saw this episode? What are some other stories of alien transformation and conflict that you enjoy? Whatever your thoughts, feel free to sign up and leave a comment below or leave a reply on my social media, and be sure to check back in next week for the conclusion of Sci-Fi Sunday.

Wrestling Recap: Royal Rumble 1988

Dr. K2 Comments

The Date: 24 January 1988
The Venue: Copps Coliseum; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
The Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jesse “The Body” Ventura
The Stipulation: Twenty man over the top rope battle royale
Notable Competitors: “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan (Winner), Bret “Hitman” Hart (#1), The Junkyard Dog (#20), and The One Man Gang (Most Eliminations)

The Build-Up:
Considering how dominating the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has been in the industry, it should be no surprise that the company has been at the forefront of creativity; from their celebrated Superstars, impact on pay-per-view entertainment, to the creation of genre-defining match types. By 1988, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, as it was known then) had already stepped into the mainstream after taking a massive gamble with their inaugural WrestleMania event and added the annual Survivor Series event to their calendar. To see in the new year, WWF chairman Vince McMahon produced the first edition of another annual event, the Royal Rumble, which was headlined by the titular over-the-top-rope battle royale. The match concept was the creation of the legendary Pat Patterson and has since become a trademark event of the organisation, with winners now going on to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania, though this aspect wouldn’t be introduced until the 1993 event. After trialling the concept at an untelevised house show, which was won by the Junkyard Dog, there was little rhyme or reason for the match’s debut beyond producing another pay-per-view and showcasing a bunch of WWF’s superstars in one big brawl and, as such, no real storylines leading into the titular match.

The Match:
Generally speaking, I quite enjoy a good Royal Rumble match; it’s a great excuse to debut or bring back wrestlers and can be a lot of fun with the right people in there. They can be difficult to book, however, and often the middle part can get bogged down with tag teams of B- or even C-list lower-card wrestlers who no one’s ever going to believe will win the match. For me, winning the Royal Rumble should be an accolade reserved for the company’s biggest star, preferably their biggest fan favourite; the event itself marks the first step on the Road to WrestleMania and should therefore represent a significant step up in quality. That’s not always the case, of course, and sometimes it feels like the event just takes place because it’s January and that’s what’s supposed to happen. Consequently, I was intrigued to go back to the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling era and see what the inaugural Royal Rumble was like considering this period of wrestling can be a bit hit and miss in terms of match and wrestler quality and that the event didn’t have the WrestleMania stipulation tied to it. Legendary ring announcer Howard Finkel ran down the rules of the match (competitors enter the ring in two minute intervals, are eliminated after being thrown over the top rope, and the last man standing is the winner) while Bret Hart and Tito Santana were in the ring, who were introduced as though it was a one-on-one match rather than simply running to the ring and getting into it like these days.

Bret, Neidhart, Santana, and the Snake all got the match off to a pretty hot start.

Additionally, when the bell rang, the two went at it like it was a single match, pulling off actual wrestling moves as though wearing each other down for the pin fall rather than trying to heave each other over the ropes. Butch Reed came in at number three and initially targeted Bret before teaming up with him to put a beating on Santana; at least, until Butch accidentally nailed Bret. Luckily for him, fellow Hart Foundation member Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart came in next and the three of them desperately tried to force Santana out of the ring but he maintained a death grip on the ropes and refused to go over. Thankfully, Jake “The Snake” Roberts came out at number five to even the odds, dumping Butch for the first elimination of the match and attacking both Bret and Neidhart with a flurry of punches to the absolute delight of the crowd. Neidhart was able to interrupt a double DDT attempt on Bret by Jake and Santana and the former took the brunt of the Hart Foundation’s retribution thanks to a jumping piledriver from Bret. Harley Race was in next and also got in on the action against Jake, dropping a couple of elbows while Neidhart held the Snake helpless on the mat. Jim Brunzell was out next as Neidhart sold a beard pull from Jake (!); things slowed down a little as the guys tried to heff their opponents out of the ring but picked up considerably when Sam Houston sprinted to the ring and went right for the Hart Foundation but, unfortunately, Santana’s time in the match came to an end with the boys in pink tossing him out.

Things slowed and became less exciting as the ring filled up, despite Bret’s stand-out performance.

The ring really started to fill up as Danny Davis and Boris Zhukov came to the ring; slow, plodding, confused offense was the order of the day here as guys half-heartedly went at it in the corner, against the ropes, or wandered around aimlessly trying to catch their breath. There was a bit of excitement as Don “The Rock” Muraco and Nikolai Volkoff argued at ringside over the number eleven spot; Muraco simply nailed Volkoff and took to the ring to attack the Hart Foundation and, by the time Volkoff was allowed into the ring, his tag team partner, Zhukov, had been muscled out by Jake and Brunzell. Harley Race was next to be dumped and, as he was leaving and the others paired off again, the crowd exploded to life when “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan came to the ring (carrying his trademark 2×4) at number thirteen, having a brief altercation with Race along the way. More miscellaneous brawling, striking, and grappling in the corners and against the ropes followed, however, and the excitement took a nosedive as Ron Bass lumbered to the ring. Brunzell was thrown out shortly after thanks to Volkoff. B. Brian Blair, Hillbilly Jim, and Dino Bravo all joined the fray and, in the process, both Neidhart and Houston were sent packing, with the latter being muscled out by Ron Bass. The Ultimate Warrior raced to the ring and immediately started throwing chops and, in the chaos, Muraco was able to toss Bret from the ring, ending his run at almost twenty-six minutes.

In the end, Duggan outsmarted the One Man Gang to win the first ever Royal Rumble.

Again, the action slowed down and only got slowed as the One Man Gang plodded his way to the ring; the big man made an immediate impression, however, by tossing out not just Blair but also Jake Roberts with a surprising and disappointing amount of ease. The final entrant in his twenty man version of the match was the Junkyard Dog; shortly after he got into the ring, Volkoff was tossed and then the One Man Gang struck again by getting rid of Hillbilly Jim while Bravo took out the Ultimate Warrior with no fuss or fanfare. The Junkyard Dog didn’t last too long either before he was taken out by Bass, who was himself eliminated by Muraco, meaning the final four were Muraco, Duggan, Bravo, and the One Man Gang, an odd selection considering the likes of Bret Hart, Jake Roberts, and the Ultimate Warrior had been in the match. The Rock and the Gang squared off while Bravo and Duggan fought on the other side of the ring; Brave and the One Man Gang worked together to attack both men, with Muraco desperately using his speed to hold them off but a distraction from Frenchy Martin saw him on the back foot and then nudged over the top rope from a weak-ass One Man Gang clothesline that looked as though it would miss and/or take Bravo out as well, but it didn’t. Left alone in a two-on-one situation, Duggan fought back valiantly but looked to be overwhelmed following a double clothesline; however, as he was held helplessly by Brave, he managed to slip away and cause the One Man Gang to accidentally take out Bravo at the last second. Duggan and the One Man Gang brawled for a bit, with Duggan taking a beating against the ropes but, in the end, brains got the better of brawn as Duggan ducked and yanked on the ring ropes as One Man Gang charged him, sending the big man spilled to the outside and becoming the first-ever Royal Rumble winner to an explosive reaction. It may seem like an odd choice to have Hacksaw win the Royal Rumble considering some of the star power featured in the match, but the crowd were absolutely into his win and it’s not like he ended up headlining WrestleMania for winning so it was just a nice feather in the enthusiastic big man’s cap.

The Aftermath:
The main story heading into The Main Event that came out of this event was the WWF Championship rematch between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant but there was some fallout for Duggan following his big win. He and the One Man Gang went at it in a singles match at the same event, with Duggan coming out on top, though he ended up battling Bad News Brown to a double disqualification by the time WrestleMania V rolled around later that year. The Royal Rumble event ended up setting a record as the highest-viewed wrestling program on cable television and would go on to become a yearly event for the company; by the next year, the match was expanded to include the now traditional thirty men and, by 1993, the WrestleMania championship shot had been added and the match has since become one of the WWE’s most anticipated annual events.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to the inaugural Royal Rumble match? Did you like that Hacksaw Jim Duggan won the match or would you have liked to see someone else take the win? Which of the competitors was your favourite? Were there any competitors you would’ve liked to see included? What’s your favourite Royal Rumble match? Whatever your thoughts on the Royal Rumble, share them below or leave a comment on my social media.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Twist

Dr. K2 Comments

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Twist

The Submission:
Julia chugged back the last of her wine; her head was fuzzy and her vision a little blurry, but she was determined to get her story finished, even if it took her all night and another glass of wine.

Her fingers clacked at the keys, determined to force the story out of her very pores, to get that last twist on the screen so she could finally put it — and herself — to bed. Her deadline was tomorrow, at midnight, and she cursed herself for having fallen behind in her writing.

Her concentration was broken, her train of thought derailed, by her printer suddenly whirring to life. Confused, exhausted, she checked her screen to see if she’d accidentally hit ‘Print’ but there was nothing in the queue…

Curious, Julia watched as two sheets of paper fed through the machine. The first was blank, if a little smudged; the second bore only two words typed haphazardly in the middle of the sheet:

keep writing

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Goblin

Dr. K1 Comment

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Goblin

The Submission:
“I can make this all go away,” the snivelling little goblin had whispered from the corner. “For a small fee…”

I was standing over Doris’s limp body. Her skin was so smooth and clean; almost like porcelain. But her head… her pretty red hair hung in clumps, matted to what was left of her skull by thick blood and fragments of bone. The claw hammer was stick sticking out from the back of her head and one bloodshot eyeball stared up at me vacantly, accusingly.

Cole had told me earlier. Casually, like it was nothing. Like ringing your best friend and admitting that you’ve fucked his girlfriend was something you did every day. I’m ashamed to say that a red mist had descended; I barely even remember what happened next. I’d gone down to the basement to confront Doris, there’d been shouting, crying, and then…

“Just a small fee,” it sneered, the dirty, jagged claws of its hand reached out expectantly.

After I’d struck her and she’d crumpled to the dirty stone floor in a heap, this… thing, this diminutive, cackling goblin with its fang-like teeth and squinted, pearlescent eyes, had hobbled out from the dark. Bells jangled from its dishevelled tunic; its long, crooked notes sported a sickening boil on one side, and its voice was like the crackling of brittle twigs.

Swallowing, struggling for breath, I turned to it. “What’s your price…?”

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Soup

Dr. K2 Comments

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Soup

The Submission:
Chrissie balked when her mother slid a steaming hot bowl of chicken soup to her.

“Go on,” she said, handing her a spoon. “Eat up.”

Chrissie sniffed and rolled her eyes. What was there to eat? It was a bowl of bubbling liquid, not a roast beef sandwich. “Do I have to?” she whined, her voice nasally.

“Don’t start with me, young lady!” her mother snapped. “If you want to get better, you need some chicken soup now get it down you so you can take your pill!”

Chrissie huffed and reluctantly began spooning the dish into her chapped lips. The soup was hot and gooey; it reminded her of gravy, another dish she couldn’t stand, but she’d been getting progressively worse ever since her stomach had first churned and she’d spent the morning puking so hard that streams of blood were laced in her bile.

“That’s my good girl,” her mother smiled, the small bottle of rat poison hidden behind her back.

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Carnivorous

Dr. K1 Comment

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Carnivorous

The Submission:
Deep beneath the bustling aisles of the supermarket, red lights strobed; a klaxon wailed; and the shredded bodies of scientists and technicians were strewn across the narrow hallways. The clinical white of the walls was streamed with blood, etched with claw marks, as the hulking, salivating, carnivorous thing brutalised its path to freedom. Its claws, long and powerful, rendered flesh from bone; its jowls, leaking acidic slobber, growled lowly as it turned its many pulsating red eyes towards the cylindrical elevator. Somewhere, at the back of its primal mind, beneath the agonising urge to devour, it knew this was the path to freedom and it charged ahead in a mindless rage, shrugging off bullets and taser shots from the few remaining guards. One dropped in a heap, steaming intestines spilling on the floor, and the last the creature launched into the pod, crushing his skull and tearing his spine out through his back as the elevator dinged. The door closed and the monstrous patchwork chimera of a beast stewed as the lights blinked past faster and the smell of fresh meat grew stronger…

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Cats

Dr. K1 Comment

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Cats

The Submission:
My submission for this prompt was to perform a reading from Chapter Five of my short story Cat’s Eye, which is available as an ebook and in the collection Whispers from the Black. What follows is the excerpt that I performed on my Instagram page…

Anna hated thunderstorms; it was probably the one thing in the entire world she was afraid of. And yet, after I had done my best to console her in bed, she had slipped off into her usual deep sleep, and had still been dead to the world when I’d jerked awake shortly after midnight.

Suddenly wide awake thanks to the dual cacophony of the falling rain and Anna’s snoring, I flipped over onto my front and loaded up the camera app to check on Bert.

He was sitting on the windowsill and staring out the window at the rainswept garden beyond, seemingly transfixed by the tumultuous raindrops. He barely moved but for small twitches of his ears and shoulders but seemed intensely agitated. Poor little guy, I thought, and considered heading downstairs to let him in. Surely one night wouldn’t hurt, after all…?

A flicker of lightning briefly illuminated the screen, followed swiftly by the crackling grumble of thunder, and Bert flinched noticeably. His ears plastered back against his head, and he started crying at the window, then he reared up and pawed at it furiously.

At first, I thought he was trying to attack the raindrops; I’d seen him try a similar trick before, but he’d always grown quickly bored and it had never been so…intense. He hunched down and hissed, scratched and scrabbled at the glass, and paced along the windowsill, his ears still flat against his head. He dropped to the floor and seemed to be oddly concerned by the back door. He sniffed at it and then suddenly jerked backwards, as if burned. He hunkered down, his thick, fluffy tail wagging to and fro, and looked ready to pounce. He batted furiously at something I couldn’t make out on the camera’s limited visibility, and then he padded backwards, back arched, and I’d seen enough.

With Anna still snoring away, I swept out of bed and downstairs as the thunder rumbled outside. I switched on the lights and grabbed the keys off the kitchen hook, disturbed by Bert’s frantic growling and hissing. It was like a long, low moan that unsettled me almost as much as his odd behaviour.

I pulled open the conservatory door and flicked the light switch; a dim, orange light flickered to life and illuminated the conservatory, and Bert gratefully dashed past me and into the kitchen. I’d shut the door into the rest of the house behind me, and he padded before it anxiously; his cute little face seemed to be swallowed up by his large, black irises.

“Mwrr!” he rumbled.

“Bert…” I soothed, bending slightly as I tentatively approached him. “What’s up, eh? What’s the matter, little man?”

I reached my hand out to him and he nuzzled it with some reluctance…and appreciation. I stroked his warm, soft fur both to comfort him and to check for any kind of injuries, but he seemed fine. A little riled up, but not hurt as far as I could tell.

I looked back into the conservatory, now bathed in an orange glow; the raindrops were viscous splatters on the windowpanes, and I could see a small amount of water had once again leaked in the corner of the pitiful extension.

 There was a slick, black streak on the faded linoleum tiles.

Immediately, I cast an accusatory glance down at Bert; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d left his droppings on the floor, after all. He seemed to find the entire business of relieving himself to be uncouth, and often walked away before he was properly finished.

However, he simply stared up at me innocently enough. Wasn’t me! his face seemed to say.

I rose up with a wince as my knees popped and grabbed a handful of kitchen roll to clean up the mess, only to feel a sickening squelch as my bare foot came down on something slimy and sticky.

I looked down, sure that I had just stepped into Bert’s shit, and gagged as one of the other gross droppings slowly curled up.

Slugs! I heaved. Fuckin’ slugs!

There were two…no, three!…little black slugs slithering across the tiles, leaving a gooey slime trail in their wake. One slopped down from the bottom of the door and I could see that they had apparently managed to slip in through a small crack in the frame.

…and I’d stepped on one of them!

I uttered a disgusted cry and launched a frantic kick; the dirty little mollusc splattered against the door and began to slither down sickeningly. A shiver ran through me as I backpedalled into the kitchen, desperately rubbing my foot on the door mat to wipe off that revolting, slimy feel, and snatched the salt container out of the kitchen cupboard.

“Oh, you little fuckers!” I spat as I snapped open the spout and began indiscriminately dousing the slugs with table salt.

I hated slugs. The only things worse for me were frogs and toads, which were thankfully in short supply in built-up towns like Northward. Slugs and snails, though, those bastards were everywhere, especially in the wet spring months. My hatred of them stemmed back to my childhood when one nasty little bastard at school had first waved a gooey, chubby snail in my face and then thrown it at me. Luck was with me that day as the mollusc had hit my shirt, but I still remember the appalling feel of its slimy body through my top and the nauseating browny-yellow stain it left behind.

Ordinarily, I would retreat inside and have Anna take care of this problem, just as she would seek me out for comfort against the storm, but I didn’t want to wake her and I felt I needed to extract a measure of payback against the viscid monsters so I went at it with the salt, which basically dissolved their rancid little bodies on contact.

Soon, I stood there surrounded by five or six haphazard piles of salt, the shrivelling bodies of slugs bubbling beneath them. I tried to ignore the utter revulsion I felt at the sight (and feeling the residue on the bottom of my foot) and concentrated on watching for signs of any more of the little bastards. I spied a number of cobwebs up near the lightbulbs, the trapped corpses of flies wrapped up in stringy webs, and the dropping of leaking rain, but no more slugs to pit my salt against.

I uttered a shaky sigh and turned to grab Bert’s food and water – there was no way I was letting him sleep in here tonight after that – when a flash of lightning spooked a gasp out of me.

It lit up the dark, rainswept garden for the very briefest second, but a cold dread washed over me as I caught sight of something impossible amidst the splattering rain drops.

A face, scowling and leering, seemed to glare at me in place of my terrified reflection. The eyes were hollow, the features a mere suggestion through the rain, and yet I would swear on my mother’s life that it was the glowering face of something malevolent.

When the thunder rumbled in the lightning’s wake, the face appeared to snarl at me.

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Cannibal

Dr. K1 Comment

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Cannibal

The Submission:
Trapped, with nowhere else to go, I hunkered down in the rusted shell of a battered Ford Escort and clamped by trembling, clammy hand to my mouth. Tears leaked down my hot, sweaty cheeks as I peered, wide eyed, through the shattered window.

The hunchbacked grotesque shambled over to a workbench littered with saws, tools, and other implements I could only vague guess at. Dad lay strewn across it, one arm hanging limply over the edge, a steady trickle of blood coming from the head wound he’d received.

The wretch grunted, slobbering, as he brought a massive, dull machete down onto my father’s limp body with all the grace and poise of a drunken lumberjack. The sound, the sickening crack of bone and squeaking snap of muscle, frayed the edges of my sanity and I had to dig my nails into my face to keep from screaming out, or coughing up bile.

It was when the malformed brute brought my father’s severed arm to his drooling, misshapen mouth that I finally looked away. I dropped to the footwell of the car, stifling my vomit and my cries, as the mutated cannibal gorged himself on my father’s remains…

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

January 2023 Drabble Challenge: Hush

Dr. K1 Comment

Horror Prompts’ Gillian Church is hosting a horror drabble challenge this January: 31 prompts for 31 creepy tales throughout January that clock in at around 100 words.

The Prompt:
Hush

The Submission:
Gaunt, weak, Richie lay in a mess of his own filth. Half-eaten rats were strewn across the filthy stone floor; his ankle, twisted and malformed with sickening grey-red bruises, throbbed, worsening the fever that ravaged his scrawny, sore-ridden body.

When the door creaked open and his captor wandered in, his naked skin glistening with sweat, his sausage-like fingers stroking his nether regions, Richie could only moan lowly. His breathing was shallow, clear bile dribbled from his cracked lips, as the man sauntered over to his feeble from.

“Hush now,” the drooling sadist cooed. “It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

Richie gulped, half choking on his own vomit, as a long, corroded needle pierced the skin of his neck and flooded his veins, bringing a nauseous grey to his blurred vision and numbing him to the feel of his captor’s oily touch.

What did you think to the prompt for today’s drabble challenge? Did you submit anything for it? Have you ever written any flash fiction before? I’d love to know what you think to my snippets and writing prompts, so feel free to sign up and let me know what you think below or leave a comment on my Instagram page. You can also follow Gillian Church to take part in her Weekly Writing Prompt challenge.

Back Issues [Sci-Fanuary]: Total Recall

Dr. K1 Comment

January sees the celebration of two notable dates in science-fiction history, with January 2 christened “National Science Fiction Day” to coincide with the birth date of the world renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and HAL 9000, the sophisticated artificial intelligence of Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), being created on 12 January. Accordingly, I’m spending every Sunday of January celebrating sci-fi in all its forms.

Story Title: Total Recall
Published: May 2011 to August 2011
Writer: Vince Moore
Artist: Cezar Razek

The Background:
Total Recall (Verhoeven, 1990) was the blockbuster adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1966 short story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Though an extremely expensive production, Total Recall was a critical success and widely regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction/action movies of all time. Total Recall’s success led to a number of adaptations, including a videogame and even a somewhat-tangentially-related television series, Total Recall 2070 (1999). While Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002) began life as a sequel to Total Recall, we wouldn’t see an actual follow-up to the sci-fi classic until over twenty years after the film’s release when Dynamite Entertainment acquired the license and produced this four-issue miniseries that picked up immediately where the film ended.

The Review:
As mentioned, “Total Recall” begins right where the movie left off with no question about whether the film’s events were real or a delusion of hero Douglas Quaid; Mars is now home to a breathable atmosphere, effectively turning it into a smaller version of Earth. Quaid still struggles a bit with his sense of identity and self, since everything that has transpired is exactly as specified by Rekall, Inc., and, while he is grateful to be alive, he questions what is next for him now that his “Ego Trip” has reached its conclusion. While Mars administrator Vilos Cohaagen dead, his forces are still as loyal as ever and not only open fire on Quaid and his love interest (and member of the rebels), Melina, but also launch an all-out assault on the rebels of Venusville. There, they reunite with fellow rebels Thumbelina and Tony, that latter of which remains frosty and distrustful of Quaid (whom he continuously calls “Hauser”) and tries to attack him for his part in the death of the rebel leader, Kuato.

Quaid overcomes his identity crisis by becoming a mediator for peace.

Tired of all the fighting and discord, Quaid opts to go against Tony’s advice and dive into gunfire to appeal to Captain Everett in the hopes of brokering a truce between the warring forces. While Everett reluctantly agrees to stand his troops down on the proviso that Quaid can convince the rebels to do the same, he also reveals that, with Cohaagen and Kuato both dead, anarchy is breaking out all over Mars and that Cohaagen’s two children, Milos and Vila, are set to arrive and act as the new administrators of the planet. Milos and Vila vow to continue the mining of “Turbinium” (or “Terbinium”; both spellings are used at various points) and to improve the quality of life on Mars while still supporting the war effort back on Earth but it doesn’t take long before the killing and terrorist acts flare up again and the two are reinstating martial law across the planet. Additionally, the mutants of Venusville are suffering from an inexplicable, fatal disease of sorts that claims the life of Eva, the young mutant girl who told Quaid’s fortune in the film and who mutters, with her dying breath, a warning that “the Martians are coming”.

Mars gets new administrators, but conflict is rife as Quaid uncovers more Martian tech.

Tensions flare between Tony and Quaid once more over Eva’s death and the unexplained deaths of other mutants all across the Martian colony, which Tony is quick to pin on the Cohaagens. Quaid, however, speculates that Mars’ new atmosphere may be responsible and resists Tony’s rallying call for the rebels to take up arms against the administrators. Quaid’s pleas fall on stubborn, deaf, and frightened ears, however, and Mars is once again thrown into bloody and violent conflict, which only escalates when the Cohaagens respond by cutting off the water supply to know-rebel areas of the planet. The result is many people protest at being tarnished with the same brush, many other die, and the Mars military relentlessly hunt down and kill or arrest any rebels and mutants they come across. Quaid is, however, able to buy the rebels of Venusville time to get them to some kind of safety by pleading with one of the army’s sergeants (who know that Quaid, the muscle-bound action hero who never reloaded his gun once, was such a diplomat?) Still, Quaid is preoccupied with the continued warning about the “Martians” and heads back to the Pyramid Mines in hopes of finding some kind of answers.

The arrival of the Martians throws Mars into further chaos!

There, he discovers another gigantic, ancient Martian machine and a mutant named Q’d, who bares a striking similarity of Quaid and keeps repeating: “The Martians are coming. I must prepare the way”. Fearing what the machine could unleash if activated (much like Cohaagen in the film, it has to be said), Quaid attacks but is soundly overwhelmed by the man, who activates “the second machine” to “[preserve] the Mar on Mars” by covering it in vegetation and, in response, the Martians return to their planet. The Martians’ arrival causes a great deal of fear and concern amongst everyone on both Mars and Earth; still, M’s’s, the enigmatic spokesperson of the Martians’ assures them that they come in peace and that their intentions are to help humans and mutants alike find their place on Mars. Milos, however, is concerned that the moss is a threat to their position of power on the planet and his desire to seek revenge against Quaid for killing their father, with all the fighting and bloodshed merely being a minor concern against that goal and the mining of Turbinum. Vila, however, doesn’t share this same sentiment and actually conspires against her brother’s machinations in order to make the most of her inheritance.

Richter makes a surprise appearance…only to be defeated almost immediately.

Quaid is largely nonplussed about the appearance of Martians (which is a bit odd and contradictory considering he was so dead-set on finding out what Eva’s warning meant just a few pages earlier…) as there are lives at stake from the mysterious fatal affliction striking down the mutants. Tony, however, remains unconvinced about his intentions and desire to track down the root cause of it all, and mass rioting breaks out, forcing the Cohaagens to turn to Quaid for help regarding their common interests. Although Quaid is able to track down Q’d, believing him to be the key to solving all of the recent problems on Mars, he is once again bested in combat and then ambushed by Richter! Having somehow survived his plummet, and his sporting mechanical arms, Richter chokes Q’d and then attacks Melina in revenge for her part in Lori’s death. However, Richter allows his emotions to get the better of him and is easily dispatched when Quaid rams into him with a digger and sends him plummeting down a canyon, wasting all of our time in the process.

The mutants recover from their illness just in time for the military to prepare to destroy the colony!

However, Quaid is unable to stop Q’d from activating the final Martian machine, bringing water to the Red Planet and causing both Martians sudden appear all over the planet and, in the process, mass panic. The illness that had crippled and killed the mutants suddenly has the opposite effect, imbuing them incredible physical strength and vitality, although M’s’s states that this as an unintended side effect as the Martian machines weren’t built to consider their effect on mutants. In response to the Martian “invasion”, Admiral Nimitz of the Northern Block assumes command of the Martian colony and orders the army to open fire on the Martians. Using psionic powers, the Martians are able to shield themselves from harm but many innocent people are killed in the fracas; this time, Captain Everett refuses to listen to Quaid’s pleas and the two brawl before Everett is ordered to cease his attack anyway. Much to the outrage of the Cohaagens, Nimitz plans to attack the colony with the Reagan space weaponry platform in order to cleanse the aliens in one move.

Quaid once again saves Mars from destruction and commits to his perception of reality.

Enraged at having his birthright taken from him, Milos ventures out with a gun to kill M’s’s and, when he saves the Martian’s life, Quaid. Luckily for Quaid, Milos is a terribly shot and Quaid is easily able to disarm him, though Milos refuses to co-operate with him. Vila, however, is much more co-operative and allows Quaid to take their private shuttle to the weapons platform to shut it down before it can fire. During all that drama, M’s’s drones on and on to Melina about how the Martians foresaw everything that transpired in the film (and this comic…though apparently not the mutants…?) and set in motion everything Quaid would need to bring life to Mars as recompense for the Martians’ previous destructive ways. Joined by Q’d, Quaid and Melina fight their way through the space station’s marines all while cracking jokes and quips. Still, Quaid manages to hit the abort button and save Mars once again. In the aftermath, the Cohaagens remain in control of the colony (and Milos begrudgingly abandons his vendetta against Quaid), the beginnings of co-operation and communication are forged between the military and the Martians, and the story ends with Quaid not really caring if it had all been a dream and just making out with Mileena.

The Summary:
As I mentioned in my review of the film,Total Recall is one of my all-time favourite movies; it’s action-packed, thought-provoking, and features some of the most impressive practical effects ever put to film. The film’s complex themes of identity and reality are matched only by how elaborate he sets and animatronics are and the film is almost the perfect balance of action, humour, and intrigue. I could honestly watch it every day and talk about it for hours and never get tired of it; the nostalgia and influence of it is that strong for me.

The comic’s pacing is all over the place and bogged down by exposition!

It’s a shame then that this comic book continuation is so mind-numbingly dull and boring! For a comic that is a follow-up to Total Recall, there is so much exposition crammed into every page, every speech bubble and text box, and even during fights! Exposition and world-building was delivered at an easy-to-digest pace in the film but, here, characters go on and on and on about basically nothing and it’s much more a tale of diplomacy than an action-packed thrill-ride. Quaid, especially, suffers from this; given that he (somewhat…) resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s really weird trying to imagine the Austrian Oak spouting as much dialogue as his comic-book counterpart does. His speech patterns are so not-Arnold that it’s almost to the point of parody and I never pegged Quaid, a man who was bored by his mundane existence and relished the idea of being a secret agent, to be the voice of reason!

Melina gets very few moments to shine and may as well not even be in this mess of a story…

Other returning characters equally suffer; Melina may as well not even be in the story since she does so little and Tony’s animosity towards Quaid, while somewhat understandable, is comically exaggerated to the point where he dismisses any suggestion that isn’t all-out war. It was a nice surprise to see Richter make a reappearance but it was an absolute waste of time and effort as he basically has no impact on the story at all (his role could easily have been fulfilled by an extended fight sequence with Q’d). As for the introduction of Martians…I mean, what? Obviously the film hinted that Martians existed but actually seeing them was a bit jarring, as was Q’d’s inexplicable resemblance to Quaid (that I don’t think was explained…?) and the fact that they, too, basically did nothing. Again, it would have been a lot easier to have them be a long dead society whose technology is appropriated by humans, or the Cohaagens, or whatever rather than having them wander about making speeches and disappearing for huge chunks of the story.

Quaid often gets his ass handed to him in the comic’s few fight scenes.

It’s a shame as there are some glimmers of enjoyment to be had here; when the action actually picks up, it’s pretty fun and exciting but a lot of it eventually falls flat because the art really isn’t very good at all and Quaid is constantly being bested in combat. I suppose this has some resemblance to the film as Quaid did struggle when fighting Lori (Sharon Stone) and Richter (Michael Ironside) but I would argue that was mainly due to him being attacked when he was unprepared. Here, he often has the upperhand against much smaller foes, like Milos, and still struggles to hold his own; many of his fights end anti-climatically as a result and the whole thing just feels like a massive waste of everyone’s time as it does a pretty terrible job of continuing Total Recall’s story or paying homage to one of the greatest sci-films of all time.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Have you ever read Dynamite Entertainment’s Total Recall comics? If so, what did you think to them? Did you feel like the story was a good way to continue the movie or, like me, were you disappointed at how boring, clunky, and unappealing it was? What did you think to the introduction of Martians to the plot and Richter’s sudden reappearance? Do you think the events of the film, and the comic, were all real or were they just Quaid’s delusion? Leave your thoughts about Total Recall, whatever form it takes, in the comments below and check back in next week as Sci-Fi Sunday continues.