This month’s theme:
Two Bits for Eight Bits

I was born in 1969, so my preteen and teen years were spent plugging quarters into arcade games. I have fond nostalgia for those eight-bit games today—and a bit of regret for all the two-bit coins I dropped into them. And while the CPUs have gotten faster and the memory capacity has gotten larger and the graphics have gotten better, there’s something about that old technology that is a total blast to play. These shorts honor three of the most popular games of the golden age of arcade video games.

“Don Keagon”
Mainstream
By David M. Fitzpatrick

I was just there to fix a leaky pipe, but sometimes you have to get involved.

I was under the sink at the Keagon house when the commotion started. The parents weren’t home—just the kids. The 14-year-old girl, Lydia Keagon, was trying to keep her three young charges under control: 11-year-old Don, who was an absolute monster, was ruthlessly terrorizing his slightly 8-year-old brother and 6-year-old sister.

“Lydia!” the younger boy hollered. “Don took my root-beer barrels!”

“Don Keagon!” Lydia screeched. “Give your brother back his candy!”

“It’s not fair that he gets them!” Don hollered back, brandishing the plastic bag of candies.

“He bought them with his allowance!” Lydia screamed, trying to grab the bag away. “You spent yours on candy and ate it all!”

The little girl came through the kitchen at that point, carrying her doll—a blond-haired doll in a pink dress, wearing a bonnet, and carrying a parasol in one hand and a purse in another. Don immediately took it up a notch. He snatched the doll out of the girl’s hand, sidestepped his older sister, and bolted out the kitchen door. The little girl began to wail, even as the boy screamed louder about his candy. The group rushed outside.

I just wanted to fix the pipe. I wasn’t up for all the noise and drama. For the next five minutes, I tried to ignore the escalating commotion outside as I worked to remove the old pipe with the help of a rubber mallet. When I thought the noise outside couldn’t get worse, the kitchen door burst open and Lydia rushed in.

“Mister, can you please help us?” Lydia begged.

I looked up from under the sink, surprised. “Me?”

“My brother stole my other brother’s candy, and my little sister’s doll,” she said.

“Yeah, I got all that. Not really something I deal with, young lady. I can’t get involved with family squabbles. I’m just here to fix the leak.”

“Please!” she cried. “He’s way up on the top of the roof. He’s going to fall!”

I sighed and scooted out from under the sink. I got up and adjusted my blue overalls and the collar on my red shirt, then picked up my rubber mallet and holstered it in my tool belt. Couldn’t let the kid get hurt.

Lydia led me outside to the back yard, and there I saw it all. The main house was two and a half stories, and I could see where there was some ongoing shingle-repair work there. Below that, a two-story addition was attached, with a ladder allowing easy access to the main house for the shingle work. And attached to the addition was the garage, with yet another ladder allowing access from there to the house. Adjacent to the garage was a shed that sat lower than the garage roof, and next to that was a 55-gallon metal drum that said OIL on it. It was easy to see that a kid like Don Keagon could go from roof to next-higher roof in a hurry.

And there he was, perched atop the peak of the main house’s roof. He was straddling it, right next to the chimney that protruded in the middle of the roof, holding the bag of root-beer barrels in one hand and the yellow-haired doll in the other.

“Aaaarrrrggghhh!” he screamed, nonsensically.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Please,” Lydia said, and I could see that she was almost ready to cry. She was really worried about her little brother. But this was a situation where we should call the parents, or even the cops…

I felt a tug on my sleeve and I looked down to find the little girl, looking up at me with big, blue, sad eyes.

“Please, Mr. Plumber,” she pleaded. “He has Pauline. Please rescue Pauline for me.”

I sighed again. “All right. But I’m still on the clock. Your parents are getting billed for this.”

I climbed up onto the oil barrel and grabbed the edge of the shed roof. I was out of shape, but I managed to haul myself up. No sooner had I made it than something pinged the roof in front of me. I looked up in alarm: Don Keagon was way up on the peak of the house roof, Pauline now sitting on the chimney, and he was digging into the bag of root-beer barrels.

“Did you throw that root-beer barrel at me?” I yelled.

He responded by winding up and throwing another one. It bounced from roof to roof, and I ducked as it careened over my head.

“Little brat,” I snarled under my breath. Now I had to get him. There was no ladder between the shed and the garage, so I was able to leap over the chasm like a pro. Below, the three children cheered me on. Root-beer barrels dinged around me. I dropped to my knees to be a smaller target, even as one skittered across the garage roof and stopped in front of me. Annoyed, I pulled out my rubber mallet, wound up, and smashed the brown candy into bits. I glared up at Don, who paused before throwing the next one. His eyes were wide; he knew I meant business. But he steeled himself, dug into the bag, and kept throwing.

At the base of the first ladder to the addition was the doll’s purse. I grabbed it and stuffed it in my toll belt and kept moving. I hurried across the addition roof, zigzagging and dodging barrels, until I was safely out of sight next to the ladder. The doll’s parasol was there; I reclaimed that as well.

Below, the kids cheered me the entire way; above, Don Keagon roared incoherently and kept throwing barrels, even though I was out of sight. I scaled the last ladder and peeked up over the edge of the roof—and there was Pauline’s bonnet. I snatched it and looked up in time to see another barrel sailing at me. I dodged it and saw Don Keagon throw the now-empty bag away. He was out of ammunition.

“Come on, kid,” I hollered as I clambered up onto the slant of the roof. “Gimme Pauline and get down from there.”

“Come and get her!” he cried out.

God help me, I was going to do it. I clambered quickly up the roof, and I grabbed onto the chimney, with no idea how I was getting the kid down—but suddenly I heard new screaming from below.

“What the Hell is going on here?!” It was Mr. Keagon, the children’s father; he and his wife had returned home and were staring up in shock at the scene. I froze, not sure how to explain this, but the kids were all babbling in a chorus of voices, explaining everything that had happened.

Properly informed, Mr. Keagon bellowed, Don Keagon, get down here! GAME OVER!”

Reluctant but defeated, Don started to slide down the roof. But I grabbed Pauline. There was no way I wasn’t coming down with something. We made our way down the roofs and ladders until we were on the ground, where Don was promptly dragged into the house to presumably be sent to his room for a month.

The little girl ran up to me, eyes wide. “Pauline!”

“All yours, kid,” I said, handing over the doll and digging out the bonnet, parasol, and purse from my tool belt.

“You saved her!” she cried, and she collided with me in the most grateful hug I’ve ever received. So I didn’t save the kid, but I did save the girl—and made another girl very happy. Worth it.

“Thank you for trying to keep Don safe,” Mrs. Keagon said. “And for Pauline.”

“No problem,” I said. “I should get back in there and finish fixing that leak, though. Just need some more tools.”

I headed to my van—Mario’s Plumbing, it said on the side—and secretly hoped for a tip on this job.

“Pack, Man”
Sci-fi
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Lt. Jack Gerrold burst into the escape shuttle, and we forced the airlock door closed behind him. His foot was bleeding and torn up pretty good.

“I thought I was dead,” he said as Cmdr. Tina Marin helped him into a seat and began tending to his wounds. “It had me, Captain—right in its teeth. It was one of the red ones—the really mean ones. But I managed to get away. And Captain—I never saw any bodies. These things killed the entire crew, but I never found any bodies. They must be… eating them.”

Outside the shuttle, we could see the star looming huge before us. The escape shuttle was on the back of the ship, which was being pulled, backside first, toward the star. The ship’s engines had been shut down and we were at the mercy of the star’s gravity. We’d be unable to escape it if we didn’t leave very soon—and with all the antimatter we could pump into the shuttle.

“He’ll be okay,” Marin reported after finishing her quick field dressing.

“Good. Give me those antimatter pellets, Lieutenant,” I ordered.

Gerrold reached back and pulled his shoulder pack off—and sucked in his breath. I saw it just as he did. The pack was ripped open on the bottom, probably because of the monster that had attacked him. Gerrold opened the top and looked in.

“They’re gone,” he said, digging in with his hand. He came up with a handful of six antimatter pellets. “There were a hundred in there. That red monster was clawing at me—it must have chewed through it right before he got my foot.”

“We can’t get out of here with six pellets,” Marin said. “Captain, we have forty minutes to get this shuttle fueled up with enough antimatter to escape. If we don’t…”

“Then those monsters on the ship won’t matter,” I said.

“The monster got me right outside Engineering, and I ran through C and D decks to get here,” Gerrold said. “They must have spilled out along the whole way. We’ll never get them back.”

“We have no choice. Marin, you go up to C deck. I’ll take D. Pick up every pellet from when Gerrold left Engineering.”

“There are emergency blasters at checkpoints,” Gerrold said. “You’ll need them.”

“Let’s do this,” Marin said, reaching back to tighten the pink hair elastic keeping her ponytail in place.

*   *   *

Red-alert lights blinked in the inky-dark hallway. My heart pounded as I ran—and, sure enough, along the way were antimatter pellets haphazardly spilled everywhere. I quickly learned how to scoop them up while barely breaking stride.

Right, left, straight… the monsters were here somewhere. I didn’t want one to chew on my foot. Moreover, I didn’t want to fail in my mission. If Marin and I didn’t get back with most of those pellets, none of us would make it out before we fell into the star.

As if on cue, I heard a roar from ahead. Pellets dotted the floor in the darkness ahead, glowing slightly as antimatter pellets did, a luminescent pink the color of Marin’s hair elastic. Engineers called them pinkies. I called them salvation… but the roar sent shivers of terror through my body. A captain shouldn’t be afraid, but…

Up ahead, a monster rounded the corner and saw me. It was bipedal and vaguely humanoid, but was reptilian in appearance, with rows of sharp teeth and massive claws on leathery hands. And like all monsters, this one glowed as if it were irradiated—this one an aqua-blue in color. It screeched at me and charged, and I doubled back and ran like mad. I could hear it pounding its reptilian feet as it pursued—heard its heavy claws rapping on the deck plates with every thunderous step.

I had to escape, but at the same time I couldn’t miss those pellets, so kept grabbing them up when I saw them. I looked over my shoulder to see the creature behind me—not closing, but keeping pace.

I snapped my eyes forward in time to see another monster round a corner ahead. It glowed orange and roared. It came for me, and it was faster than the other one. I hooked a left and ran. Pellet here, pellet there. I kept running until I had circled back around to where the first monster had appeared. They were both behind me now, so I rushed down that corridor, snatching up the line of pellets there. Then I doubled back, cut down a side hallway, and headed beck behind them.

I cut through the mess hall to throw them off. There were no monsters in there, but judging from the blood everywhere, there had been. There was an entire buffet set up, with a fruit bar; cherries, strawberries, oranges, apples, melons, and bananas abounded, and I was starving, but I didn’t have time for fruit. I had to win this—not be caught stuffing fruit down my gullet and be eviscerated by one of those alien bastards.

I had to check the corridors in the back of the level in case Gerrold had dropped any there. I stuffed the pellets in my shoulder pack, aware that one errant bite or claw from a monster would undo everything I’d done—just like what had happened to Lt. Gerrold.

I hit an intersection and saw the two new ghosts. One glowed pink, the other red. They were coming from ahead and from the right. Behind me, the orange one advanced. Where had the aqua-glowing one gone? No time to think; I hooked left and ran. Behind me, the red and pink monsters were bearing down on me fast.

Pellet—grabbed. Kept running. I rounded the corridor ahead and saw the aqua monster coming from the other direction. They were all hot on my tail. I put on a burst of speed and ran.

But those reptilian monsters were fast. That’s why their kind overran every deck of the ship and killed forty-three men and women of my crew and shut down the ship’s engines. It’s why we were heading into the star.

I was in the far corner of the deck, with a long way to go to get back to the shuttle, when I saw the emergency checkpoint ahead. These were coded access panels behind which emergency blasters were stored—in case we were boarded by the enemy. I rushed to it, keyed in my code, and waited for it to slide open. Behind me, the quartet of slavering beasts rounded the corner and charged me.

I yanked the blaster out just in time. I whirled and fired, and bright-blue blasts erupted and hit the monsters. They roared in pain but I didn’t let up. I kept firing, and they floundered and scattered and tried to flee. No way. I chased them—for a change!—and kept blasting until the four of them were carcasses on the floor and the blaster was completely spent.

No time to celebrate. There were more of them—maybe more on this deck. I took off running, tossing the dead blaster, and covered every corridor on the deck that I hadn’t yet seen. I found a few more antimatter pellets and finally headed back to the shuttle. At another checkpoint, I secured a new blaster, just in case.

I made it back to the shuttle just as Marin dropped down the ladderwell, a look of panic on her face.

“Go, Captain!” she screamed. “I got a bunch, but there are a horde of them right behind me!”

I got the shuttle airlock open and hollered at her to get in. As she did, the monsters began dropping down from above. One, two… four, six… a dozen, and more. They swarmed down, and I opened fire, laying down cover while Marin got through the second airlock door. Some monsters roared and ran; others bore down on me through my blaster salvo. I retreated into the airlock and sealed the first door, as the surviving monsters began ramming it as if they clearly intended to break through.

In the shuttle, Gerrold was feeding Marin’s pellets into the fuel reservoir, and she was powering up the shuttle. I secured the shuttle door and pulled off my shoulder bag.

“Gimme that pack, man,” Gerrold said, and I gave it to him. He continued counting as he fed them in, all the while sweating like a stuck pig. He didn’t look well. When the last one was in, he said, “Ninety or so total, sir. Not quite a hundred.”

Outside, the monsters crashed against the airlock door. “They’ll have to do,” I snapped. “Buckle in, everyone.”

We took our seats and secured ourselves, and the injured Gerrold took the yoke and launched us away. We rocketed away from the doomed ship, the star looming gigantically behind it, and kicked into spacewarp. The horrors were left behind us to fall into the star.

“We made it, Captain,” Marin said.

“At such a cost,” I replied. “The whole crew dead. At least we left those monsters behind. Gerrold—how are you feeling? You don’t look well.”

“Whew,” Gerrold said. “I do have a fever.”

I looked to him, saw that his skin was beginning to glow red.

“And I feel funny,” he said, his voice cracking, sounding raspy. “Not well at all…”

I watched as his skin began to change… to turn scaly, reptilian… and right then Marin and I knew why there had been no bodies of our crewmates anywhere.

I had a bit of a charge left in my blaster, and had to do what I had to do to save myself and Marin. Gerrold knew it, even as his skin began to bubble and his entire body began increasing in mass, straining against his safety harness.

“Make me a ghost, cap,” he begged me in a growling voice, “before I’m a monster.”

He began to scream, and the scream morphed into a terrible roar, and his body kept changing shape…

I didn’t want to play that game anymore. I ended it.

“Frog Her”
Fantasy
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Milena stood atop a hill overlooking a raging freeway. Cars and trucks roared past by the hundreds across eight lanes. Beyond was a narrow river where logs flowed past. Her boyfriend’s diabolical mother stood next to her.

“You say you love my son, novice wizardess?” spat Alvara, the sorceress. She was tall and statuesque, with a mane of wild, dark hair, and wore a slinky black dress. It was in stark contrast to the shorter, slimmer, slightly boyish Milena, with her blond pixie cut, jeans, and T-shirt.

“I do,” Milena said. She wasn’t backing down from the woman. Her T-shirt read EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED—ME. “Scott is my life.”

“Then you shall prove it,” said Alvara. “You’ll withdraw your magical defenses, then, and let me cast a spell on you.”

The woman was immensely powerful, so Milena was nervous about dropping her defenses, but she knew that Alvara was honorable. She hated Milena, but she’d be fair—at least, Milena hoped.

“You must cross this highway, and then the river,” the sorceress commanded. “If you make it alive, I’ll step aside and let my son have his young wizardess, whose powers are so weak that she’s not worthy of a warlock of his ability.”

The woman was such a bitch, Milena thought.

“But be warned: Those vehicles are really traveling,” Alvara said with a sneer. “And the river beyond is full of alligators. You’ll likely never make it. But if you refuse to try, you’ll never bother my son again.”

Milena steeled herself, stepping nose to chin with Alvara, looking defiantly up at her. “I love Scott. I’ll do this to prove that to you.”

After all, how hard could it be? There were lots of cars, but she’d find a break in the traffic wide enough to run across. And the river—she was a strong swimmer, and her magic would fend off alligators. She turned to head down the hill, but the sorceress grabbed her arm and spun her back.

“First, my spell,” she said, and waved her hands to cast it.

Lights flashed in Milena’s eyes, and suddenly she thought she was sinking into the ground, but she wasn’t; she was shrinking. In a matter of seconds, she was just a few inches high—and she was a frog. Alvara leaned down, cackling at her. “Go, little frog!”

Milena took off, hopping down the hillside. Being a frog was bizarre, but she couldn’t think of that. All that mattered was Scott and the life they wanted to have together. She’d prove that Alvara had underestimated her.

What was a ten-second jog as a human was an endless hopfest for a frog, but soon she was there. The traffic was heavy, and she knew that her method had to be to jump to the middle of the closest lane, and then jump from lane to lane—let the vehicles’ tires straddle her. She’d just had several minutes of jumping practice, so she had the mechanics and agility down. She waited for a break and leaped into the lane.

Several cars roared over her, and Milena felt the rush of air that threatened to rip her off her feet and ruin everything, but she held fast. She had to wait a bit to get to the next lane, but finally had an opportunity and leaped. She landed off-center and saw the black tire bearing down on her—and hopped out of the way just in time.

Several minutes later, she made it to the guardrail that separated the divided highway. She breathed a sigh of relief as she rested, preparing to cross the next four lanes. This side seemed to be heavy with truck traffic; tractor trailers abounded.

Milena leaped with her strong frog legs, and leaped again, zigging this way and zagging that. It was a hellish fury of massive, screaming tires; exhaust burned her eyes as she went. She fought against overpowering rushes of wind with every speeding vehicle, lane after lane, expecting to be flattened at any moment—but realizing that she’d be killed instantly and never know what had happened. With every jump, she felt her strength waning—her energy sapped with every leap, and every leap a bit shorter than the last.

All the while, the thought of Scott kept her going. She loved him more than anything, and there was no way she’d let his horrible mother win. Alvara wasn’t expecting the unexpected!

One lane left—and a break in traffic. A car was fairly distant. She summoned all her strength and leaped. No sooner was she in the lane than she realized the oncoming car was a speed demon. It was closing faster than fast.

She leaped, leaped again, and summoned the strength for one final, big leap—and as she launched in the air, she felt the car hit her outstretched back legs. The world spun madly as the sports car screamed past. She whirled like a helicopter across the breakdown lane and landed in the grass.

Milena took stock of herself. Her amphibian body was intact; her legs were fine. She hadn’t been hit—it had been a close shave, with a blast of air sending her wild. She rested for a time, regaining her energy. Finally, she turned her attention to the adjacent river. Logs floated everywhere—drifting, spinning, and twirling, wet and slippery. It would be a miracle for any human to make it across that river.

But she was a frog.

She leaped into the water and dived deep. She was on the other side in a few relaxed, painless minutes. It was anticlimactic compared to the highway. She did have to evade a snapping turtle en route, and an alligator got uncomfortably close to her at one point, but it was mostly easy.

Milena crawled out of the water and collapsed on the riverbank, even as she felt the transformation begin. Her limbs lengthened, her body swelled, and she grew rapidly from tiny green frog to full-sized human woman. She clambered to her feet, exhausted, even as the air before her shimmered and the sorceress appeared before her.

“Well, I didn’t think you could do it,” the woman said. “Didn’t think you’d be willing to try. It was a certain death sentence. Yet here you are.”

Milena staggered forward, pointing her thumbs at her shirt: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED—ME. Alvara nodded with a smug grin. “Perhaps I did underestimate you, girl.”

“Honor your promise,” Milena demanded.

Alvara grimaced. “You know I will. But I don’t need to be happy about it.”

Mentally, Milena opened every magical channel that she had. She saw the lines of force lashing across dimensions and into her body. She’d hung so many spells before she’d agreed to meet Alvara, having expected to do magical combat, so now she was ready. She redirected her plan spell effects, even as she saw the curious recognition on the bitch’s face, but it was too late.

Milena uttered the final command word and a dozen spells erupted. The sorceress was taken completely by surprise by power far greater than she had anticipated. Milena watched with glee as the woman shrunk and morphed quickly into a rat.

She leaned over to face the rodent. “I guess we think alike,” she said. “I was going to leave you like this, but after what you did to me… I’ll tell you what: Swim across that river. Scurry across that highway. Make it back to the other side. If you do, I’ll transform you back.”

She dropped to her knees, face to tiny face with the glaring rat. “And if you survive, you’ll know not to screw with me ever again.”

The rat glared some more, then turned and scurried down the riverbank and splashed into the water.

Milena turned invisible and flew into the air. She wanted a bird’s-eye view of the whole affair. Once the woman made it—and Milena, unlike Alvara, would rescue her victim should things go badly—she’d rush to Scott and begin the rest of her life at last.

In-law get-togethers were going to fun forever.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.