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Twilight Zone

James Hold

“Where am I to go...?”

    “I’m tired of trying to see the good in people.” Akkadia, the Abracadabrical Amazon, looked out from her tower high above the San Jacinto River. Clouds swirled about the open window but with the aid of her mystic crystal her eyes penetrated the fog as she maintained a constant vigil against the forces of evil and darkness.
    “My uncle felt the same way,” Ziggurat, her ever-present servant, commiserated. “Only he was an x-ray technician.”
    Akkadia turned a cold eye on her big-eared companion. She didn’t find Zig’s sense of humor funny.
    “You misunderstand me, Zig. I was referring to the people of Goodin, Texas, a rural community 30 miles north of here. They requested I contact them but no one answers. It’s as though they disappeared from the face of the earth.”
    “This is serious,” Ziggurat echoed her concern. “Have you consulted the sacred texts?”
    “The Text Arcana?” Akkadia asked.
    “No, DC Comics. Mystery in Space printed numerous stories about cities being swept away by alien invaders.”
    “I recall an Outer Limits episode with the same plot. ‘Feasibility Study’ I think it was. It means there is a precedent for such things. Therefore I shall investigate at once.”
    #
    Two hours later Akkadia was still in her chamber going through her belongings.
    “I thought you said you were leaving at once,” Ziggurat reminded her.
    “I will as soon as I find that new hooded cloak I picked up yesterday. I can’t remember where I laid it.”
    Where Akkadia said “picked up” Ziggurat knew it to mean she’d shoplifted it from the mall. The Magical Maiden for all her goodness had a recurrent tendency to take things that weren’t hers—especially when it came to colorful cloaks. Mystical heroines had to have cloaks; it was par for the course. Unknown to her, Ziggurat found the garment and returned it to the shop when she wasn’t looking.
    “Perhaps milady could use another in the meantime,” he suggested. “She has so many ones already.”
    “Very well,” she gave in. “I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
    #
    A short time later Akkadia and Ziggurat arrived in the rural community of Goodin in her Flying Broom, an open-air conveyance consisting of a bowl shaped chassis with a whiskbroom rudder. The Abracadabrical Amazon was capable of transporting herself from place to place, but only by means of the Flying Broom could Ziggurat accompany her on her missions.
    She stepped from the aircraft fetchingly attired in halter, hot pants, ankle boots, and a poncho-like cape of the deepest indigo.
    “Si,” a man in a sombrero came up from behind and tapped her shoulder, “and Poncho would like his cape back someday.”
    “Later,” the Lithesome Lady of Legerdemain said lengthily. “I have need of it for now.”
    #
    In the middle of an empty field where once sat a thriving community a man stood before a gigantic contraption. It was a set of circular tubes from which projected an array of large lenses placed at varying angles. The man looked up at their approach.
    “Oh, hello. Wowza!, but you are a cutie.”
    “Thank you,” replied Zig. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
    “I think he was referring to me,” Akkadia told him. “Although in today’s open society one can’t be sure.” She addressed the man. “I am Akkadia, Magical Maid of Mystic Marvels. I’m investigating the disappearance of the community of Goodin. Can you shed any light on the subject?”
    “Well,” the man searched his knapsack, “I have a torch here someplace. Oh, wait, you mean... Gotcha. My name is Professor Hans Porter. I’m the world’s leading expert in the field of galvanic-electro-biology. In fact, I’m the only expert since the field doesn’t really exist. I was set to embark on an adventure that would change the course of human history. Something that will open new doors to places undreamt by god or man. Something that will put my name on the lips of scientist and layman for centuries to come. So naturally along comes a solar flare that makes the whole thing go blooey.”
    “In other words, you and your contraption are responsible for the disappearance of everyone.”
    “Well... no. Not really. I mean, this isn’t my contraption. My device disappeared along with everything else and this... whatever you call it... popped up in its place.”
    #
    “Then you’ve no idea where the people of Goodin are or how to get them back?” Akkadia accessed the situation.
    “That’s about the size of it,” Professor Porter admitted.
    “It looks like we might be here for some time,” Ziggurat sighed.
    “In that case,” the man in the sombrero re-approached them, “perhaps you might return to Poncho his poncho? He has need of it for a gunfight at high noon.”
    “Oh, buzz off.” Akkadia waved a hand and the man found himself in the Chisos Mountains some 600 miles distant.
    “Oh, geez,” he lamented, “Poncho isn’t going to like when he miss his gun fight.”
    Meanwhile, back at Goodin...
    “I think the man may have had something there,” Zig spoke up.
    “About a gun fight?” Akkadia asked.
    “No, milady; about high noon. Look how the lenses on that alien contraption catch the sun. It could be they are arranged in such a way to focus the sun’s rays, thereby opening an interdimensional portal that...”
    “Of course!” Professor Porter smacked a fist into his palm. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
    “Because... you’re stupid?” Ziggurat suggested.
    “That’s enough, Zig,” Akkadia intervened. “The important thing is we have an answer.”
    “What answer?” Porter wanted to know. “An answer to what?”
    “Oh, hush,” Akkadia admonished him. “This is a comic book story, okay? We don’t have to explain everything. The point is I can channel the Akkadian Rhythms from which I draw my mystic talents and focus them on the mirrored lenses which feed the alien device. Doing so should enable me to enter the world where the people of Goodin were taken.”
    “Do you think it’ll work?” Professor Porter asked.
    “Like I said, this is a comic book. It has to.”
    #
    The Cutie Pie Conjurer stood 5 feet tall, weighed 97 pounds, and her bra size, had she been wearing one, was 34B. The halter had a slight yet noticeable jiggle that gave her away. These were important things to consider when calculating adjustments to the Akkadian Rhythms—those invisible patterns of force which circle the planet and whose attractive/repulsive modes allowed her to perform feats which appear to be magical—to let her enter the lens of the contraption.
    “By the Oddball Optics of Oktid!” she chanted, “and the Dreadful Dialog of Dloh! Let the path to Park Place open and this Poncho’d Player pass Go!”
    Seconds later her body became a violet blur as it was sucked into the otherworld dimension from which the machine originated.
    “Wowza!” exclaimed Professor Porter, as the forces that took her left behind the halter, hot pants, and ankle boots she’d been wearing.
    “Thank goodness she remembered the poncho,” was Zig’s only comment.
    #
    “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. A dimension vast as space and timeless as infinity, the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it...”
    “Would you get out of here?” Akkadia scolded the disembodied voice. “Who said you could come into my comic book in the first place?”
    “Sorry,” the voice apologized. “I thought it could use some atmosphere.”
    “When I want atmosphere it won’t be from all those cancer sticks you’re smoking.”
    “Well!” The voice did a Jack Benny and buzzed off.
    “That’s better. Now I can look around.”
    The strange lenses had indeed shot the Elfin Enchanter into another dimension. Brilliant lights danced around her, bubbling, bouncing, burning to the touch.
    “Ouch!” Akkadia startled as one struck her exposed skin. It was then she realized she’d forgotten to bring the rest of her costume; that all she had was her poncho. “Well you try composing quatrains from scratch,” she scolded the air around her. “It isn’t easy.”
    “Greetings, lady of honeyed hair and— Wowza! You are a cutie.”
    Turning, Akkadia saw a man in a military uniform leering down at her. He was twice her size and very ugly.
    “My name is Akkadia and I’ve come to fetch my people back to their rightful home.”
    “Go ahead; take them. It’s not like I’ve any use for them.”
    “That’s it? No fight? No objections? Simple as that?”
    “Well... there is one tiny thing.”
    “Ah hah! I knew it.”
    “You need to return my contraption from your world.”
    “I kinda thought that would happen automatically when we got back.”
    “Oh, and I also need you to surrender your planet to my conquering forces.”
    “Conquering forces?”
    “You didn’t think the thing showed up for no reason.”
    “I thought Professor Porter—”
    “Hans Porter is my advance agent. Even now he’s planting other devices for my army to enter your world.”
    “Not if Zig has anything to say about it.”
    “Your rodent friend has no power to prevent him. Especially after he called Porter stupid. People don’t like that. Even bad ones.”
    “He does fly off the handle at times,” Akkadia admitted. “So where are the Goodin folk anyway?”
    “They’re held in a dimensional stasis, not actually here but occupying some middle ground, completely unaware of what’s going on.”
    “Then in a way we are in a Twilight Zone episode.”
    “Told ya,” the disembodied voice returned.
    “Oh, shut up.” Akkadia turned back to the dictator. “So, now what?”
    #
    “Now what” was the Comic Book Narrator, upset at being ignored so long a time, reasserted his authority by dispensing with all dialogue for the next section.
    Sizing up the array of mirrored lenses before which the man in the military uniform was standing, the Palladian Pixie brought her hands together with a loud clap and pointed them at the control panel to which said lenses were connected. A glowing ball of incandescence, the Repulsive Power of her Akkadian Rhythm, shot forth, striking the console and causing it to explode. The military man screamed for her to stop, but since super heroines seldom listen to villains, she did not and sent further bolts of force his way. The would-be conqueror fell to his knees and, like James Arness in The Thing from Another World, shrank until he was six inches tall. With a piping voice he shook his fist in the direction of the Willowy Wizardess who laughed as she fled the scene. As expected, the destruction of the lenses caused an immediate reversal of effects and in no time the citizens of Goodin found themselves back in Texas, completely unaware anything had taken place. And the Comic Book Narrator, satisfied at having his say, relinquished control of the story to its featured players.
    #
    “Milady!” Ziggurat greeted Akkadia on her return. “You’re back! I was so worried!”
    “I’m fine, Zig, but what about Professor Porter? He was an enemy agent paving the way for an invasion.”
    “Really? I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t worry about him though. The man with the sombrero returned. His feet were sore from walking and he demanded we return his poncho so he could get to his gun fight. The Professor told him to buzz off and... Well, the gun fight took place earlier than expected.”
    “Si,” the man in the sombrero reappeared. “And now that you are back Poncho demand you give his poncho back!”
    “Very well,” Akkadia gave in. “I only borrowed it cos I couldn’t find my cloak. Here, take it.”
    “But Milady!” Zig’s effort to stop her was not in time. She whipped the garment from her body revealing it in all its unconcealed glory.
    “Oops!” the Fetching Femme of Full Disclosure blushed mightily. “I should’ve put my other things on first.”
    But the man in the sombrero did not seem to mind. After making with a heartfelt “Wowza!” he did the gentlemanly thing of offering her his sombrero in exchange. Not that it covered much, but it allowed her to reach the Flying Broom with a minimum of embarrassment.
    And “embarrassed” was exactly the way the fine citizens of Goodin remembered her—even if they had no idea what brought her there to begin with.

 

    BIO: Mr Hold lives in Texas with his wife and four cats. Between them they have authored 20 books. More Akkadia tales can be found in SECRETS OF AKKADIA, available at Amazon.com.

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