Doug DonnanExecutive Editor GTNW/OMNI-GENRE+MAGAZINE!
"Geiger Encounter"
by
Doug
Donnan
[ Newport Beach, Oregon ]
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The midnight sea was unusually still and
serene that evening. Eerily
so Pennyworth decided as he
slowly shuffled up the crunching sand and
shells
of the barren beach. The very few whitecaps that did appear atop one
set
of lackadaisical waves or the next were almost poignant, as if the ocean
might
be issuing an exhaustive melancholy sigh or curling breath of pathos.
The
pale blue phosphorescent light of the waxing alabaster moon washed over
the
entire sea and shore below like some nebulous living shroud. Pennyworth
was
in his element…late into the night, alone, carefully sweeping the extended
wand
of his metal-a-geiger counter in search of forgotten fortune and treasure
carelessly
left behind or washed up by the sea’s indifferent shifting tides.
He was not unhappy.
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It
wasn’t too terribly long before Pennyworth broke out of his sweeping
stupor
and squinted a look off and faraway up the glistening, midnight shoreline.
He
positioned his flabby chin atop the long metal shaft of his detector using it
as
a
kind of makeshift flying buttress to now try and steady his clean-shaven head
against
a slightly slapping sea breeze. There, off in the distance, were the dark
silhouettes
of two large trucks. He studied the vehicles for the better part of a
moment,
his head rocking back and forth ever so slightly metronome-like
in
perfect syncopation with the ticking timing of his detector.
“Now just whatever could they be about out
here in the dead of night?” he
whispered
as if he might be addressing the very sea itself.
As he cautiously renewed his seaside
safari he decided that the two trucks
appeared
to be military vehicles. They were distinctly large olive-drab affairs with
their
long vaulted beds covered with stretches of taut canvas the same dreary green
hue.
They were not un-like the ones they used when he was stationed in Korea way
back
in the day. The mechanized heart of his detector perked up as he cautiously
swept
forward.
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Pennyworth paused at what he deemed a
respectable, if not discreet, distance
from
the dark and daunting trucks. He inched forward crab-like and swept his
detector
all around and about the periphery. The detector’s hair needle inside the
iridescent
green gauge was slapping away violently into the dial’s red danger zone.
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His mouth had puckered up into a perfect
circle of shock like the tiny
entrance
to some vacant backyard birdhouse.
“Whatcha’ doin’ out here pokin’ around old
timer?” a muffled voice inquired from
back
in the dim shadows just beyond the open tailgates of the trucks.
“Whatsat?” Pennyworth responded quickly as
he scrunched down and squinted into
the
darkness. “Who…who goes there?” he stammered.
A decidedly ominous figure dressed from
top to toe in a slick black Demron radiation
suit
stepped out of the dim shadows and into the pale moonlight. The towering form
squared
off just in front of the cringing little beachcomber.
“That was to be my very next question to
you sir,” the man replied as he pulled away
his
bug-eyed dark hood only to reveal a sharp police sketch type ruddy face and a
closely
shorn
blonde crew cut.
“Names’s Pennyworth…Harlan Pennyworth, if
that’s any business of yours,” he tried
as
he positioned his hands on the detector rod as if it were a weapon. “Lookin’
for treasure
I
guess you might say…you know,” he now half-smiled as he presented the shaft of
his
detector
out in front of himself as might a soldier with his clean and ready rifle at
inspection.
“You’re in a highly restricted area out
here Mr. Pennyworth. I’m afraid we’re going to
have
to ask you to come along with—
“Hey…I see now,” Pennyworth cut in with a
rather surprising degree of animated
self-confidence.
“You guys are out here tryin’ to collect up all that Jap junk that’s been
floatin’
up here on these beaches. Man oh man, looks like you all really came onto
something…
I
mean with those wild space suits, army trucks and all. Some of that Japanese
radioactive
debris
is washin’ up around here ain’t it? I knew it… just as sure as Simon helped
Jesus carry
that
cross! Do you all think that—”
A nearby clap of thunder broke in and the
previously composed and care-free waves and
wind
now thrashed about in a rude turbulent transformation.
The intimidating black clad figure flashed
a steely ice-eyed look out at the rolling sea, and
then
an unnerving leer down at the trembling beachcomber.
“Looks like there’s a storm brewin’,” he
now almost whispered as he stretched out a black
gloved
hand and grasped Pennyworth’s shoulder.
“I’d better be getting back home now,
before…before it’s too late.”
With his other hand the man quickly
reached down and snatched away Pennyworth’s rapidly
ticking
detector. “Just don’t you worry about that… We’ll take care of you.”
_____ THE END _____
