A Nerd’s Night Out

This story was written in answer to Fandango’s One Word Challenge. Word – ‘Nerd’

This story also includes the Your Daily Word Prompt word – ‘Yawp’

Here’s what I came up with …

A Nerd’s Night Out

“Look out! It’s the nerd convention – don’t want to get scurvy!” yelled a stylish student breaking school rules traversing the halls on his skateboard.

“Ah, dunderhead.com …” Ellis wound up his middle finger like a flag and aimed it at him. “Scurvy is a lack of Vitamin-C not brains you imbecile!”

“Let the moron go, Ellis. He’s not worth overloading your circuits.” Lorretta adjusted her glasses and took his hand as they went outside. “We have important work to accomplish.”   

“He gets on my synapses.” Ellis took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt hem. “It feels weird going straight home from school. We always do extracurricular science, don’t we?”

“Well, we are going on a field trip,” Lorretta said with a goofy smile.

Being autumn, it was already dark by five. The two arrived at Saint Romanus church and entered the graveyard with torches at the ready. A typical place, it had rows of ancient headstones, interring vaults and yew trees.

“This should be spooky enough,” Ellis said taking out a device he’d constructed in the physics lab.

“Affirmative, this place should be oozing with phenomena if the news articles ring true.” Lorretta took out a traditional tri-field meter. “So, I’ll track radio waves, magnetic fields, and electrical fields with this.”

“Perfect.” Ellis had dropped his voice to a whisper as they walked toward the receiving vaults. “If the reports are authentic, there should be enough metaphysical occurrences here that we can detect them.”

“I hope so. I love a ghost hunt.” Loretta beamed.

“We not searching for spectral humans. We’re looking for weaknesses in the space-time continuum —places where the veil is thin enough to create portals to other dimensions. It’s essences of those dimension people see. Not ghosts.” Ellis engaged his device. A little satellite dish upon it began spinning and a beeping issued from the gadget.

Loretta chuckled and made a Klingon hand signal.

“Closer.” Ellis kissed her on the cheek. “Come on.” He approached the first ivy-covered vault and watched the lights on his device grow in strength and colour. It was beeping violently by the time he found the grated entrance.

“Wow! High EMF fluctuations from in there.” Loretta said with her device flashing.

Affirmative. I’m reading massive ionic radiation spikes – way beyond normal geophysical capabilities. We have to get inside and investigate.” Ellis’s glasses misted with his growing excitement. He gripped the bars and pulled. “Damn, it’s locked.”

“No problem.” Loretta took a bobby pin from her hair. “This is where listening to daddy comes in handy.” kneeling she went to work on the lock and soon had the gate squeaking open.

“Magnificent work, my atomic angel.” Ellis raised his device and stepped inside. His device seemed to read ever-increasing levels of energy as the two descended the stone steps. “This is incredible!”

“Phenomenal.” Loretta agreed.

Ellis felt a chill shudder through his overweight frame. He entered the vault and felt the hairs on his arms prickling with the power of the place. The walls were filled with funerary niches; many covered with memorial stones. Others awaiting the bodies of the family who owned this receiving room. A desiccated rose in one of the flower rings showed nobody had been in here in decades.

“We need to ascertain the main convergence point of all this EMF and Ionic Rad—”

A yawp erupted from beneath the steps. A growling, yammering sound which grew louder as something scratched about.

“We may have stumbled upon an interdimensional essence. A being which moves between portals.” Ellis said.

The creature yawped again. It was like a girl’s scream only with an inhuman barking note.

Loretta’s detector died in her hand. “I think its time to vacate the premises while we still have our plasma in our bodies.”

“I concur.” Ellis put her ahead of him as they headed for the exit. He felt something reach up from beneath the steps and scratch at his foot. A cry escaped his lips as he caught his glasses as he hurried out.

Back in the graveyard, the two moved toward the church.

Loretta shone her torch on the receiving vault in time to see a fox slink out and vanish into the graveyard.

“Unbelievable, beaten by a vixen.” Ellis chuckled. “Let’s go home.”

The End

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Thanks for reading my friends. As always there are more stories to be enjoyed (I hope) in the Short Stories and Short Stories 2 tabs.

Have a great day!

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