Inside Scoop page 1

THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING WEATHERMEN CULT

by Jezz

Lightning crackled across the storm torn sky, stripping the shroud of darkness from the bleached bones of the station. Skeletal white fingers, aerials and emitters, the last vestiges of control over the rebellious elements, pointed accusingly upwards in defiance against what would inevitably come. Stinging rain lashed horizontally into the cold grey stone walls of the station. In blind fury, the maelstrom screamed its rage and savaged the lifeless, twisted and scorched trees around the station. A lightning bolt split the night with an ear-shattering explosion as it harpooned the tallest mangled stump, the resulting flash illuminating a monochromatic scene of despair. And against the wall a lone shadowy figure raised a cloaked arm to shield his eyes from the glare.

The tall, gaunt figure turned towards the station door, wind whipping at the rain soaked cloak, spreading it like the wings of a great black beast behind the slightly sagging shoulders of the figure. Slumped, and with an agonized look upon his time weathered face, the figure opened the door to the besieged station. The only glint of color in the black and white scene was the gold crest of the planet owner upon his narrow chest.

They were coming. He knew they were coming, and when they arrived they would strike down this last struggling bastion of control like they had all the others. One small weather station could not maintain what an entire network had forged here. His world... his Utopia... would be gone forever. And with the unrestrained climate other things... other creatures... would come. They would crawl from their holes and slither from their lairs and infect this place like they had all the other areas of his beloved planet, strewing their stinking detritus across the blackened ground so that the strangling tendrils of their sickening plantings could choke his world.

He strode purposefully across the courtyard, ignoring the pathetic whimpering of the food animals huddled together in their pen. The stench from the straw assaulted his nostrils, and with distaste he remembered that the keepers had already fled. Flickering shadows clung to his booted heels in the strobing lightning flashes as if somehow he could save them too.

Ascending the stairs of the control tower, he was aware of a change in the electrified air. A momentary lull in the storm brought rustling whispered voices to his straining ears before another roll of thunder covered them once more. He emerged onto the observation balcony as the tortured sky lit up once more. There! On the crest of the hill... now between the tangled branches and gnarled trunks... their arms gesticulating wildly at imaginary maps, mouths uttering their garbled, conflicting prophesies, in isobaric waves they came. The Weathermen were here!

"NO! You shall not have this," he shook his fist at the dread harbingers of chaos "This is MY world!" But he knew the futility of his words as the lurid lances of light stabbed into the walls of the station. Defenses crumbled into rubble under the onslaught of the cult and he watched in despair as all that he held dear was brought to nothing. As the emitters shattered and fell from their roosts, he witnessed in horror the end of his dreams for this planet, the destruction of his plans, his way of life, for now chaos would reign here and the seasons would march unchecked over his beloved planet. Then he ran.

He had to get out. He knew what was coming, the final insult to his beautiful world. He could feel it in the ozone filled air. The shuttle was close... he might just make it. His feet flew over the rubble strewn ground and if they touched he was unaware of it. His mind was focused on the open doorway of the shuttle. Time itself seemed to slow as the world held it's breath in peculiar stillness, a pregnant silence with his missile-like flight the only movement.

He was there! Diving through the open door as the dark clouds parted to allow the first death rays to strike, his hand slammed into the button that would shut out the burning agony. With the filters on maximum he would be safe. He slumped into the pilot seat, hardly able to bear the scene on the filtered view screen. He could just make out the dazed meanderings of the food animals, now free of the pen. They would breed like cockroaches, building their squalid villages and covering his planet, HIS planet, with crops and gardens during their pointless short lives. He spat a curse at the retreating cyclonic spiral of the Weathermen Cultists, the destroyers of his dominion. They had won this one, taken his Ardeal and left it bathed in deadly sunlight. As the shuttle rose he could see the putrid green tinge of sprouting plant-life. Long dormant seeds would now germinate, flowers would defile his world with their colors and scents. All his work to create the everlasting storm had been undone and now the hated dawn would break over this world, never to be chained again.

Nosferatu might have cried if he was capable of it. But instead his pale cold fingers set a course for Carpathia... home... the safety of darkness, the cover of night, where the food accepted its place in his grand scheme and the comforting cold of his castle could embrace him and lull him to sleep without fear that the weathermen could send sunlight to invade his paradise.

He would be back. Someday... he would be back.

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