Stories and thoughts about being a queer girl geek in the 21st Century.
Author: joanne the geek
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. My interests include writing, film, music, art, books, and pursuing my geek interests such as Star Wars, and Magic the Gathering.
Though her work for the company was quite pivotal, Lily found herself largely ignored there. She had worked for a number of years in accounting, but often felt she was passed over, forgotten, even taken for granted.
One day Lily decided to leave, as she wanted to work somewhere where she would be more valued and appreciated. She baked a cake for her last day of work there, to let everyone know what she thought of them. Lily believed it was her crowning glory: the cake was the shape of a large hand, with the middle finger fully extended.
I’m thinking of turning Aalen’s Saga into a small e-book. There may be some rewriting involved.
What I would like is an artist who could provide some art to go with it – I was thinking black and white line drawings. The main characters are a female elf, her wolf, and a female human.
There will be little money in this venture, as I have no money, but we could possibly come to an arrangement about sharing any profits made from this project, should there be any.
If any of this interests you feel free to contact me and we can discuss this further.
“Her name was originally Freyja Halvorsen. She tends to go by the name Freya now. She was from somewhere in Scandinavia, but I don’t know what year she was born, though I suspect it was some time ago. Her modus operandi is to find a person, usually another woman, who has quite a large social circle and to turn them into a vampire so she can gain access to the woman’s friends to feed on. Once they run out of people to feed on, or they get discovered, Freya abandons them and the woman she has turned is left to face the consequences alone. Time and again I have come across people she has turned, along with a large number of bodies, but she has always long since disappeared. One day I hope to confront her.” Robert said as he drove the car towards the city. Robert was middle-aged with a trimmed beard that had flecks of grey. His brown short hair was going mostly grey as well. He wore glasses with a thick black rims. Across from him sat a younger man in his thirties, who was clean shaven and had longer brown hair, and who also wore glasses. Both were wearing dark suits.
“So you think this recent find of bodies is linked to her?” Tom, the younger man, asked.
“Yes I do, and we have to be extra cautious. She is dangerous and has killed countless numbers of people.” There was silence as they traveled on.
“Why do we have to do everything together?” Tom suddenly asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When we check into hotels we stay in the same room, we even eat all our meals together. Everyone who comes across us thinks we’re a gay couple. It’s really spoiling my game.” Tom complained. Robert brought the car to the halt and turned to face him.
“Our job is to hunt and destroy vampires, not chase tail. Vampire hunting is a very dangerous occupation and you need to keep your mind on the job. Failure to do so may cost your life, and mine also.” Robert reprimanded him.
“I understand, but can’t I have some time to myself occasionally?” Tom asked. Robert grunted and started the car up.
Once they were in the city, they drove down the street of a respectable looking neighbourhood, and parked outside a large house with two storeys. Police cars and vans were everywhere. Many police walked back and forth, while a lot of people stood on the sidewalk watching it all. There were also television cameras and photographers everywhere.
“They’re obviously very well off.” Tom commented.
“The couple that owns this house are away on a cruise. The authorities are trying to contact them. Their daughter, Sarah, was staying here alone over the summer. This case is slightly different as Sarah has also disappeared. I have never known Freya to take someone with her. This time it’s different for some reason.” Robert informed him.
“And yet you still think this is Freya’s handiwork?”
“Yes I do. Aside from taking Sarah with her, the rest of it is textbook Freyja Halvorsen.” They got out of the car and walked towards the police cordon. They both showed identification to the officers at the entrance. “I’m Agent Thompson, and this is my associate, Agent Mitchell. We’re tracking a serial killer and we believe this crime scene is their handiwork.” Robert told them.
Once inside they were taken to the lounge and met Detective Harry Walker, who was the chief investigating officer. Bodies were still being brought out from the basement. The lounge was full of dead bodies, most now lying in body bags.
“So I’m told you think this is the doing of a serial killer you’re tracking. Can you tell me more about them?” Detective Walker asked them. He was a man in his fifties with grey tidy hair and wearing a brown suit.
“It’s a woman called Freyja Halvorsen. She ingratiates herself with people who have a large circle of friends and then kills them all.”
“A woman did this?” Detective Walker asked surprised. He bent down and showed them a body. “Tell me this, is she crazy? All the victims have puncture marks on their bodies, multiple ones, and they’ve all been exsanguinated.”
“We believe she thinks she’s a vampire. As far as we can tell she apparently feeds on their blood.” Robert told him. Walker grimaced.
“So she’s insane then, and a serial killer. We’ve counted over thirty bodies. We’re trying to identify them all at the moment. So far they all have a link to Sarah Williams. Is she among the dead here, or has she disappeared as well?” Walker asked.
“I don’t know. She may be with the killer.”
“You mean as a hostage?”
“I don’t know. I need more information about her. Freya has sometimes got them to help her.” Robert answered. Walkers mouth opened in shock.
“You mean Sarah may have helped with this? I don’t believe it!”
“Sadly it’s what we’ve found on other occasions. We think Freya is highly charismatic.”
“She would have to be. But each time is it this number of victims?” Walker asked.
“Yes. Sometimes less, and sometimes even more.” Walker was aghast with this news.
“You mean she’s going from city to city creating this mayhem? She must have killed hundreds by now. How come I haven’t heard of her before?”
“Due to the high number of atrocities she’s committed, we have been very reluctant to share news about her.” Robert informed him. Walker looked troubled by the explanation, as though he didn’t totally believe it.
“Do you have any ideas of how to find her?” Walker asked.
“Yes I do.” Robert replied. “We work out the identities of the dead and then log into Sarah’s social networking sites and work out who else in this area among her contacts is theoretically still alive. That may lead us to Sarah, and possibly Freya.”
“You think she may still be in the city?”
“The fact that Sarah is possibly missing makes me believe they may be still hiding out somewhere else in the city. And detective?” Robert asked.
“Yes Agent Thompson?”
“If they are somewhere else in this city, there may be even more bodies to find.” Robert answered. Detective Walker sat down on the couch looking pale.
The crystal had shown terrible things. The Elder came out her dwelling. She clapped her hands and the entire village looked up at her.
“Humans are coming with axes to destroy our forest. We must protect it! All remaining archers need to go to our northern border. Falnek, take the children to the sacred Bloodwood.” There was sudden activity in the village. “Aalen, when the humans are defeated come back to us.” Aalen nodded and left with her wolf bounding in front of her.
The Elder looked over the village and her people. The crystal had shown terrible things.
This was written with the prompt to write a story to show what it is to protect nature around us provided by the Carrot Ranch July 23 Flash Fiction Challenge.
The days went by and more bodies began to fill the basement. With three of them now, they found it was better to invite two people over every night to feed on. Listening to both Sarah and Britney talk incessantly to each other every night, Freya was surprised that they had both attended a year of college. What sort of college was it? Freya wondered. Did their parent’s money help get them a place? Or was humanity just getting stupider?
One late afternoon there was a knock on the door. Sarah and Britney both went down to investigate. At the door was a policeman. Intrigued, Sarah opened it.
“Yes officer?” she asked.
“I’m looking for a Sarah Williams? Does she live here?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s me.” Sarah confirmed.
“A number of people have disappeared that seem to have a connection to you Miss Williams, such as a Matt Anderson, David Wilson, Zoe Taylor, Britney Evans…
“Hey that’s me!” Britney cut in. “I’m Britney Evans.”
“Oh. You should contact your parents, as they have not seen you or heard from you for some time.” the policeman told her.
“Okay I will. I’ve just been hanging out with my bestie! We’re so close she even turned me!” Britney replied as she put her arm around Sarah.
“Um, that’s nice.” the policeman replied looking uncomfortable. At that point, Freya came down the stairs and slowly walked to the door.
“So what’s happening?” she asked.
“This policeman is looking for some missing people.” Sarah informed her.
“I see. I’ll take care of this.” Freya ordered. The other two stepped back as she went up to the policeman.
“So who are you? Are you on my list as well?” the policeman asked.
“My name is not important. You will walk away from here and forget you ever came to this house. The list of missing people is no longer important to you.” Freya said to him as she stared at him intensely. The policeman suddenly looked at them bewildered and then walked off.
“Why did you let him go? We could have eaten him?” Sarah asked. Freya didn’t answer her, and instead walked quickly up the stairs. Sarah and Britney followed. Freya went into her bedroom and started packing her bag.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked.
“I’m leaving.” Freya replied.
“Why?”
“Because eventually more police will come. All I did was a delaying tactic. Eventually they’ll come with a warrant and find all the bodies in the basement, and I really want to be far away when that happens.”
“So you’re just leaving us?” Britney asked.
“Yes.” Freya replied curtly.
“Don’t you have some sort of responsibility to us?”
“No.”
“So what do we do?” Sarah asked her. Freya looked at her and shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t care.”
“But we could go somewhere else! We could stay at a friend’s place. There’s still plenty of people we know that we can feed on.” Sarah told her. Freya stopped and thought about it.
“Okay, maybe we could hang out somewhere else briefly, before I go.” Freya replied.
“Why do you want to go all of a sudden anyway?”
“Because once they find the bodies, that’s when the hunters come.” Freya told her.
“Hunters?”
“Yes hunters. They are skilled at killing us, and I would rather not encounter them. Anyway, do you have somewhere in mind we could go?”
“We could stay with Fat Emma.” Britney suggested. The mention of that name got both Britney and Sara giggling.
“Yeah, she would love the company!” Sara replied. The two of them continued giggling.
“And who is Fat Emma?” Freya asked them.
“Just some loser girl who always wants to hang out with us.” Sarah informed her.
“Yeah she has like a job and her own apartment!” Britney said.
“And body fat!” Sarah added. The two of them started giggling again.
“Her own apartment? That sounds promising. Okay shall we go and stay at her place?”
“Three people at her door? It will be like her dreams have come true.” Britney said. Her and Sarah started giggling yet again.
“Okay pack your things. Let’s go there before more police turn up.” Freya suggested.
A short time later they were at the door of Emma’s apartment. Sarah knocked and a woman with long dark hair answered. The woman looked surprised.
“Sarah? I haven’t seen you for ages. What are you doing here?”
“We just thought we would come over and say hi. You know Britney of course, and this is Freya.”
“Hi Freya.” To Freya’s eyes, Emma wasn’t overweight at all, it just looked like she ate food more regularly than Sarah and Britney had.
“Hi Emma. Could you invite us in?” Freya asked her.
“Sure, come in.” Emma replied, seeming surprised they wanted to visit her.
“Thanks.” Freya replied. The three of them walked into Emma’s apartment.
“Are you guys hungry?” Emma asked.
“We sure are.” Sarah replied licking her lips.
“Okay, follow me!” Emma said.
“Don’t worry we will.” Freya replied with an evil smile on her face.
to be continued…
Joanne Fisher
I do feel like I’m being horribly cruel writing this sometimes…
I’ve got many things I want to work on, but as it’s quite noisy where I live at the moment I’m having difficulty concentrating, so I thought I would share some pics of Comet Neowise I’ve found.
I love astronomy, so things like comets are of great interest to me, though I’m rather miffed that I couldn’t see it here since I live in the southern hemisphere, and sadly it could only be seen in the northern hemisphere. Neowise was first discovered in March 27, 2020. By July it became one of the brightest comets seen in the northern hemisphere since Hale-Bopp in 1997 with a magnitude of 3.5. This means it could be observed by the unaided eye, though people in urban areas might have needed binoculars.
Here are some photos of it I’ve come across on the web:
Neowise above the Space Needle
The Comet NEOWISE or C/2020 F3 is seen above Salgotarjan, Hungary, early Friday, July 10, 2020. (Peter Komka/MTI via AP)
