Proving a Negative

A Writer's Extreme Creativity Challenge: Write a story a day, in May. That's it: http://storyaday.org/. Thanks to Britt for the keyword 'Moonbase'. I'm playing catch up now, so this is more the seeds of an idea based on a dream I wrote up years ago.

#11 : Proving a Negative

Walter sat up in his chair and took a sip of his coffee. He looked out across the lunar landscape.

Yup. Nothing. Lunar dust. A large crater about a mile to the east. Same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.

“Esme will live” he thought.

Only yesterday there hadn’t been nothing had there? Yesterday, he’d seen something, and no matter how much he tried to remove it from his mind, to forget what he’d witnessed, he hadn’t seen nothing. He hadn’t reported it.

The daily report he’d filed had said ‘nothing – as usual’ and maybe when the incident is investigated in months, years to come, that report would be stand out as being unusually verbose. Maybe someone would pick up on that and check the network traffic that day.

They’d find an encrypted message, and maybe someone a bit sharp will figure out what it said. An encrypted message signed Frank. A name he’d not heard from in over a year now.

Frank had been the name used by a man (as far as we know, it was a man) stalking Walter’s familty before he finally had been approved for the Moonbase job. Frank had demonstrated how easily he could break into their house, the school where his wife Esme worked and their son studied. Frank had never been seen, let alone caught. He left notes. Ludicrous demands with increasingly serious outcomes.

“Your telephone will ring at midnight. Ignore it for thirteen rings and then answer or your car will not start in the morning. Frank.”

“Mathew must fail today’s Maths test or your taxes will be audited. Frank.”

“A home baked blueberry pie must be left by the kitchen window or your cat will die. Frank.”

The threats were always carried out should the demands fail to be met. The demands told you a number of things about Frank. He had very little by way of morality, and he could make things happen, get anywhere, do anything. Usually bad things. They, and the police, were at a loss. Neither Walter or his family had any enemies to speak of.

Once Walter was approved for work on the Moonbase, Frank’s visits came to an end. Untill yesterday, when an encrypted message had came through to Walter’s account. Encrypted with Walter’s own password. It said:

“You will not see anything outside tomorrow. You will be paid £8,000,000. Esme will live. Frank.”

Walter thought about Doctor Watson. Doctor Watson had been a good cat, as cats go. Hadn't deserved that. Had everything been building up to this? Esme had been taken into hospital last week. She’d been having headaches. Walter wanted to get the next flight back, but that wasn’t scheduled for another twelve days.

Walter sat up in his chair and took a sip of his coffee. He looked out across the lunar landscape.

Yup. Nothing. Lunar dust. A large crater about a mile to the east. Same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.

How could he have possibly seen anything out there? Not a human anyway, not without a suit. Human arms aren't that long. He'd dreamed about those arms. Stretching along the moonbase corridors, hands spidering across the walls. Separated from their torso, blindly seeking him out.


Esme will live, he thought, if I saw nothing.