the aerial ace and the battle of roswellclasses.dma.ucla.edu/fall15/154/wp-content/uploads/...the...

2 0C R O P M A R K S

B L E E D M A R K S

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B L E E D M A R K SF O L D M A R K S

The Aerial Ace and the Battle of Roswell

SKYLER HOFF

Amelia Earheart nodded. “Aliens?”

Major Putnam sat across the table. “That’s right, ma’am.”

“On the Fourth of July?” she asked.

“Very un-American, I know. We’re assuming the aliens are commies.”

Amelia narrowed her eyes. “Those bastards. But why me? You’ve got

the Air Force.”

“Getting their asses kicked, ma’am. I know we agreed you wouldn’t

have any more missions after your “disappearance,” but we need

you back.”

Putnam rose from his seat and kept speaking. “I need--no, we need

Ace back.”

Her codename made her sit up straighter and level her eyes. It was

like taking cotton out of her ears and the heaviness of reading

magazines in reclining chairs off her shoulders.

“Just point me at the Martian bastards, Sarge,” she said.

--

Her plane screamed like it wanted to tear its lungs out. Her back

squeezed against the seat and every organ in her body leaned

away. The runway ripped by on all sides, then fell away. All the

time she’d spent with her feet on the ground fell away too. With

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the airplane wrapped around her, she was herself again. She was

Ace again. The clouds, like big, lazy cows, hung heavy beneath

her as she rose.

“Ace, this is Putnam, do you read? Over.” her radio whistled in

the wind. She held the handpiece to her lips. She tasted the

plastic as she spoke.

“I read you, over,” she said. She put more weight on the throttle

to hear the engines sing. She was a white streak in the desert

sky.

“Keep your heading and increase your altitude to forty thousand.

You’ll be heading over the border into New Mexico--trust me, you

can’t miss their ships. Over.”

The ground dipped away again. Ace craned the nose of her plane

higher. “Got it, Sarge. Over and out.”

She was a few minutes out from Roswell when she saw the ships.

They were an army of brushed steel saucers, sleek and aerodynamic,

ripped right out of the World of Tomorrow and hanging in the sky.

The fl ash of gunfi re drew her eyes. Cresting over one of the smaller

alien ships were four fi ghter planes, fl ying in a pack. The whine

of her guns spinning up surrounded her. She shot forward, rushing

to join them.

Just then, a bolt of green energy cut through their formation.

Two of the planes disintegrated. The other two had lost their

tails. Ace’s stomach pulled up into her chest. The two survivors

were spinning frantically toward the ground far below.

The alien ship that had shot them hung in the air, like it

was proud. Ace gripped the throttle with her shoulders squared

against the seat. As her plane slid into a roll, she let her gun

1 9 C R O P M A R K S


Windows to the Soul

JUSTIN PIOTROSKI

Have you ever wondered why you blink less when you need to sleep? I used

to. Sometimes I’d stay up far longer than I should. I’d notice that the first

thing to go would always be my blinking. I’d have to remember to do it or

it wouldn’t happen. It’s interesting, it’s supposed to be automatic, but

here I am not doing it. Why?

One night, I had stayed up way later than I should ever have. Than

anyone should ever have. It must have been a minute since last I blinked.

Something in my body was refusing to let it happen, keeping me from

closing my eyes, even for a second.

I should have listened.

The second I closed them, everything went silent. The hum of the A/C, my

roommate’s sometimes endearing snoring... gone. Like a candle blown

out like an errant wind. I opened my eyes, wondering what could have

happened.

That was my second mistake.

Everything was... well no, it wasn’t. I couldn’t tell up from down, left

from right. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but cold. I tried to

walk but I don’t think I had feet. Nothing. It was after I’d lost hope that

I heard it. Breathing, or wheezing more like. Right behind me, wherever

behind me was. Chilling words passed the fetid lips of that breath.

“Not yet. But soon.”

I woke up in my bed. Good. It was all a dream.

But then, why is the back of my neck so moist...


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loose. A barrage of bullets peppered the side of the alien craft.

The rattle of the gun struck her everywhere her body touched the

plane.

Ace hung upside down. The alien ship spun in her direction like

it was hanging from a string. With one quick volley of shots,

she righted herself as the ship fi red. Static electricity crackled

through the air--the beam was only yards away. For a moment, the

ship bent, and then it exploded in a shower of green and smoke.

A kr-KRAKOOM washed over her like a sonic boom.

Now she had their attention.

The aliens’ death beams lit up the sky. Each ship tried to track

her, the dark streak against the light sky. Their beams rose like

pillars in front of her, blocking her in, but Ace was up to the

task. She swung down between a pair of beams. She peeled up before

a third could clap across her wings, back into a tight loop. With

another warship in her sights, she fi red until she’d lit up the

sky with another technicolor explosion.

The hair on the back of Ace’s neck stood up. She ducked to the

side in her cockpit. Her plane pitched, but it was too close--the

death beam tore a hole through her fuselage from her tail to her

starboard engine.

With a whoosh, the cockpit was gone. Her plane, her second body,

left a weaving trail of smoke beneath her. She spun in the air

until the parachute puffed out behind her. She grabbed the straps

and pulled down on one side to spin herself around.

“I liked that ship, you commie bastards,” she hissed into the

wind. Ahead of her was the biggest ship in the invasion force-

-the command ship. Six rounds in her revolver--she’d make them

count.

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When she was close enough, she tore off the buckles. She fell

through the air, through more air than she’d estimated, and

landed hard on the smooth surface of the ship. One round to blow

off the lock on the access port. She slid down the ladder and

into the maintenance crawlspace. Two rounds for the hinges on the

locked door leading out into the ship’s corridor. Two more for

the guards she’d alerted by knocking down the door. Just like

she’d suspected, they were red-skinned spacemen in foil suits.

She stepped into the bridge, revolver drawn. In front of a bay

of computer screens, giving three-dimensional radar maps of the

battle, was the commander. He stood, legs wide, stern but relaxed.

He stood like a commander who thought the battle was won.

Ace fi red and her bullet pinged off a force-fi eld a foot away from

his head. The Martian general turned, grinning, and slowly walked

toward her. “I’m no stranger to Earthling weapons,” he said.

“That gun has six bullets, and you just fi red your last.” His red

skin wrinkled in a grin. “The best Earth has to defend itself is

a woman? Pathetic.”

He reached to grab Ace’s collar. She reeled back and punched him

in the nose so hard his green blood spattered down the front of

his foil uniform.

“Not a woman,” Ace said. She grabbed him by the collar and belt,

and threw him back over the radar console. “An American. And you

know what we Americans love?”

The Martian general blinked and squirmed through the pain shooting

across his face. He searched for whatever answer would save his

sorry hide.

“Fireworks,” Ace said. She tugged a stick of dynamite from her

coat and lit the fuse, then shoved it down the Martian general’s

shirt.



The Foreboding Filter

SHANNON BROWN

Two shrimp I had, in a shiny, new tank

With fishes and plants and some rocks that sank

To the bottom where the shrimp would swim with such glee

Not knowing what their ultimate fate was to be

For there was a filter in that shiny, new tank

Working quietly without a click or a clank

It bubbled and cleaned like no filter could

But the filter, it seems, was up to no good

The next day I checked that shiny, new tank

But it appeared my shrimp were pulling some prank

They were nowhere to be seen, not a shrimp leg in sight!

I feared that my shrimp may be in quite a plight

Where could they be, if not in that shiny, new tank?

It’s not as if someone came over and drank

The contents inside, for all else was still there -

Maybe my shrimp had been caught in some snare

So I eyed the filter of that shiny, new tank

And like a Band-Aid I pulled off the lid with a yank

When I looked in, two carcasses laid in the clear;

My shrimp lay there dead as I shed a lone tear


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A blue-green explosion ripped open the skies over Roswell. The

warships were wiped from the sky and littered the desert amidst

the debris of the command ship. Major Putnam was the fi rst on the

ground with the cleanup crew, sifting through the wreckage until

he found Ace under a hunk of the command ship’s hull.

Her clothes and hands were scorched, and one of her legs hung at a

broken angle. dust and blood from a gash on her forehead stained

her face black.

“Amelia? Amelia, can you hear me?” Putnam asked. “Major Putnam

here, I need a medic, over,” he said into his radio.

Ace’s voice was rough and quiet and her eyes stayed shut. “I

missed the fi reworks, Sarge.”

Putnam took a deep breath. “No, you didn’t, Ace. There’s still

enough time, thanks to you.”

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muster. Those two words were all she had to go on right now. They

were what kept her afloat when her world turned into a stormy sea and

threatened to drown her. If she had any doubt in the words that sustained

her, all that supported her would dissapear.

However time kept marching, straining her faith. Slowly but steadily

draining the last of her will power. Trying to strengthen her resolve, she

fondled the watch lovingly and thought of what it meant to her. While

doing so, she discreetly peeked at the hands of the watch, as if hoping

time wouldn’t notice her uncertainty. 3:05 is what the reflective face told

her. She told itself it must be wrong, that it couldn’t be right. As the last

ray of hope was leached from her heart, she was jerked back to reality. Two

arms folded around her. At first she struggled, but then she recognized

the familiar embrace. The feeling that she longed for came flooding back

all at once. She relaxed as her fears melted away and calmness overcame

her. This is what she waited for, this is why she existed.


B L E E D M A R K S

The Story

MARK MCCORMICK

A leaf skittered across the hard, lifeless pavement. It brushed up against

a leg unnoticed as it was ushered along it forced journey. The leg shifted

uneasily as if it was anxiously waiting for something. Something it was

not sure that was going to arrive. Wrapped about the legs was a large tan

trenchcoat that rustled slightly in the wind. The upper portion of the

trenchcoat was clutched tightly, to not only keep out the cold, but also to

keep the hope from seeping out of the almost broken heart.

A hand appeared from underneath the trenchcoat to brush away a few

strands of long blonde hair that obscured her vision. The hair easily went

back into place, but soon slipped out from behind her ear to flow with the

wind once more. Before sliding the slender hand back in to the sanctuary

of the trenchcoat, she glanced at the gold watch he had given her. Not

just any he, but the one that had stolen her heart. Then she thought to

herself, he had not so much stolen her heart as he had accepted it when

she willingly offered her heart to him. The hands of the watch pointed

to 2:47. That was over an hour after the designated time. What that time

designated, she was not sure of. All she knew was that she was meant

to be in this spot at 1:30; whether it was for good or for bad, she did not

know. Her only consolation was that he promised that if she would only

wait, that he would be there.

She tucked away her hand to hide it from the cold, and her mind slid

towards her memories of when she recieved the watch. It had been a

warm summer evening on the beach while watching the sunset. As the

sun melted into the horizon, he slipped the watch around her wrist

and fastened it. On the back, engraved in small letters, were the words

“eternally yours.” She contemplated those words and questioned the

truth of them. Were they just words and nothing more? No, she could

not accept that. She could not believe that they were nothing more than

words. She pushed that through away with as much force as she could

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A Textbook Case

MADDY KROHN

The pile of textbooks sat mournfully in the corner of the room, making a stack

that almost reached the top of my dresser. The neat, uniform tower was a sharp

contrast to the rest of the room, with the broken binoculars thrown among candy

wrappers and gym socks and the photos taped to the wall knocked askew.

I stared at them longingly, thinking about Andrew with a painful twinge in my heart.

All of them had been presents from him, acquired over the years. Well, not so

much presents as things given to me under false pretenses. “Here, Nona, you want

my old physics textbook?” “Nona, you want my world history textbook too? You

took my physics book so eagerly…” “I suppose you want my calculus book as well,

Nona.” And I took all of them, gladly. How could I not? And now he was gone,

whisked off to Kansas City over Christmas break for reasons I had never found out.

That had been a rough week, and the newspaper article about one high schooler

being murdered in Kansas City and another being mutilated just a couple weeks

before Andrew moved there hadn’t helped matters at all.

I picked up my phone and stared at Andrew’s number. I could do it if I wanted. I

could call him up. “Hi Andy, this is Nona. How did the move go? What’s it like in

Kansas City? Are you coming back to Topeka to visit?” After several deep breaths,

and an entire chocolate milkshake, I decided I was going to call him.

I just about threw up all over my phone dialing the number, but all I wanted was

to hear Andrew’s voice again. One time I had managed to get a recording of it and

every night since I had played it in my ear until I went to sleep.

“Reliable Bob’s break service, how may I help you?” said a voice that was most

definitely not Andrew’s. I let out a screech of frustration and threw the phone

across the room. Jerk gave me the wrong number!

Suddenly, the glass of my bedroom window smashed open, and there stood a

very pretty girl with long blonde hair and dazzling green eyes. She had a beige bag

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swung over her shoulder, which she took off and placed neatly on the floor.

“Who the frickety-frack are you?” I exclaimed.

“It is I, Olivia Warksparrow, Andrew’s girlfriend!” she proclaimed dramatically.

“Come down here for my boyfriend’s request to bring him back his textbooks. He

needs them for school in Kansas City.”

I stared at her in horror. “But they’re mine!” I cried. “He gave them to me!”

Olivia shrugged. “Well, not anymore. Let’s just make this quick. It was a long drive

down here.”

Before I could do anything, she walked over and picked up the calculus textbook

on the top of the stack. As she turned to the front page, my stomach squirmed as

I remembered what I had written there.

“Is this…a poem?” Olivia asked. “About how good Andrew’s old textbooks smell?

And he thought you were using them to study, you creep!”

“But they do smell nice, and so does he!” I replied indignantly.

Olivia’s eyes flashed threateningly. “Oh, believe me, I know better than anyone else

how good he smells…but I don’t need textbooks to be able to smell that. I’m afraid

I’m still going to take them away,” she sneered.

I tried to think of a snappy retort as she neatly picked up all five textbooks and

slipped them effortlessly into her bag. As she opened it, I glimpsed something

shriveled and tan, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. I also caught whiff of

a sharp, metallic smell that bookbags generally didn’t have. I leaned forward and

tried to look inside it, but Olivia zipped it up before I could.

“What right do you have to break into my house, anyway?” I snapped, overcome

with annoyance.

Olivia scoffed. “Oh, you’re one to talk! Don’t you know you’re the reason Andrew




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had become so upfront in his mind that he sometimes said it in a panic when some

weird girl asked for his number. Like that freak Nona who he had phoned in a

restraining order for several times.

As Andrew sat down next to Bob in a large armchair, he glanced the blaring

newspaper headline he had seen earlier: TWO GIRLS DEAD IN SAVAGE BEDROOM

FIGHT. He knew he should have grieved when finding out who the two girls were,

but if he was honest with himself he only felt relief. It was much easier to accept

being gay when the only girls attracted to you were psychos.

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moved away in the first place? I mean, don’t you think it made him just a tad

uncomfortable, having you watch him undress through his window every other

night?” I winced, remembering the time Andrew had caught me peeking and thrown

a rock out his window at my brand-new binoculars.

“And it was so expensive for his family to pay for the damage you caused, breaking

through that window so you could hide under his bed!” Olivia went on.

I gasped. “He knew that was me?”

“Who else would it be at one in the morning?” Olivia growled. “And if you thought

he didn’t notice you digging through the trash to find candy wrappers he threw

away and stealing his sweaty gym socks, you were sorely mistaken.”

Olivia looked around the room, and suddenly her eyes widened. I followed her gaze

to the photos tacked to the wall, right above my bed.

“Although I suppose we do have something in common,” she said, her voice growing

dangerously quiet.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She turned and smiled at me in a rather unnerving way. “I have a shrine for Andrew

in my bedroom, too. But you know what else that means?”

“Enlighten me,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

With one swift movement, Olivia unzipped her bag again and pulled out a blood-

soaked machete. “There can be only one,” she hissed.

I let out a startled shriek. “What do you mean?”

“This is what I mean.” Olivia put the machete down, blood dripping onto the

hardwood floor of my bedroom. Out of her bag she pulled out a severed human

hand. I nearly threw up in my mouth.


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“See this?” she said. “This belonged to my ex-boyfriend Jonathan. I took it because

he cheated on me, right before I broke up with him, of course. As for the girl…”

Olivia snickered. “Well, let’s just say she met a…tragic, mysterious end that no one

ever got to the bottom of.”

Of course…the two teenagers in the newspaper…her doing…

“So you’re going to kill me,” I said, giving her a hard stare.

“Of course!” Olivia said pleasantly. “I can’t have anyone else feeling the way I do

about my Andy-Wandy. He hates you, of course, but I have to eliminate anyone

who dares to think about kissing Andrew Mortenson when the only one who should

be thinking about kissing Andrew Mortenson is me!”

“One last question,” I said, backing toward the door. “Why is the blood on your

machete still wet?”

Olivia let out an airy laugh. “Oh, just taking care of some business! Do you know

Anastasia Witherton, that bimbo cheerleader who Andy dated a few months ago?

Well, she had to go.”

“You’re psychotic!” I screamed, making a mad dash for the door. But just like that,

Olivia was on top of me, knocking me down and pinning me to the floor. I screamed

as she sliced into me again and again, blood flying around the room and staining the

walls I had had painted aquamarine, Andrew’s favorite color.

But I wasn’t giving up so easily. With the last bit of strength I had, I ripped my arm

out from Olivia’s grip and punched her in the face. She yelped in surprise, and I

snatched the machete away from her and began stabbing her repeatedly in the

chest.

As I grew dizzy from blood loss and the world began to fade around me, the last

thing I heard Olivia say was, “You’ll never get away with this.” To which I replied,

“It’s surprising how much you can get away with if you’re dead.”

* * *



Meanwhile, in an auto repair shop far away, Andrew sat in the back room waiting

for Bob. Bob would be off work in just 15 minutes, and Andrew had snuck in the

back door of the shop with a surprise.

Sooner than expected, Bob opened the door to the back room, his face lighting up

at the sight of Andrew. Andrew quickly hid the bouquet behind his back, but Bob

had already caught a glimpse.

“What’ve you got there?” Bob cooed. Andrew grinned and whipped out the bundle

of orange roses mixed with purple carnations and red lilies. “Happy 6-month

anniversary!”

“Awww, you’re too sweet!” Bob pulled the flowers from his boyfriend’s hands and

set them down on a nearby table before pulling him into a deep kiss. Andrew felt his

senses come alive as his lips caressed Bob’s, and the sparks ignited just as fiercely

as they had from day one. He thought about how happy he was to be with him,

this wonderful brake specialist who also loved football and Broadway musicals.

Their relationship had never been an easy one, with an 8-year age difference and

Andrew’s rather old-fashioned parents, who didn’t much like the idea of their son

dating a man. He had dated Olivia Warksparrow as a cover-up, although that had

come with certain pitfalls. But Andrew was in love with the 26-year-old and would

go through anything in order to keep their secret affair going.

“I didn’t think you would make it,” Bob said as they broke apart. “Now that you live

all the way in Kansas City and all.”

“Aw, come on!” Andrew nudged him playfully. “Did you really think a few extra

miles were going to keep me away from you?”

“Well, I suppose not.” Bob leaned in and kissed him again.

“Did you know that your phone number was the first one I actually memorized?”

Andrew mused. “Funny how people don’t memorize numbers anymore…they just

put them in their phones and forget about them. But I wanted to be able to call

you no matter where I was.” What Andrew didn’t mention was that Bob’s number

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