Stickman and Ruth: Goin' Home
an excerpt

The two figures stood behind the Dumpster in the fall twilight, watching the staff leave the building and walk out to their cars, talking and laughing.

“They haven’t noticed anything yet, have they?” asked one.

“Not that I’m aware of,” replied the other. “I don’t think they notice us at all, and if they do they probably just think we’re eccentric, that’s all.”

“Good. Keep it that way. That’s a complication we don’t need to add.”

The second figure paused for a moment, fidgeting.

“Speaking of complications…” it began.

“What? What happened?”

“Um…well, we’ve found out that the hole isn’t completely gone. Or rather, it was gone, but we’ve managed to pry part of it open again.”

“That’s excellent news! An opening even a few inches wide would be big enough to send messages and possibly get our scientists there working on a solution to our problem.”

“Right, well…messages aren’t the only things to get through.”

The first figure looked at its companion.

“What are you telling me? Have things from this dimension fallen over? A few inanimate objects shouldn’t matter too much….unless you’re talking about…oh. Oh no. Did someone’s child fall in there? Do we have a rogue kid from this dimension running around over there?”

The second figure shook its head.

“No, no, nothing like that. Nothing from this dimension has fallen through yet.”

“That’s a relief,” said the first figure. “Unauthorized transmittal of animate objects without authentication would wreck havoc.”

“Right, well…that’s what it is. Nothing from here has gone there, but it appears like – well, the studies seem to indicate that maybe….”

It paused. This was very bad news.

“Go on,” said the first figure.

The second figure sighed.

“Here to there – 12D to 1D, if you will – is clean. But 1D to 12D keeps showing red. We don’t know where and we don’t know when and we don’t even really know what, but it looks like something from our dimension slipped through to here. A lot of somethings, in fact. And sir…they might be snippers.”

The fisrt figure paused and looked at its companion. It tried to maintain its composure but was finding it very hard in the face of the news.

“Snippers, eh? Well….well. That could be very bad indeed. Hmmm…and you say the 12lings have no idea? There have been no sightings?”

“Not that we know about. Snippers are sly creatures; they may not have even come out of hiding yet. We’ll have to try to catch them before they do. It could be rough, though. We’re not equipped to handle snippers; no one thought that would ever be a problem here. But we’ll do our best.”

“Of course. Get right on that. Keep your eyes open, and keep watch on the hole, as well. We don’t want it to get any bigger and let something really nasty through.”