Easter Eggs

The Custodian studied the display in front of him. He felt hopeful for the first time in hundreds of years. The blue/green planet, the third from the sun in this system, looked promising. The temperature was about right, in some zones, at least; there was water, light, and life had taken hold there already - there would be lots of food for the Generation.

There were risks; there always were - there could just as easily be things that would view the Generation as food as well as things the Generation could eat. The Custodian would have to study the environment carefully before making a final decision in case it turned out to be toxic to the final hopes of his race.

It had reached the point where the Custodian could garner no more information from sensors outside the ship. He would have to land and take a proper look around. Take samples. He scratched his long ears, a habit he'd found comforting throughout his long journey, as he studied the photos the ship had transmitted during orbit. His next task - select a likely landing site.

The white sections were too cold, and the gold sections too hot; the blue bits were water - it had to be in one of the green areas. He punched in the co-ordinates of an interesting looking location and let the ship do the rest, until manual control was needed to guide the craft down into a forested area.

His analysis had told the Custodian that the air was breathable and the temperature within acceptable limits, so he stepped onto the surface of the new planet and began recording his impressions.

"There is animal life - I have seen small birds with melodious cries. There are larger birds which can be hostile, especially to smaller animals, but they seem to hunt mainly in the open spaces and a creature of my size who knows how to defend himself should be relatively safe. However, the Generation will need to stay under cover while they are small.

"There are huge white birds of some description which fly very high and make a roaring sound, but they seem to be on some kind of migratory path and I have never seen one land, and they always follow the same trajectory. My guess is they are migrating to specialist feeding grounds which I suspect are a long way from my location.

"There are some large animals, white woolly things and larger black and white creatures which seem to be no danger - they seem to spend all their time grazing the vegetation, but they are an excellent source of blood, which the Generation will need when they mature.

"Smaller mammals with long tails creep around by night but these do not seem to be a threat.

"More of a concern are the large creatures of varying colours which roar past on occasion. I saw one attack one of the long tailed creatures - literally tearing it apart, but it did not eat its kill, simply abandoned it and fled. These creatures do not venture away from the straight grey paths which appear to have been made by something - either by these creatures or others which serve them; so the Generation are safe as long as they stay away from these paths."

The next day he saw some new creatures enter the forest. These walked upright on two legs and had widely variegated and colourful plumage. The Custodian's nose twitched. He was not hungry, having fed on one of the woolly creatures overnight, but these new creatures smelled just like the monkey species he used to feed on at home. He had found what would be the primary food source for the Generation.

They seemed intelligent - they used language; they spoke to one another. The Custodian hid from them, to observe what they did. He thought at first they might be hunting, but it soon became clear they were not hunting at all, but were behaving in a similar way to his own kind. It appeared that they reproduced in the exact same way, for each of the creatures carried a basket full of brightly coloured eggs, exactly like the ones on the ship which contained the embryonic Generation.

The creatures were hiding the eggs in the undergrowth and in hollow trees just like his own kind did. To the Custodian, it was final proof that this was a suitable world, if creatures here had evolved to lay eggs and hide them. He could learn a lot by watching - not least the places they deemed to be suitable hiding places. Also the fact that they paid no attention to the large white birds when they went over confirmed his suspicion that, if you weren't in their designated feeding ground, you'd not be harmed.

When the creatures had gone, the Custodian came to a decision. If those creatures hid their eggs here then it must be safe. He had found a new home for his race. Why, the newly hatched young of this species would be an excellent food source when the Generation hatched, so secreting their eggs among the native ones would be an excellent strategy. The Custodian had noticed one of the creatures eating a type of fruit, so it seemed they were vegetarian, and so would not attack the Generation first.

He hurried back to the ship where the eggs were incubating and gathered them into a container. Within a few minutes, he'd hidden most of the eggs around and about where the native species had hidden theirs. He just had to wait until they hatched - a couple more cycles of the sun and there would be hordes of little long-eared creatures all looking to him to teach them how to survive. There was just one left to hide, the Queen Egg. That one should be nearest the ship.

He had a narrow escape. He was just placing the egg into a hollow tree when he heard a high-pitched shrieking. He'd been spotted by a couple more of those creatures. These were smaller than the others he'd seen, and even more colourful. He dived into the undergrowth as the creatures came running after him.

"It's the Easter Bunny!" One of them yelled. "Where did he go?"

Luckily, he could move much faster and more easily through the bracken than they, and although they gave chase to begin with, he soon lost them.

The creatures did not return, so the Custodian made his way back to the ship, found a place for the egg, and settled down to wait. Hatching would not begin until after the sun was at its Zenith, so the Custodian decided to take a final opportunity for a nap before the most taxing stage of his mission began.

He was woken by the sound of shrill laughter and running footsteps. The creatures were back. Their eggs must be hatching. He peered out of the window of the ship. That had to be it. There were dozens of the creatures, small ones, but a little too big to be hatchlings, given the size of the eggs the first ones had planted. Perhaps their way was for slightly older young to watch their younger siblings hatch.

As he watched, the Custodian's curiosity turned to horror as he realised what the small creatures were doing. They were picking up the eggs, and putting them in baskets. Taking them away. Why would they do that, before they had a chance to hatch?

The small creatures were already fleeing; taking the Generation eggs away with them as well as their own. The Custodian stepped out of the ship and lumbered towards the last remaining creatures.

"Stop!" he called to them. "Put those eggs back! I'll shoot!"

The small creatures let out a high pitched screeching noise and fled before the Custodian could draw his weapon.

Desperately, the Custodian raced to the places where he'd hidden the Generation. They were all gone, all 200 of them, including the Queen Egg. He sank to the ground. He had failed. He would not be there to oversee the hatchings; to teach the Generation how to survive. For all he knew, his race was about to become extinct thanks to his failure. The Great One would be angry, now, and the Custodian knew the price He would demand the Custodian pay. The Custodian took his weapon, pressed it against his head and pulled the trigger.

In dozens of homes across the town, children placed the eggs they had hunted for on kitchen tables. Most of them were hard-boiled hen's eggs, dyed in a rainbow of colours; but nestling among them, looking almost identical, were the Generation. The only difference was that the Generation eggs were beginning to glow from the inside.

"That's clever," mothers were saying. "They've put some sort of light inside some of them."

"How on earth did they do that?"

"Oh, look, that's pretty. I wonder if there's a prize for finding those?"

"You can't have seen the Easter Bunny, Molly, he doesn't exist."

"What do you mean, the Easter Bunny pointed a laser gun at you? Such imaginations kids have these days."

Before the sun set on Easter Sunday, dozens of families would find one or more small creatures hopping around their kitchens - they would appear like baby rabbits, the size of a hen's chick. They would care for them, or give them away or sell them to someone else who would. They would be mystified as to where these things had come from, but they were so cute, and Molly had been asking for a pet rabbit for months.

By the time they realised that they were harbouring an invasion force of vampire rabbits from another world, it would be too late.



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Snow Warning

"This chalet looks brand new," Andrea commented, taking in the pristine pine paneling and blemish-free paint on the walls.

"Yes, it is," Jake the chalet host said, as he hefted Andrea's case into the room. "It was only built last summer, along with the other two you can see from your window."

"They're BingoSki chalets, too, I see." Andrea's partner Malcolm said, peering out of the window.

"That's right," Jake said. "BingoSki negotiated an amazing deal on the land, I heard. Mr Murphy could hardly believe his luck. Anyway, guys, dinner is at seven-thirty, but there's a welcome meeting before that at seven, which is well worth attending."

"So Mr Murphy can sell us a bar crawl and a pub quiz at vastly inflated prices," Malcolm said as the door closed behind the baby-faced chalet host. "I'll swear he's using child labour with these chalet hosts, too. How old do you reckon that guy is? Fourteen?"

"You're such a cynic," Andrea said. She looked over the room. It was pristine, but it was small. There was just enough room to walk around the bed; there was a tiny alcove with three shelves and a hanging area, although once the suitcases had been stowed there there would be no room to actually hang anything. The en-suite bathroom was little more than a cupboard with barely room to turn around, let alone swing the proverbial cat.

"It's typical Luke Murphy," Malcolm said. "Everything done on the cheap - from charging us two Euros to use the bog on the plane to squeezing in as many punters per square inch as he can. I bet the wine will be pretty ropey, too."

"If you hate BingoSki so much, why were you so keen to book with them?" Andrea asked, clicking open her case and throwing a pile of ski socks onto one of the shelves.

"Because beggars can't be choosers in this day and age," Malcolm said. "Because they had a cancellation, and it saved us a fortune."

"You're as big a penny-pincher as he is," Andrea remarked. "Still, the place is brand new and it looks like we're going to be lucky with the snow." Through the balcony door, she could see large clumpy snowflakes falling fast, and settling on the balcony, which was in actuality another small shelf that one person could stand on. A concession to smokers, probably.

"Indeed," Malcolm agreed. "Looks like we're in for a big dump tonight. That's one thing Luke Murphy can't charge for."

"It's chilly in here," Andrea remarked. She had felt warm after climbing the stairs lugging her boot bag and carry on bag, but now she'd stopped moving, she was shivering. "Is the heating on?"

"I doubt it," Malcolm said. "I expect Mr Murphy only allows the staff to turn it on when the guests start showing signs of hypothermia."

Andrea inspected the radiator. "It's on full," she said. "So the room shouldn't be this cold."

"I expect Jake was only allowed to turn it on ten minutes before we're due to arrive; when the rep on the bus calls to say we're halfway up the mountain," Malcolm said.

"Let's go and get a coffee and meet the others properly," Andrea suggested. "Perhaps then the room will have warmed up."

It hadn't, even after two cups of coffee and a slice of carrot cake each, and a long conversation with one of their fellow guests about which runs would be most likely to be open next day if it snowed all night. "I'll have to sleep in my ski suit tonight," Andrea said.

"Be just like Luke Murphy to skimp on insulation," Malcolm said. "The heat is probably being sucked out through the walls."

Jake couldn't understand why the room should be so cold. It had been fine all season so far. Still, he was able to provide extra blankets and promise that the maintenance guy would come and look at it in the morning.

The snow continued to fall for two days. On the first day, Andrea and Malcolm went out skiing but found the conditions on the mountain quite unpleasant. With the weather forecast promising sunshine and blue skies on the third day, they took the second day off.

Their room was still cold, (even though the radiator was too hot to touch) but bearable if bundled up in a thick jumper and the duvet. Andrea read for a while, then stared out of the window. The snow was still falling. She could barely see the chalets below them, let alone the mountains and valley beyond.

Her attention was caught by a flash of colour, moving across the edge of her vision. She peered out, and frowned a little when she made out what she had seen. A little girl in a candy pink and pastel yellow ski suit was building a snowman, directly under their balcony. "What is that child's mother thinking, letting her play out in this?" Andrea said.

"Oh, I expect she got tired of the whining because the weather was too nasty to go skiing," Malcolm said, without looking up from his ipad.

There were no children in Andrea and Malcolm's chalet, so the girl must be staying in one of the others, although to get to the little level area where she was working would have involved scrambling up a steep and snowy slope. It looked as if the child had climbed up here to be out of her mother's sight. There didn't seem to be anyone looking for the child. Andrea felt a rush of pseudo-maternal responsibility - she should keep an eye on the child, since she was playing less than ten metres away. Not that she could do much; if the child slipped and tumbled down the slope, by the time Andrea had pulled her boots and jacket on and got out the door any damage would have been done.

At least the child was well wrapped up. As well as the ski suit, she had on pink moon boots, a yellow bobble hat and pink mittens. She did not seem the least bit bothered by the cold as she beavered away, piling up the snow and patting it down, until she had the outline of a body and head. From the sheltered spot under the balcony, she collected pebbles and stones to make the eyes, nose and mouth, and a couple of sticks for arms. Finally, the little girl took another stick and traced the word "Hello" in the fresh powder snow in front of her creation.

Andrea wondered if the child had noticed her after all, and was greeting her. It seemed unlikely that anyone else would pass by and see it.

"I don't believe this," Malcolm said. "Look at this, Andrea." He thrust his ipad under her nose, open at the page of a tabloid newspaper.

"I know. Ridiculous," she said, glancing at the screen without even reading the story. She didn't have the energy to disagree. When she turned back to the window, the little girl had gone.

Andrea's heart raced. She'd only looked away for a second, yet the girl was nowhere in sight. She couldn't have slipped down that steep slope between the chalets and hurt herself, could she? The fast falling snow must have obliterated any tracks. The word "Hello" in front of the snowman had all but vanished, too.

"I'm just going to pop outside for a second," Andrea said, reaching for her jacket. She knew she would never forgive herself if the child had fallen and been hurt and she did nothing.

Andrea went downstairs, pushed open the chalet door and stepped out onto what would be a small patio in the summer. She stood beside the snowman as the wind whistled around the wooden buildings and whipped her hair across her face. She crept as near as she dared to the edge of the patio - it was hard to tell under all this snow exactly where it would be, and she would help no-one by falling down that incline herself. She was relieved to see no inert splashes of candy pink or lemon in the snow; no sign of a small body falling down there.

The only other way the girl could have gone was along the path which sloped steeply upwards past the front door to the chalet and then led to the village, past the chair lift. If the girl had gone that way, it would still have been possible to make out a small dot of pink through the falling snow. On either side of the path was a steep, rocky incline which would only be accessible to a competent climber with all the equipment. In the opposite direction, the path ended with a pile of mucky snow, left there by the snowplough, a sheer drop behind it. Andrea forced herself to walk over to it and peer over. Thankfully, there was no sign of the child having fallen that way, either. Malcolm would say she was crazy; but better that than the little girl freezing to death overnight because she'd slipped down there and couldn't get back up. She knew she would never have forgiven herself if she heard at breakfast that a child had died that way.

Certain the little girl must have made it inside and no doubt would be sipping a creamy hot chocolate by now, Andrea picked her way back and returned to the room. It felt slightly warmer; though Andrea knew that could be because she had been moving around outside.

Although the child had gone, the snowman was still there, looking right at her, it seemed, with its round, pebbly eyes. The word "Hello" was completely gone, but now some new letters had been scratched into the snow. They spelled out the words, "Beware Wednesday". Andrea shivered as she pointed that out to Malcolm.

"Someone's having a joke, I expect," Malcolm said.

"But there are no tracks, since the little girl went away," Andrea pointed out.

"I expect it was Jake, or one of the hosts from the other chalets, using a very long stick," Malcolm said. "Wednesday's their day off, so I expect it's some in-joke about that. Nothing to do with us."

The weather forecast had been right - Tuesday dawned bright and sunny. Sun and fresh snow - what was not to like? It was a perfect day's skiing. Andrea kept an eye out for the little girl in pink and yellow, but didn't see her. She supposed the child would be in ski school, confined to the nursery slope.

Back at the chalet, Andrea noticed that the message in front of the snowman had changed again. "Beware - Tomorrow I Die," it read.

"That's creepy," Andrea said. "If that's a chalet staff joke they've got a strange sense of humour."

"I expect it means the snowman is going to melt," Malcolm said. "Probably means it will be sunny again tomorrow."

"They usually last a few days," Andrea said. "Anyway, I think the forecast was sun in the morning and snow after lunch."

The forecast Andrea had seen proved accurate. After a bright morning, the clouds began to gather in the early afternoon and snow began to fall again. Andrea and Malcolm finished earlier than usual and dropped in at the supermarket on their way back.

"It would have been nice to go to that fondue restaurant with the others," Andrea sighed, as Malcolm fastidiously compared prices and sell-by dates on frozen pizzas.

"Those places cost an arm and a leg. It's really not worth it for what you get," he said. "It's bad enough that the mountain restaurants have you by the short and curlies every day - I ask you - twenty Euros for a plate of chips! At least in the evening we have a choice. We can get one of these large pizzas for five Euros and a bit of salad, and we can raid the chalet wine now we know where Jake keeps it - a full meal for fifteen Euros!"

"You really are as bad as Luke Murphy," Andrea said.

They returned to the chalet. Today the letters in front of the snowman spelled out, "GO AWAY".

"It's not just the money," Malcolm said. "I'd rather have a quiet night in with you than eat with that rowdy crew."

Andrea was flattered, she supposed. It was nice that he wanted her all to himself, but it would have been nice to go out and be waited on rather than having to cook. She stared wistfully out of the kitchen window at the other guests, making their way towards the town.

Andrea gasped out loud as something caught her eye. There, standing directly in front of the window, her nose almost touching the glass, was the little girl. She was wearing the same pink and lemon outfit. Blonde hair flowed from beneath the bobble hat. Andrea noticed that the child's hair had a dark streak on the left side. The child stared at Andrea with large, pleading pale blue eyes.

"It's that little girl again," Andrea said. "I think something's wrong. I think she might want something."

"A good hiding for trespassing, that's what she wants," Malcolm said.

"No, Malcolm, look at her. She looks upset. Perhaps she's lost. I'm going to go out and talk to her. She might need help."

"All right," Malcolm said. "I'd better come with you." He huffed into his jacket and followed Andrea outside.

The little girl was standing on the path to the village. She must have run round the chalet pretty fast, Andrea thought. "What's the matter, honey?" Andrea spoke coaxingly to the child, who just stood and stared. "Do you speak English?" Andrea asked. She had assumed the girl would, because she must have come from one of the other BingoSki chalets, and because of the "Hello" she'd apparently written in front of the snowman; but the child did not seem to understand her. Perhaps that first message had been chalet hosts larking about as well.

"What's your name?" Andrea tried again. The only response from the child was that she pointed down the path towards the village.

"Where are your mum and dad?" Malcolm asked. "Did they go into town without you?"

The child said nothing, but took a few steps along the path away from them, stopped and pointed at the village again. She was like a little dog, begging its master to follow it.

"Do you want us to take you into town to find your mummy and daddy?" Andrea asked.

The girl nodded.

Andrea and Malcolm climbed the front steps to the path. As they drew level with the little girl, she started walking again. "Could the parents really have gone into town and left her behind?" Malcolm said.

"Perhaps they went out separately and each thought she was with the other one, and now they're both at the fondue place wondering where the hell she is."

"We can't let her walk down there on her own in the dark," Andrea said.

"No, I guess you're right," Malcolm said. "Come on, then." He held out his hand to the little girl. She didn't take it, but ran on ahead a few metres before stopping to look back.

"You've scared her," Andrea said. "It's all right," she added to the child. "He won't hurt you. We're going to find your mummy and daddy."

"Doesn't say a lot, does she," Malcolm said. "Is she foreign or is she dumb?"

"She's probably just shy," Andrea said.

They walked either side of the girl, but neither of them tried to take her hand again.

"Are you English?" Andrea asked.

"Are you a good skier?" Malcolm asked, but the girl just kept on walking and said nothing.

"What do we do if her folks aren't in the fondue place?" Malcolm asked as they reached the chair lift. The empty chairs hung like weird dark skeletons suspended against the night sky.

"We'll have to try the other restaurants and bars," Andrea said, "all of them, if need be, until we find them, and if we don't, we'll have to hand her over to the police."

"That will scare her even more than we seem to," Malcolm said.

"I know, but if we don't find her parents, what else can we do? Hopefully it won't come to that, and her parents will be in..."

Andrea never finished the sentence, for her words were cut off by a noise. A rumbling noise, like distant thunder, which grew rapidly louder until it almost deafened them, and then the sound of splintering wood and stone grinding on stone.

"What the..." Malcolm spun around to see what had made the sounds.

"Oh my God!" Andrea screamed. Where the BingoSki chalets had been standing was nothing but a pile of rubble and snow. "If we hadn't come out to that little girl, we'd have been underneath all that..." She trembled as Malcolm gathered her into his arms. They stood motionless for a moment, savouring the warmth of each other's bodies, knowing how narrowly they had just escaped certain death.

"Thank God for that kid," Malcolm said.

The child must be petrified, Andrea realised, and broke away from Malcolm's embrace to reassure the child - but she had vanished. "Where did she go?" Andrea cried, looking wildly around.

"I expect she was scared by the avalanche and ran off," Malcolm said.

"We have to find her," Andrea said. She peered over the edge of the path in case the child had slipped and fallen in her panic. She was not there, so it seemed likely she had run into town and into a building, hopefully the one her parents were in.

People were pouring out of the buildings, disturbed by the noise, curious. Andrea recognised the other guests from their chalet and some others they'd seen at the bar crawl. "Did any of you see a little girl in pink come this way?" Andrea asked, but no-one had.

A woman started to cry; a Frenchman bellowed into a mobile phone, gesticulating wildly with his free hand.

"Thank God it was their night off," a thick-set man Andrea recognised from the bar crawl was saying. "If that had happened any other night, we'd all have been buried alive."

"Yes," Andrea said, shivering as she thought how close Malcolm's scrimping had come to killing them. "Tell me, are there any kids in your chalet? I saw a little girl in a pink..."

"No," the man said. "There aren't any kids in any of the chalets. The rep told us that. She said it was quite unusual for there not to be any, even when it isn't half term. There are usually a couple whose parents decide it's cheaper to pay the fine than half term prices."

So, Andrea thought, if she didn't come from the chalets, she must have come from the village. A local child, used to roaming around the resort, probably living in one of the outlying houses. That would explain why she didn't talk. She probably didn't speak English. When the avalanche had come down, she must have run for home.

By now, the emergency services were starting to arrive; red vehicles with amber and blue flashing lights.

The thick-set man assured what he assumed was the head gendarme, in schoolboy French, that there had been nobody in the chalet that was lowest down the slope. Malcolm was able to tell him that their own chalet had been empty, too. Not that the rescue services would take any chances. Several men were already running back up the path with sniffer dogs. The dogs were let loose and swarmed over the rubble.

After a while, the gendarmes began herding the BingoSki guests into the sports' centre across the road, where a small group of local people were handing out blankets and hot drinks.

"There wouldn't have been anyone in any of those buildings," the thick-set man said. "It's a disaster for Luke Murphy, all the same. He's going to get stung by insurance claims, but at least nobody was hurt."

"Not like the last time, God rest them," the coffee woman said, crossing herself.

"This happened before?" Malcolm asked.

"Oui," the woman said. "Three years ago, there was an avalanche in that exact same spot. Several houses were destroyed and ten people died, including three children and a baby."

"How awful," Andrea said.

"There is a memorial to them in the square," the woman said.

"No wonder Luke Murphy got that land so cheap," Malcolm said. "Nobody in their right mind would build where there was a known avalanche risk. Good job nobody did die, or he'd get done for corporate homicide."

"He's going to be liable for loss of property as it is," the thick-set man said. "See that woman who's sobbing her heart out over there? She drove over here, in her new BMW. It was parked in front of the chalet. Still, at least you can buy a new car and new skis, but not a new life."

"We owe our lives to that little girl," Andrea said. "We must find out where she lives so that we can thank her."

"Perhaps the coffee lady knows," Malcolm said. "She must know her if she's local - that dark streak in her hair is pretty distinctive."

"Yes," Andrea said. "Excuse me?"

The coffee lady looked up. "Oui?" she asked.

"Perhaps you can help us. We're looking for a little girl. She had on a pink and yellow ski onesie, a yellow bobble hat and pink boots. She had blue eyes and blonde hair with a dark streak in it. We were in one of the chalets and only came out because she was there. We want to thank her."

The coffee woman had gone as white as the snow. "Mon Dieu! Marie Flambert!"

"I told you she'd know her," Malcolm said.

"Where does she live?" Andrea asked.

"Live?" the woman echoed.

"Yes. Where can we find her?"

"She is in the churchyard," the woman said. "She lived where those chalets were. She was in the garden of her house building a snowman when the avalanche came down."

********

Like this story? Read more short stories by Julie Howlin in this collection:

Jigsaw

Within these covers you will find murder, mayhem, ghosts, romance, dungeons and dragons and alien vampire bunnies.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon 

E-book Amazon Kindle