The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) by Luke Kondor Read Free Book Online

the alpha’s eyes went to Moomamu and then the other human. His tongue darted in and out, dashing the tip of his nose.  
    “So sleep if you can. Escape to your dreams of tails and light. Lay with those you never could and never will, the females of dreams. Lick the young ones you never had clean. Give them the advice of a clawed father. Teach them all the lessons they need to know. Set them right for a life they’ll never have. Do this. Do all of this between the moment you close your eyes and the moment you open them, because a short while after waking, you will likely be dead.”
    The alpha stepped away. His fluffy feather-brush-tail flicking dust as it swayed. Surely the most evil creature Moomamu had seen since the parasite on Earth.
    Snuckems, he had said in the prison. His name was Snuckems.

JoEl The Engineer

    JoEl opened his overcoat and grabbed a cylindrical device from his belt. The handle was a little longer than his hand. A ring of blue lights around the base and a line of ridges working up to a single metal point. He ran the edge of the device over the door until it beeped and the blue lights turned red. With a click of a button, the locking mechanism of the door fizzed and clicked. He put the device back in its appropriate pocket and pushed the door open.
    It was quiet.
    The family were asleep. Inside, pictures lined the walls — the family throughout the years. Ornaments of clocks and porcelain cats and knick-knacks dotted the shelves and the sides. A wooden chair, empty, sat in front of him. As if somebody was supposed to greet him.
    The house was dark, restful. He walked with steps light enough to tread on air. He’d hate to wake someone. He’d hate to ruin the surprise.
    From the sounds of their breathing and even their sleeping eye movements, JoEl could sense how many people were in the house. Two adults and a child. Also, outside in the back oxygen farm there was an animal, a pet, digging. Its claws pulling away at the earthy banks.
    The child, the target, was just above him. He could smell the urine soaked into the bedding. Faint, after many washes, but still there. Just enough for JoEl’s senses.  
    He walked towards the stairs, glided up them, his finger running along the handrail, enjoying the texture of the newborn wood against his fingertips. Chills of excitement ran down his spine.  
    He started towards the sleeping parents first. He could hear the sleeping father most of all. His tight nasal cavities strangling the air. JoEl reached up and wiped away a build-up of dust from his red lenses.
    With a simple push of his hand the white-painted door opened as if a breeze blew it. He followed the draft into the dark bedroom. Moonlight washed the room with shadows and highlights. JoEl stepped to the edge of the bed. The two lumps of flesh hidden beneath the white fabric like neighbouring mountains draped in snow. He went to the woman first and removed the glove from his right hand. Again, no noise. Impossibly quiet. His fingers twitched in the oxygen-air and, like a magician revealing a card, he wiped his twitching fingers over the woman’s face, bottom to top, as if wiping the air away from her, and within a second the chemical process began.
    Quicker now, he paced around to the other side of the bed as the woman awoke. She tried to scream, but her mouth had already healed over. Her nostrils closed and her eyes sealed shut. All that came out of her were muffled screams as she tried to remove whatever was smothering her. She hadn’t realised it was her own flesh.
    With the same hand, JoEl wiped the invisible air away from the male’s face. The disgusting snoring stopped as the flesh healed over. They were both moaning and squirming now. Two mountains of snow avalanching with confusion. The male fell off the bed, to the side, banging his head on the wooden furniture, leaving a mark of wet red.  
    JoEl looked at his handiwork — the woman now silent, the male shaking once, twice, and then no