SlashGrindTerrorMachine — by Scott Cole

Steam Stomper created by Denny E. Marshall

The switch to activate the SlashGrindTerrorMachine is located inside the mouth of the SlashGrindTerrorMachine. Unfortunately, the SlashGrindTerrorMachine sometimes activates itself without warning.

It was supposed to make our lives easier. A robotic assistant for the home! That’s how it was advertised. It was supposed to vacuum floors and fold laundry and make roasted vegetable grain bowls for dinner before you got home from work.

Our modern go-go-go lifestyles needed some help. And suddenly, the SlashGrindTerrorMachine was here, like some glorious gift sent down from the heavens. It was exactly what we all needed. We embraced our new helpers, and before long, it was tough to recall how we could have ever possibly coped without them.

Now the SlashGrindTerrorMachine is in virtually every home on the planet. They dust our shelves, feed our pets, and clean up spills when we’re too tired at the end of our rigorous workdays.

No one knows who manufactures the SlashGrindTerrorMachine. No one seems to care.

The SlashGrindTerrorMachine is made of metal: gears and rivets and jagged teeth and sharp blades and various finger-like appendages; some with rubber tips, some without. It usually moves on treads like a little army tank, although some have recently begun to hover in the air. A friend of mine spotted hers just the other day doing laps in her swimming pool.

Updates coming soon! That’s what we all heard on the news. But that was months ago. Very soon, they said, the SlashGrindTerrorMachine would be capable of even more complicated tasks: Sorting and shredding junk mail, arranging donations of old, unworn clothing from our closets, reupholstering chairs. We could expect all of this before long. There was even word that the SlashGrindTerrorMachine would be able to shoo away Jehovah’s Witnesses and door-to-door scammers offering discounts on your utilities if they could just take a look at a previous bill. They would also be able to nurse newborn children and make delicious hot fudge sundaes even if you didn’t have any ice cream in the house.

The updates never came, though. At least, I don’t think so.

These days, the SlashGrindTerrorMachines tend to spin wildly about our homes, like millions of steel typhoons, waving their fingers and blades in all directions, crashing into tables and walls. Mine hasn’t gotten many chores done lately. But it has bitten my dog.

The SlashGrindTerrorMachine used to have a different name, but no one can seem to remember what it was.

On TV a couple weeks ago, a reporter was interviewing a SlashGrindTerrorMachine. New models are expected to arrive any day now, it said, in every home around the world. If the current model is indeed defective, and it seems to be, this is welcome news.

I’m still waiting for mine.

Last night, just after an early dinner, I looked out the window to admire the sunset. The sky was a blazing orange, streaked with purple, pink, and yellow. But I could have sworn I saw something else in the sky—a giant SlashGrindTerrorMachine, ten times the size of mine—tucked behind the colorful clouds.

I did a double-take, but before I could really focus and get a good look, my SlashGrindTerrorMachine entered the room, startling me, and quickly pulled down the shade. Then it sent me to bed. I hadn’t even had dessert yet.

I didn’t sleep much. There was a lot of noise in the kitchen.

Now it’s morning, and my SlashGrindTerrorMachine won’t even let me get out of bed, much less leave the room. It’s floating in the corner like a sentinel.

I try to explain that I’d like to at least brush my teeth, but it just stares at me menacingly, snapping its teeth at random intervals.

There are more of them in my house now. At least four or five, from what I’ve been able to glimpse through the gap in the doorway. They’re making even more noise than they did through the night, and I can see them moving back and forth between the kitchen and my office.

It sounds like they’re building something.

There’s a loud humming sound coming from outside as well. Thankfully the curtains on my bedroom window are sheer, so I can see through them, at least a little bit. There’s something huge in the sky.

Actually, there are several of them. Dozens, maybe. They’re enormous. 

Like small planets, but way too close.

There are blinking lights and giant teeth. They’re all spinning wildly, flailing their giant blades and chomping like angry dogs. They spark and seem to glitch. Arcs of blue-white electricity dance from one huge SlashGrindTerrorMachine to the next. All at once, I see them reach down to the ground with their long metal fingers, and I think I hear people screaming.

I wonder for a second, then think, yes, of course. They’re finally here, just like they promised. These must be the new models.

AUTHOR BIO

Scott Cole is a writer, artist, and graphic designer based in Philadelphia. He is the author of Crazytimes, Triple Axe, and SuperGhost, as well as the short fiction collection, Slices. Find him on social media, or at 13visions.com.