A/N: For the month of October, I thought it would be fun to have a short story challenge about the Big Bang Theory. If you write fan fiction, please consider submitting a story. I've put this prompt on Tumblr and The Big Bang Theory Forums as well. There are only a few rules:
5000 words or less.
At least one character from The Big Bang Theory needs to be frightened by events in the story.
Post your story on with the words "Halloween challenge" in the story description.
Post story between October 1st and October 31st 2014.
You can choose how scary or not scary the story is. Someone using Sheldon's toothbrush is scary only to Sheldon. But while Bernadette is scary anyway, undead Bernadette would be absolutely petrifying. Happy reading and writing.
The Malicious Wishes Repercussions
Amy had picked up Sheldon on a warm summer afternoon with two errands in mind. The first errand was Amy's idea, and she didn't let him know it was underwear shopping until they were at the Victoria's Secret at the Glendale Galleria. She had hoped it would be exciting and fun filled for both of them. However she found it hard to get his opinion on anything when he refused to be within one hundred paces of the store. It also didn't help that he refused to look at any lacy scraps of cloth she waved in his direction. She knew it wasn't going to work, but she had still hoped there would have been a tiny bit of interest. The second was a stop at the local model train store that promised to be exciting and fun filled, but only to Sheldon.
Sheldon and Amy were driving by the boarded up shell of the comic book store, when they saw Stuart tossing the last charred and water damaged items into a very full dumpster. Amy pulled the car to the curb and the pair walked over to Stuart who smiled and greeted them.
"Hey guys! What's up?"
"We were heading to the train store on Colorado Boulevard when we saw you and Amy said we should stop and see how you were faring after the fire. I didn't think it was necessary, but now that we're here how are you?" Sheldon turned to the items piled in the dumpster and shook his head at the worthless colorful debris that were once Stuart's livelihood.
Amy gave Sheldon her, "That was tactless" look and turned a sympathetic face towards Stuart.
"Um… thanks for your…concern? I am holding up fine. I've been enjoying my time with Debbie immensely. She is a really nice lady. Too bad Howard doesn't seem to approve of our friendship. Otherwise, I'm trying to make the best out of a bad situation."
"We are very sorry this has happened to you Stuart." Amy patted Stuart's arm, which made a certain physicist narrow his eyes at him. "Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you."
"Thank you Amy, that is very kind of you."
Turning back around, a soft metallic gleam caught Sheldon's eye in the dumpster. Though not a man who would normally touch garbage under any circumstances, his eyes widened as he processed what was sitting in the heap of junk before him. "Stuart. Is this a replica of a Star Trek communicator from the original series?"
Stuart frowned and pursed his lips together. "Actually it is a prop used during production of the original series. Some guy sold it to me for a song. He was a bit down on his luck and wanted to get rid of it." Stuart mumbled bitterly under his breath. "Now I know why."
Sheldon looked closer, but still could not bring himself to touch the distracting object in the garbage heap. "It's magnificent! It doesn't appear damaged at all." It was true. The communicator appeared unscathed by the fire. There was a little soot smudged on its front but otherwise was pristine. "These sell for tens of thousands of dollars! Why throw it away?"
It would be hard to imagine Stuart becoming more gray or deflated, but it happened before Amy and Sheldon's eyes. His shoulders drooped and he hung his head. "This is going to sound crazy, and truth be known, I thought the guy who sold it to me was as well, but it grnts crsd wshs."
Sheldon and Amy frowned, and then looked at each other. Amy shrugged and they turned back to Stuart, who looked like he was trying to fold inward on himself and disappear.
"Sorry Stuart, we didn't get that, you mumbled at the end. What does it do?" Amy gave him a friendly smile to encourage him.
It worked. Stuart raised his head and took a deep breath. "I said, it grants cursed wishes. Three of them to be exact. The wishes come true, but there are awful consequences afterward." Stuart looked relieved to have unburdened himself with this information even if they wouldn't believe him.
Sheldon gave Stuart his look of haughty derision, Amy just blinked at the former comic book store owner. "What makes you think that? That is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. And I have listened to Kripke spout off about Loop Quantum Gravity."
Stuart sighed. "I know it sounds crazy, I didn't believe the guy myself but I had nothing to lose. So I thought I'd try it out for myself. I held the communicator and I wished that this cute girl that was a regular customer of mine would like me. She began stalking me, going through my garbage, breaking into my store to steal my clothing, calling me at all hours professing her love… It was a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, at first it was hot, but it got old really fast." Stuart rubbed the back of his neck as Sheldon rolled his eyes.
"I thought the rule was you couldn't wish for someone to fall in love with you." Amy wasn't buying what Stuart was telling them, but she played along.
"That's a fallacy. Also the wishing for more wishes thing is just something genies tell you, but it's not true." Sheldon finished smugly.
Amy looked at Sheldon and tilted her head. "Now you're an expert on genies?"
"Not now. Always." He turned back to Stuart. "Your experience doesn't prove anything. A confused emotionally unstable woman sounds like any other woman I have ever met." Sheldon felt the green disapproval drill through his head. He knew better than to look at her, and continued staring at Stuart.
"I thought so as well. Not the whole lumping of all women into the same category, but the fact that it could have been an isolated incident. So I made my second wish. Since all my money was tied up in the comic book store, I wished for money. I didn't ask for a lot, because I still had a feeling that if the curse was real, I didn't want the consequences to be horrible. Well that night the comic book store burned down. The insurance company paid me the exact amount I wished for, but now I have no store. The communicator was in the back room where the fire started, and it had not a bit of damage on it. I decided not to take a chance with the third wish so I tossed it in the dumpster."
Sheldon still seemed unconvinced by Stuart's tale of woe. Amy continued her look of sympathy, but was also skeptical. "If this wasn't in a dumpster, I would not hesitate to add this to my collection. It would drive the others insane with jealousy. It would cause more of a hullabaloo than the time we found the One Ring." He glanced back at the dumpster longingly.
"Sheldon, it's not worth it. Trust me, I would just leave it be. Now, would either of you be willing to help me carry out an old loveseat to the dumpster?"
Sheldon could not take his eyes off the rare item in the dumpster. "That doesn't sound like something I would be interested in at all."
Amy gave him her other look, the "Are you kidding me, I have to do it because you refuse to?" look, but he was too busy with his own thoughts to notice. She squared her shoulders, gave Sheldon her purse to hold and turned to Stuart. "Of course, I'll help you Stuart. Let's go." They walked back into the store as Sheldon remained mesmerized by the communicator. He opened his messenger bag and reached inside. He found a small plastic bag from an earlier purchase, slid the contents out and put the bag over his hand. He then reached his bagged hand into the dumpster, grabbed the communicator, and inverted the bag over it keeping whatever germs it had inside the bag. He gently dropped the plastic encased communicator into his messenger bag. He then finished by liberally applying hand sanitizer to his hands and then followed Amy and Stuart inside.
When Amy and Sheldon got back to 4A, they settled in for dinner and a movie. Sheldon felt a bit like a thief, even though he was legally in the clear to take an object that was thrown out. His eyes kept darting furtively towards his messenger bag.
After Amy left for home, he had spent hours cleaning and polishing it till it was clean enough to eat off of. He then hid it away safe from coveting eyes. He was still unconvinced it could grant wishes, let alone cursed ones. He was a scientist, and therefore didn't believe in things that could not be explained. However…
Several weeks later, the communicator was removed from the box in Sheldon's closet. It was September and almost time for the Nobel Laureates to be chosen. What harm could come of wishing for a Nobel Prize? And if he were to wish for a Nobel, holding his new favorite Star Trek prop, it wouldn't hurt his chances would it? Especially if this whole wish thing was a bunch of mumbo jumbo anyway. So Sheldon Cooper, man of science, made a wish for a Nobel Prize in a totally unscientific way. And it came true. Kind of.
Sheldon awoke to his alarm at 2:30 a.m. It was traditional for him to watch the announcement of the Nobel Prize for physics live. As the undeserving hacks name was announced, he scoffed at the thought that he had been snubbed yet again. He also couldn't believe he held any notion that the wish would have worked. Disappointed, he returned to bed.
Two nights later, he was awakened in the wee hours by his phone ringing. He answered sleepily. Then the confusion and shock set in.
"How in the world did you win the Nobel Peace Prize?!" Leonard looked at him in complete and utter shock from the comfort of Penny's bed. Sheldon had let himself in and woke them both with his trademark knock on the headboard.
"I have no idea whatsoever. I asked the official who called this morning. I was submitted by someone, but by whom we may never know as those records are sealed for fifty years." Sheldon shook his head in disbelief.
Penny groaned over the lack of sleep. "Sheldon, did you ever think this might be an elaborate hoax?"
Sheldon nodded. "I did. But the major news channels have picked up the story, and it seems it's the truth. I'm a Nobel prize winner." He didn't look happy.
"Then why do you look like your puppy just died?" Penny asked, really not needing to know, but she was awake anyway so why not?
"It wasn't in my field. I don't feel as if I earned it. Chemistry would be passable. Physiology would be strange and a little beneath me. But the Peace Prize? I don't know the first thing about peace!"
"Tell me about it." muttered Leonard. "Well buddy, I'm glad you won and I'm proud of you. You always dreamed of winning a Nobel and now you've done it, even if it wasn't the way you wanted to. Congratulations! Now let us go back to sleep." Leonard rolled over and wrapped his arm around Penny. "In peace."
Sheldon was unable to get back to sleep. He first called his mom and meemaw. Then he called Amy and she was speechless. When he got to Cal Tech he went right to Seibert and told him the news. Everyone was overjoyed for him, if not a little confused on how he came to be nominated, let alone win.
Sheldon found out that someone at the university had submitted as a joke to the Nobel committee, an exhaustive memo that Sheldon had written to the board of directors. In it he detailed a plan on how the university could be made to run more efficiently and harmoniously. Besides a total monetary and structural reorganization of the university, the rest was nothing but arrogant ramblings and complaints against everyone except Sheldon. This person posted the memo online as well, where the rant went viral. A tiny African nation somehow took this memo to heart and restructured their government in the same vein as Sheldon's university utopia. The country became peaceful, the economy flourished and infant mortality rates dropped. It shouldn't have worked, but it did.
It was a little while later when Sheldon realized that there were a higher incidence in accidents and scandalous behavior in September among people who may have been considered for the Peace Prize. Since nominees are kept private, it was pure speculation on his part. A fatal car accident here, a sex tape there, innocent people had died. Sheldon knew the odds were he would never have won the award without some otherworldly help. The very disturbing part was that nominees needed to be submitted eight months before he even made a wish. The communicator rewrote time and space itself.
He wanted to decline the Nobel, but the university pressured him not to. He was threatened into being a dutiful employee, making the rounds of the talk show circuit, being paraded around like a chimp in a suit. Though he agreed to do the interviews, he was his usual prickly and condescending self. He would tell the people who interviewed him that he didn't believe he should have anything to do with the Peace Prize, let alone win it. They tended to agree with him. It was a hollow victory, and he knew he didn't deserve it.
Amy stood besides him during this time, and helped him as best she could. She made sure he would be able to eat his regular meals on the right days, drove him to interviews and covered him with a blanket when he would fall asleep exhausted on the couch.
After a few weeks of this he found himself alone on a cool November evening. He went to the box in his closet and removed the lid. The metal gleamed at him. He lifted it out of the box. It felt heavier than he remembered.
Sheldon didn't know what to do with the communicator. He paced in his living room with it in his hand, staring at it and shifting it from one hand to the next. It was then that his computer alerted him to a Skype caller. He answered the call, his hand still clutching the communicator. "Hello, Amy."
"Hello, Sheldon. I was working late at the lab and I was just wondering…" She trailed off as she looked at the object in his hand. "What is that?"
Sheldon flinched. He dropped his hands to his lap, out of view of Amy. "Just a remote control. Now to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?" He gave her the best disarming smile he could, but it didn't work on her.
"Sheldon, that looks like the thingamajig that Stuart had! You didn't take that out of the trash after he warned you not to did you?" She had a slight tremor to her voice and her eyes were wide.
"No! That would be silly. Even though as scientists, we would have overlooked such ridiculous superstitions." He started to develop a slight twitch as he lied to Amy.
Amy gasped as everything began to fall into place. "This would explain why you won the Noble. Oh God Sheldon, this wouldn't have anything to do with that did it?
"N-n-no, of course not."
"Sheldon, you need to get rid of that accursed thing right now. Fire didn't touch it, but maybe you could shatter it with a hammer or…"
"Amy this communicator by itself is worth close to forty thousand dollars at auction. I'm not just going to…"
"Sheldon, I don't want anything bad happening to you or anyone around you. I care deeply about you and your well being."
Sheldon closed his eyes at her words. He normally would seek out Amy's advice on matters both serious and mundane. But he didn't ask for her advice this time. He cared deeply for her… well being too. But she didn't understand the allure of the device. Plus he was a grown man, and he could make his own choices. "Amy, I know what I'm doing, please don't lecture me on what I consider a closed matter."
"But Sheldon…I'm telling you this because I love yo…"
"Amy! I wish you would just leave me alone alright!?"
Ice water ran through his veins, as he realized what he had just done. He looked down to his lap, at his fingers still clutching that damned communicator. Oh dear Lord, what have I done? He looked in horror at his beautiful girlfriend's disappointed face.
"OK Sheldon. I'll leave you alone. In fact, I won't call you for a while so you can have your space."
"But, Amy."
"No Sheldon, you made yourself perfectly clear, I'll leave you alone. Goodbye Sheldon." She ended the call.
The communicator fell out of his hand and landed on the floor with a hard thunk. He immediately tried to get her back on Skype, but she wouldn't answer. He texted and called and left several voice messages, saying he was sorry and pleading for her to call him back, but she never responded.
Leonard wasn't home so he called a cab to take him over to the university. He promised the cabbie a big tip if he ignored the speed limit. As the cab rolled up to the college, he could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles splashing blood red light across the buildings and trees. Sheldon's heart sank as he threw too much money at the cab driver and started running for the biology wing.
His phone started ringing with Amy's ringtone, Zelda's theme. The soothing melody had the opposite affect in that it excited him that Amy was finally calling him back. She was alright. He fumbled with his phone and his words flowed out in relief. "Amy, oh please forgive me, I wasn't thinking straight, I am so sorry, I love you!"
Silence on the other end of the phone and then, "Is this Sheldon Cooper?"
No, no, no, no, no. "This is he."
"Mr. Cooper, a Dr. Amy Fowler has you for her emergency contact. I'm afraid there has been a freak accident…"
Sheldon was beyond hearing as he fell forward on his knees and crumpled into a ball on the ground. His phone dropped unnoticed on the ground as his body was racked with great big heaving sobs. "No,no,no,no,no,no,no!
Sheldon jerked awake covered in sweat, with a loud "NO", startling his girlfriend sitting next to him on the couch.
"Sheldon, are you OK? You scared the crap out of me. Did you have a nightmare?" She raised her hand to brush his wildly rumpled hair back into place, but decided against it. Sheldon liked to keep touching to a minimum. "You kept mumbling 'no' over and over again." Amy's hand retreated from its journey to Sheldon and rested over her racing heart.
"Amy! Oh thank God!" Sheldon grabbed her like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. She squeaked as all the air in her lungs was pushed out by her relieved boyfriend. "You're not dead, oh thank you God you're alive. It was just a horrible nightmare."
Was he crying? "No Sheldon, I'm very much alive. Though if you don't let me breathe, I don't know for how much longer." Amy rated breathing above Sheldon, but just by the barest margin.
He loosened his grip slightly, but didn't let her go. He took in deep breaths of her hair and tried to calm down. Amy was safe, it was all a dream. He leaned back, but kept a grip on her shoulders. "Amy, I thought I lost you. I realize now how much you mean to me. I don't want to ever lose you again."
Amy gave him a brilliant smile. "I don't plan on going anywhere, Sheldon."
Sheldon felt relief flood him. "Amy I want you to be as happy with me as I am with you."
Amy gave him a sly grin. "Does that mean you'll go to Victoria's Secret with me and pick something out?"
Sheldon looked scandalized. He whispered even though it was only the two of them in the apartment. "Amy! Why do you do that to me? You saw for yourself last time you took me there, I have a hard time looking at your…unmentionables." He was as red as his Flash shirt and avoided Amy's eyes.
"So I guess if you can't handle seeing my…unmentionables, we will not be sharing a room in Oslo?"
"Where?"
Amy looked at him oddly. "Oslo. You told me I could come with you in a few weeks to accompany you to the Nobel award ceremony." He still stared at her. "Don't you remember the whole 'Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded in Oslo, Norway and not Stockholm like the rest of the Nobel Prizes.' speech you gave me yesterday?" Her boyfriend was still looking at her in a troubling fashion. "Sheldon you're concerning me. Are you feeling OK?"
Sheldon felt sick. His normally infallible brain was having troubles remembering what was real and what was a dream. "Wait here Amy, I'll tell you if I'm OK in a second." He got up and swiftly walked to his bedroom. He threw open his closet door and his eyes fell on the box in question. He grabbed the box roughly and snatched the lid off. The soft gleam of metal greeted him. He started shaking; he had to keep Amy safe. He thought for a minute, picked up the communicator and clearly stated, "I wish this communicator never existed."
In true Star Trek fashion, the communicator dissolved slowly from sight, not unlike it was being beamed down by Scotty straight back to Hell. He breathed a sigh of relief. Now would it take his wish with it?
He returned to the living room where his patient and loving girlfriend sat on her spot on the couch. She watched him walk into the living room and smiled. "Is everything OK?"
Sheldon eyed her suspiciously. "I don't know, you tell me. Now where were we going next month?"
She crinkled her brow. "We were going somewhere next month?"
Sheldon smiled. "Yes to Oslo, Norway to pick up my Nobel Peace Prize."
She chuckled at him. "Is this another one of your attempts to find the science of humor? It's not your worst attempt."
"Uh yes." He laughed his breathless laugh. "I'm feeling much better. Let's watch some Star Trek: Into the Darkness. Are you game?"
Amy rolled her eyes at him. "It's always some type of 'Star' movie with you isn't it. Well let's get it over with. CP30 and R2D2 here we come."
Sheldon shook his head at her. "It's C3P0, not CP30. Plus wrong franchise. It's Star Trek, not Star Wars. You know Kirk, Spock, and Bones?"
"Not ringing a bell. Put it in, I'll remember when I see it."
Sheldon was so relieved that this whole mess was behind him and that Amy was safe and sound, that he didn't have it in him to lecture her on the differences in the two franchises. He strode over to the entertainment center and reached for the movie in its usual spot.
It wasn't there.
Neither were the Next Generation DVD's, the Voyager, Deep Space 9, Enterprise, original series movies or new remakes.
They were all gone.
Then Sheldon realized that the communicator had one last laugh before it disappeared into oblivion.
Not only did the communicator no longer exist, neither did anything associated with Star Trek.
Sheldon fell to his knees and cried.
A/N: OK a bit darker than my usual work but fun to write none the less. But hey it's for Halloween. Did you really think I would bump off the Shamy? Shame on you for even thinking that! Reviews welcomed and encouraged. Now go write one of your own.