Whiskey voice…........... Flash Fiction

Snakes, writhing around on the floor; seen only out of the corner of my eye. I know it's just lack of sleep. I haven't slept in what seems like weeks and the paranoia is setting in. If only the walls would stay in one place. And the refrigerator would stop singing karaoke. Or at least would stop singing Copacabana… and if my head would just stop the damn pounding…. if any one of those things would happen I know I could lie down and get some blessed shut eye.

"Where'd you get this one?" Arc asked Bixton12.

"He was in the cold and flu aisle of a place called 'Walgreens'--why do you ask?"

"I think we may have gone a bit overboard," he answered as he wiped a smudge from the observation glass with his tentacle, "he seems somewhat disoriented."

"It was probably the snakes, I know you like them, but well, the reaction can be unpredictable…."

"At least I didn't make them jump out of the peanut can this time, I do learn from my mistakes." Arc said, a wry smile twisting his beak a bit to the left.

Aw damn, here comes another sneezing jag. I hate the sneezing. Although if I could sneeze my fool head off maybe I could put it in another room and then get some sleep. Man, where did that thought come from? I must be delirious or something, maybe I should call an ambulance….

"Oh dear, he's thinking of calling for help. Well, I guess it's now or never, I thought we'd have at least another twenty four hours.." Arc said as he fiddled with a knob on the control panel.

A section of wall slid to the side and a humanoid of the female style dressed in what they had come to understand was standard care giving costume for this century stepped into the viewing room, startling the test subject. He backed away, but the "nurse" soothed him and got him situated on the couch telling him she was there to help and if he'd just let her take a throat culture she was sure he'd feel better in a short time.

Ok, now I'm sure I'm delirious. When Jessica Rabbit dressed as a porn star nurse makes a section of your wall slide away and comes in to hover over you with a smile, well, it's pretty apparent that Elvis has left the building and your mind has gone awandering with him…. Wait….What the hell is she doing with that hose? Aargh, argh….arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

"This is all you harvested?" Nizar said with a sneer, waving the small sealed vial under their beaks.

"Yes sir, you know that we've found that if we keep the subject after they've decided they need medical intervention the secretions go bad and are worthless to the true connoisseur."

"Well blast and balls, Arc, this is barely enough to even offer on the black market. You're going to have to do better next time."

His gaze traveled to the cowering Bixton12, pinning him to the wall with laser precision. Nizar turned on his talons and stalked out of the lab, leaving an incinerated Bixton12 in his wake. Nizar believed in raising the bar through fear and intimidation. Plus he hadn't had lunch yet and he was cranky. Arc would do better next time he was sure.

Nizar was starting to regret this whole business. He thought he might go back to peddling rhinoceros horn to the limp dicked bastards out there clamoring for phlegm. He didn't know how the idea of phlegm being sexy had caught on anyway. Must be something they'd seen on television….




 

Zombie Clowns from Space -------Flash Fiction

It started with his foot, as these things often do. Tony awoke to a throbbing beneath the covers that was unlike the normal morning throbbing he had been used to all of his life. Well, had been used to since the age of thirteen anyway. He steeled himself for the worst and flung back the covers. It was just as he suspected. He had the beginnings of clown foot. He rummaged in his bedside drawer to find the official government pamphlet on what to do in the early stages.

Step One: To prevent widespread panic, do not roam the streets in your condition

Step Two: Call 1-800-Zombie-Clown

Step Three: Sit calmly in your bathtub/shower and wait for assistance or liquefaction to arrive

Tony was a rule following kind of chap; he found that it made life in general easier. In that particular way, among many others, he was very unlike his twin brother Reggie. His brother Reggie was as touchy as a shaved monkey and felt that anyone who told him no was to be crushed like a bug. Tony didn't know how Reggie's wife, Claire, bore up under Reggie's constant aggression.

Tony thought of Claire and her lovely calm eyes as he punched in the number on the pamphlet, spoke to the operator and then went to sit in his shower stall. It was a bit cramped, what with his rapidly expanding foot, but he managed to wedge himself in and sat calmly waiting, knowing that help would soon arrive. The government liked to contain these outbreaks quickly. They didn't want a recurrence of Poughkeepsie Walmart 2016. Tony shuddered at the memory of the public service announcement film footage. It opened of course with the meteor strike and then there was the horror of all of those zombie clowns lurching through the aisles throwing cream pies at one another, pouring laundry soap and other handy items down one another's trousers and generally being incredibly unentertaining. It had been such a relief when the tank commanders rolled in, bolted the doors and imploded the building.

Tony and Claire had met in high school that very week. Reggie, since he'd skipped a grade, had been away at college, but when he came home for the holidays he took one look at Claire and determined she would be his. Two years of full court press later, they were married. That night he gave Claire her first black eye. Tony's phone rang jarring him back to the present. There was a delay. Was there someone he could call to make sure he didn't leave the apartment? Tony called Claire. She came right away, assessed the situation and made him a cup of tea; adding three sugars since it was dire.

They read the rest of the pamphlet together in order to track Tony's symptoms. He seemed to be one of the slow transformers. Some went right to raging homicidal mania, then liquefied, some lurched about for a bit walking invisible dogs on stiff leashes, throwing buckets of confetti on unsuspecting strangers; eventually committing suicide in unoriginal ways.

For the public good, the Zombie-Clown Agency took no chances these days. They nipped any outbreak in the bud by euthanizing the stricken as soon as transformation was evident.

***

Some hours later, Claire signed the official form on the official clipboard for the official agent. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she recounted the harrowing events of the afternoon. Tony had dressed himself in full clown regalia and lurched to the roof. His brother Reggie had arrived in time to try to talk him down, but failed. A struggle had ensued, and Tony had leaped off the building, narrowly missing a bus of German tourists. The tourists had the whole thing on film. The agent watched the film which ended in a freeze frame of himself flaming the body.

Claire played a slightly different version of the events in her mind's eye, but she kept that version to herself. The agent didn't need to know that Reggie had burst into Tony's apartment and found Claire snuggled in Tony's lap kissing him in the shower stall. He didn't need to know that Reggie had called Tony a dumb ass, thrown a bottle of benadryl at his head, and reminded Tony that he had once swelled up the same way when he was four after a bee sting. He didn't need to know that Reggie had pulled Claire out of the shower by her hair. He didn't need to know that during the ensuing struggle Tony had shoved him and Reggie had hit his temple on the sink top. He didn't need to know that determined eyes had locked over Reggie's unconscious body in mutual understanding. He especially didn't need to know that they had dressed Reggie as a clown, manhandled him to the roof and Tony had tossed Reggie off. He also didn't need to know that Claire had three busted ribs waiting to be re taped under her sweater.

Claire came back to the task at hand, swiped her face with her sleeve, handed the official clip board back to the official agent and accepted his official condolences on the official loss
of her brother-in-law.

***

Tony woke to a throbbing under the covers. He rolled over to Claire and pressed it against her warm thigh. Claire opened her eyes and smiled sleepily at him.

Tony kissed her and cuddled her gently into his embrace. Soon he'd have to get up to go to grief counseling. Reggie's transformation from an abusive prick to a caring husband over time with professional assistance would be believable to those near and dear to Claire. After all, it's a shock losing your twin brother in such a gruesome manner; and would of course make you want to cherish those left to you and live life to the fullest.

For her part, Claire determined to thank the zombie clowns from space for arriving on Earth at least once a day. Simple gratitude, she had always felt, along with morning wood, were two of the best things in life.

Junket……………. flash fiction

Time travel is possible. I know because it happened to me. The odd thing is I didn't climb into some fanciful contraption painstakingly sculpted from some hard to obtain metal, or stand on a fiendishly clever continuum slicing platform wringing my hands and laughing maniacally while my misshapen assistant pulled the lever to raise the lighting rod to the sky. I didn't do anything that a mad genius normally does to travel forward or backward in time.

I simply logged in to my email account. It opened, I read the first subject line and that's when I got sucked into a wormhole that landed me smack dab back into a place from my past. It was a place that I'd sworn never to return to, but, there I was, clad only in thin leopard print baby doll pajamas, back on a space ship orbiting Octothorpe Plasmatic, staring down into the lopsided eyes of Glycerin.

Glycerin, oh how I hated him. He had wooed me, called himself my patron, admired me for my art and arranged a spectacular inter-galactic tour of my show. About three weeks in, his admiration turned to lust and when I didn't acquiesce, he abandoned me. Left me on a Walmo forsaken asteroid with only a box of graham crackers and a harmonica to my name. And every damn fool knows that if you eat graham crackers and then play your harmonica it's goodbye harmonica. The bastard.

Well this time I wasn't going to let him get away with anything. He could tell the troopers his side of the story after I kicked three kinds of snot out of him and his bodyguards and went to the nearest Jada station to report my abduction. I took a breath to tell him to go to hell and was stopped cold by two little words.

"I'm sorry."

Glycerin had actually said he was sorry. I pinched myself to make sure I was awake and then twaddled my pinky in my ear. His big sad droopy jowls wobbled a bit and some orange tears ran out of his eyes. He leaned forward and put four of his tentacles on his desk:

"I really am sorry Jules, I should never have done what I did to you. Do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive me?"

Well, damn, this was a fine how do you do. I was all set to kick some ass and now I had all this adrenaline floating around in my system and nothing to spend it on. But wait a minute here, I stalked back and forth a couple of times in front of his desk and then snapped:

"You couldn't have sent me a card or something? You had to yank me out of my home and bring me here to you to tell me that you're sorry? Don't you see that what you just did is almost as bad as what you did the last time? Have you learned nothing about inter-personal relationships since we were together last?"

"As a matter of fact I've had some therapy. Dr. Gomdu helped me a lot toward finding out what causes me to treat other beings disrespectfully. And in our last session we were working together to help me to control the urges that cause me to demand instant gratification."

"And are you getting anywhere with this Dr. Gomdu?"

"I think we were making a lot of progress, yes."

"So where is this doctor now, I'd like to have a word with him."

"I'm sorry to say that I ate him."

"You ate him? YOU ATE HIM? You're telling me that you found a therapist and while you were working together YOU ATE HIM?"

"Yes, and I'm very sorry about it." He stood and signaled to his body guards:

"I'm even sorrier to say that I have room for dessert."

Luckily I still had enough adrenaline coursing through me to kick four kinds of snot out of Glycerin and his cohorts. Unfortunately, as it turned out after I wiped the floor with them and tossed them out of the air lock, I found out from the secretarial staff that Glycerin had eaten the man who had designed the time travel worm hole and no one knew how to get me back to Dominix within a hundred years of when I was snatched.

So now I'm heading up Glycerin's empire. All in all Glycerin needing to apologize hadn't been such a bad experience for me. If only I could get some mental windshield wipers to cleanse the image of Glycerin exploding as he hit open space from my mind. It was like watching a blender full of strawberries mixed with undercooked sausages rain on your windshield. Sometimes I still wake up screaming in the night.

 

Eugene Tallhammer, First mate extraordinaire flash fiction

An abandoned wallet on the sidewalk, drops of blood like a trail of bread crumbs leading away from it down to the mouth of an alley. After a few steps the drops turned to smears, but it was hard to tell if they were crawling smears or dragging smears.

Then I came across his shoe, and figured dragging.

I unsheathed my sword, silly I know to head into an alley with it still in its scabbard, but drawing undue attention to myself was not on the agenda tonight.

Someone dressed in a one piece fuchsia leotard, a polka dot cape, curly shoes and a floppy jingle hat was so very noticeable he was almost invisible at carnival time, but add a thrumming blue sword into the mix and you get some funny looks. I've always been fond of visiting Rombus 5, but some of the inhabitants, despite their open minded attitudes toward things like hallucinogens and orgies in the town square, were none too fond of crooks and scoundrels. Of which, I'm proud to say, I'm both. I'm also a narcoleptic vegetarian, but all they ever seem to care about is the "space pirate" portion of my resume. Citizens who have had their golden idols smuggled out in the dead of night tend to take matters into their own hands and hasten justice with a handy tree and some Vigilante brand rope once someone shouts "hey you!" in an authoritative sort of way. Although, if they're inexperienced hangmen, you could just end up with a sore neck and a really good view of the traditional after lynching celebratory orgy.

So I was sauntering along, projecting an air of saintly good citizenship while neatly concealing under my cloak a backpack full of stuff I had liberated from the royal treasury, when I recognized the shoe. Only my first mate, Eugene "stickyfingers" Tallhammer would be caught dead wearing an acid green high top tennis shoe with the initials ET emblazoned on the side in orange marker. As I got closer to the alley the blood spatters became blood puddles and I began hoping that when I got to him he hadn't been caught dead without it.

I cleared the alley mouth and was greeted with the shapely blue derriere of a very pissed off female cat creature. She was breathing hard and her hackles stood on end down all twelve feet of her spine. Her fury was an impressive sight, but when you added in that she was clothed solely in a green gee string and nine sparkly pasties, it was hard to also focus on the fact that she was holding Eugene down with her right cat's paw while seemingly deciding if he was worth the amount of blood spatter likely to come from ripping out his jugular. She swung her huge head at me and hissed.

I bowed, sheathed my sword, showed her my open palms and reached to open my amusingly oversized codpiece. I dangled the prize from my left hand while remaining steadfastly still. Her nostrils flared, she turned toward me, pasties jettisoning from six of her nine suddenly erect nipples.

She snatched the necklace from me, the diamonds gleaming in the moonlight as she wrapped it around her wrist. It fit her perfectly as a tennis bracelet. She simpered and then frowned down at her state of dishabille. I gallantly swept my cape from my back and proffered it. She did one of those complicated female movements that turn a bit of cloth into a stunning frock and slinked out of the alley at speed with about fifteen thousand credits worth of diamonds on her arm.

"Sorry boss, I was in the middle of negotiations when something broke down, you got a hankie or something? My nose is gushing like a mother."

I reached into my backpack and handed Eugene a hankie then ran a #6 medstick over my bleeding ear, a casualty of one of the flying pasties, and over Eugene's broken nose, very probably a casualty of getting too close to one of the pasties while still attached to the gigantic catdancer. I've known Eugene long enough not to even ask. He has a hard enough time passing up two breasts when they're attached to a fully clothed female, I could easily work out how this situation transpired without any assistance whatsoever.

I pulled a second cape from my backpack, secured my codpiece and helped Eugene to his feet. We repaired to the street to recover his lost shoe and wallet. Now all we had to do was wait here at the rendezvous point a few more minutes and we were home free.

That's when we saw them. Ten big cat women bearing down on us at a full gallop. My narcolepsy kicked in at that second and the next thing I knew I was on the ship pressed into my bunk with enough g force to make my vertebrae snap crackle and pop. Davis came over the intercom and said: "Sorry boss, we grabbed you both, but Eugene sobbed so much that I dropped him back into the thick of things once he explained what was what."

My vid screen lit up and I was treated to a very graphic twenty seconds of Eugene in the town square frolicking naked in a milk fountain with ten giant cat women.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. It's not that I begrudge Eugene the shore leave; I was just a bit worried because he's not as young as he used to be. I shut off the vid feed and took a moment to send out a plea to any gods who might hear me that Eugene's heart would be strong enough to see him through fifteen thousand credits worth of negotiations.

Alien in my tea, parts one and two -flash fiction

Otherworldly Company

This morning there was an alien in my tea. I was startled to say the least. He looked friendly, so I didn't have the heart to pour him down the drain. I scooped him gently out with a spoon, placed him into a glass bowl so he could see the world around him and left him to his own devices.

My toaster objected.

He said, "None of those in here, missy, you'll be sorry."

But I told him to mind his own business. I rule my kitchen.

Brebax 679 told me so.

Photo copyright Karen Schindler

Stiletto Regret

Aliens are cute. There's just something about the big eyes. Like Bambi. But unlike Bambi they'll disembowel you in a wink.

Aliens are cute. Right up until the second they're not. Then you're not…. well, you, anymore. You're just a mass of wriggling entrails, spilling onto the floor wondering (a) why the hell you wore heels during a chase scene, and (b) why the hell you didn't think to plunge three inches of pointy stiletto into one of those big cute alien eyes.

Lucky Larry --- flash fiction

Lucky Larry loved the ladies. A lot. And they loved him right back. When he came into a room sliding those snake thin hips through the air like a shark's fin just visible in the water, all female heads turned. They could sense that something was off, but gravitated to him anyway. Della sat at the bar, the bait in the trap, martini in hand, and watched his progress through hooded lids. She knew he'd make his way to her eventually, since to Larry's way of thinking she was the primest piece in the room and that wasn't opinion, it was fact. A lot of work had gone into the look she sported this evening. Her mission was clear, the higher ups had been adamant about what needed to be done. Della knew her part and she would play it with skill and determination. Larry's luck was about to change, he just didn't know it yet.

Larry spotted the babe at the bar. She had legs to her neck and a rack that didn't quit. Out of habit he fingered, fondled and patted the other doxies in the room as he made his way to what was clearly now his ultimate objective.

Della put a hand to his chest and stopped him before he ground into her. She'd seen the vids of Larry operating. He wasn't subtle, and she didn't want to wind up grappling with him in public.

"Hello gorgeous, I'd buy you a drink, but I see you already have one. I've got some champagne in my room, the good stuff. Why don't we blow this two bit dump and go where we can be cozy?"

Della sipped her drink, put it on the bar and slid slowly from the barstool. Larry was nearly drooling as he followed her to the elevator. Della kept him at arm's length throughout the trip to his floor, then grabbed him by the lapel and pulled him down the hall. He fumbled the door open and ushered Della inside pulling his jacket and shirt off on the way to the bed.

"Eager aren't you baby? Well, you won't be disappointed. Larry has what you want."

"You said a mouthful Larry, I'm sure that I'll come away satisfied."

When Larry lunged at her she sidestepped and injected him with the knock out drops artfully concealed in her ring. When his head thumped on the floor the connecting door burst open and the team came in with a portable operating table. Larry was stripped and scanned. Two extractions were made. Della waited until he was comfortably arranged back on the bed and added some lipstick to his navel and nipple areas.

As she signed the evidence bag containing the invasion plans that Larry had unknowingly brought back from Mars Prime, she said to the tech:

"I almost feel sorry for the little slimeball. I tried to talk the chief into leaving the chip that made him attractive to women, but no go. Now that his usefulness has run its course, poor Larry will find that he repulses women, just as nature intended. Too bad the creep never actually hooked up with a woman who didn't work for the agency. How sad is that? A thirty year old gigolo, celibate for eight years without even knowing it."

Unavailable -- flash fiction

The phone ringing brought me out of a sleep so deep that when I broke the surface I had to gasp a long breath into my burning lungs.

The arm that I'd been lying on flooded with blood and the awakening pins and needles shrieked as I rolled to check the display. I shook some life into the limb and flipped open the phone to look at the missed call.

"Unavailable." Well I don't do unavailable. Unavailable used to mean a reporter trying to get an exclusive, or a producer trying to get me to love a project, or a woman just trying to get me.

Now it means a bill collector.

How far the mighty have fallen. 3:54 in the frickin afternoon and the best place to be is abed. And alone no less. I slowly slid my feet to the floor and cradled my head in my hands until I could hold my eyes open against the watery afternoon sun. The pain in my head hadn't been helped by sleeping. Nothing helped it these days.

This is just an excerpt now because I'm pleased to announce that Unavailable has been included in Flash an anthology Edited by Chris Bartholomew and Published under the Static Movement imprint.

You can purchase the book HERE.

This week's list of fridayflash at Mad Utopia

Mid to moderate skill level -- flash fiction

He studied one of the creatures that he had received in his Build your own zoo kit with a magnifying lens and all six of his very alert eyes. It was hideous. All pink and smooth with two large masses in the center of its upper torso. It had two puny eyes on either side of what he assumed was a nose, but he didn't see how it could possibly use such a useless appendage to bring sustenance to the slash below the nose that he assumed was a mouth.

The second creature was dark and hairy like a shrimba. It had no lumps on its upper torso but sported a strange appendage in its lower region that may have been a deformed fifth limb or a small trunk of some sort. Jalri didn't see how it could use such an appendage to reach leaves from the trees he had planted in the enclosure per the instructions that he had received ages ago. You have to let the enclosure acclimate or your specimens die right away. This was Jalri's third attempt and he was determined to get it right this time. The instructions said that the creatures were omnivores, but one of the tips in the back of the catalog hinted that you could make them more docile by feeding them only plant matter.

Jalri was heartened by the jabbering cheeps and chirps that came from the enclosure while he was getting ready for bed. This morning he had seen the creatures cooperating in building a hut from the cut up limbs and string that he had left laying around for them to find. You had to give them something to do or they sickened and died. This current set seemed to be thriving. He had high hopes of breeding them and sharing the litter with his friends.

The breeding instructions cost extra and you didn't get them until your specimens had survived for a month. Jalri glanced at his calendar and realized that his instructions would be arriving the day after tomorrow. He was really looking forward to breeding his specimens.

Jalri was awakened by grunting and moaning coming from the enclosure. He turned on the light and saw the creatures wrapped in mortal combat devouring one another's faces. He looked away sickened. He opened his top drawer and found the cyanide tablet, broke it in half and dropped it into the enclosure.

His mother snapped on the overhead light to his bedchamber. "Jalri, why are you up so late? Are you ill?"

"No mama, I'm fine but my creatures were killing each other again. I've taken care of it, poor little things. These humans are just too hard to care for. I think that I'll try something else from the blue planet catalog next time. Maybe something from the beginner skill level. I saw these things called 'sea monkeys' that looked quite interesting."

This week's list of 48 stories at Mad Utopia

A routine night at Roonies -- flash fiction

Bullets ricocheted around the bar.

Some bounced off the floor where the hapless recruit jerked around in a terror addled bebop, her face a rictus of horror.

"Dance gratchech, dance!"

Christ, I hated it when he got like this. It happened every time the Dresden Commander had a second cup of piping hot glub. He just couldn't hold his liquor. He'd start waving his gun around and shooting at whatever was in his field of vision.

Luckily he was like a two year old when he was drunk and would lose interest in whatever he was doing as soon as he was distracted by something shiny. As expected, the bullets stopped after a couple of minutes. I doubt he could see much of what he was doing now anyway.

Most of his eyes were drooping and he looked pretty out of it.

After he stopped shooting he went back to loudly and drunkenly arguing about who was the best Catwoman ever, with one of the other patrons.

The thankfully unshot recruit made her trembling way over to the bar where I gave her some sorbet laced heavily with brandy. A glass smashed at her elbow and she jumped about a foot. Happily I had put all of my nicer things away before the Commander and his crew came in to bust up my place again.

A crew was only as good as their leader, and these guys had a fine example. Some of his idiots were breaking chairs with their zrimbyts, some were smashing plates into the fireplace. I stood there and watched the stupidity around me while wiping glasses until they were mostly clean. I ducked occasionally if something came really close to my heads.

The Commander caught my eye and gestured blearily for another round.

I put on my masks and gloves and carried another hot pitcher of fizzing glub to his table. I was going to give him another few minutes to either pass out or squelch his way out of the front door.

If neither of those options seemed likely I'd just have to take a salt shaker and "accidentally" sprinkle a little onto one of his tentacles so that he would sober up and get out before too much more damage was done.

Or before a fight broke out.

These Dresdens had shoe size IQ's and if there was no one else to fight after a few drinks they would fight one another. Then the fight would spill out into the street. Then they would be called in by the ministry to break up the riot.

I often wondered if the heads of the ministry also had shoe sized IQ's.

I didn't like the idea of Roonies going up in a blaze like the bonfire that the Dresdens had set last month in Oldtown. Apparently there was some misunderstanding about overcharging for day old intestines, and when troops arrived to break up the riot the Commander ordered the place flamed with the beleaguered butcher inside.

In a matter of minutes the whole block went up in smoke. The Commander and his crew even hung around for a bit to roast weenies.

But I did hear that the butcher's pet Goldfinch was lovingly carried outside before the fire was set and given to a kindly neighbor. I heard that she was delighted to have him. The nice lady was very concerned that the little birdie would lose his appetite after being separated so abruptly from his owner.

All the rest of the week she fed him and watered him and generally pampered and spoiled him until he was so fat he could hardly move from his perch.

Then on Sunday……

She served him with a nice dark gravy.

The list of 62 fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia