As god is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again…. Flash Fiction

It was an ordinary day, one much like all my others, a day filled with small joys to be celebrated, smiles given freely to strangers, moments allotted just for the smelling of roses.

It was after five, so work was put away for the day, closed neatly in drawers and compartmentalized to wait for the morning. Moderation in all things; the watchword by which I lived my life.

Then I met him.

I was walking in the woods, glorying in the birdsong, delighting in the antics of squirrels and chipmunks; smiling at the memory of capturing and releasing a tiny toad once I'd convinced him I wasn't going to toss him down my terrible maw.

I rounded a bend and there he was. My brain lit up like I'd been struck by lightning. I actually felt dizzy for a moment. I leaned on a tree, my mouth tasting of copper, knees weak, ears ringing. He looked at me like he could see my soul. His eyes pinned me down, rummaged around inside and turned me inside out.

I felt rooted to the spot, filled to the brim with indecision. Did I stand or did I run? I'd been warned when I was seven that this could happen. But generations had come and gone without a single ripple in my world. I'd become complacent. Now fate had intervened.

He started for me, the air shimmering as he moved. I felt myself flood with juices. Hunger ravening, lust building, the needs I'd beaten back into submission for years bubbling to the surface.

When he got close enough to touch I knew there was no other option. Our auras meshed, the world stopped turning. I unhinged my jaw and swallowed him whole.







Three word Wednesday prompt : fate, indecision, option


 

Mommy’s boy….............Flash Fiction

She came to me twice in a dream. The first time was a week before I met her; the second time was after I left him. I didn't tell him about it because it kind of spooked me. In the first dream, she came to me in a robe that was just like the one my foster mother wore when I was a kid. Blue, fuzzy, high necked, with a no nonsense zipper up the front. A robe made for utility, not style. A robe a modest woman of advanced age could wear to the door and no UPS man would be aroused or appalled by a bit of wrinkled wrist or ankle showing; it zipped to the chin and did the job that armor did in the old days.

The night he took me home to dinner she came out of her bedroom wearing the robe from the dream. She'd been sick in bed for a week she said, out of her head with fever half the time.

I was a bit shook, but not really surprised. Shit like that was always happening to me. Dreams, déjà vous, flashes of insight about people that warned me off of getting too close. After a while you get used to it.

She didn't eat with us; she just came and went from the living room to her bedroom a few times. Twice she stopped by my chair and squeezed my shoulder with a bony talon. Both times she said something too low to be heard, but somewhere in the muttering were the words "remember" and "you promised."

By the end of the night my skin was crawling and I was itching to be gone. He didn't even get a goodnight kiss, let alone get to give the guided tour he was hoping to give me of his new mattress. Sex was so far from my mind by the time he dropped me off that my thoughts would have been ok'd by a nun. And that hadn't happened since the eighth grade.

Lying in bed that night I went back over what she'd said in the dream. Most of it was along the lines of taking care of Brian when she was gone. Hell, I hardly knew the guy. Why would she be tagging me to take care of him, and did she mean "gone" as in "dead" or gone as in I'm tired of cooking and cleaning for my forty year old son and I'm going to go live in a condo in Florida kind of gone?

But it's not like I could ask her. People tend to look at you funny when you quote something they said to you in a dream and ask them to explain it to you.

I didn't see her again until the wedding. She looked frail sitting there in the front row of the church clasping her rosary beads. She found me in the bathroom during the reception and thanked me for coming into Brian's life. She said she knew that he had decided to take me on when he moved them to the new condo and gave her her own room. Then she slipped a package into my hand and collapsed. It happened so quickly that I didn't even have time to reach out to her. She was standing, then she was on the floor.

The paramedics came almost instantly from the fire station next door, but she was already gone by the time they got there. When they strapped her to the gurney she looked peaceful and happier than she had when she was alive. Weird thing? She sat up and talked to me when they were carrying her out. I know that couldn't have actually happened, because the medics or the coroner standing there signing the death certificate would have noticed. But she gripped my arm as they took her out and told me to make sure I took care of Brian. She said she wouldn't rest easy until I promised.

So…..I promised.

---------------------

I left him this morning. We didn't have a honeymoon. The funeral took up the first three days, and the effects of the slow poison took up the next few. He never suspected. MSG hides almost any aftertaste and it makes the food taste just that much more delicious.

He should be dead by tomorrow or the next day. Hopefully it'll look like a heart attack. After all, the poor guy lost his mother and new bride in the same week. What heart wouldn't feel the effects of that?

The package she'd given me before she collapsed had detailed everything; she'd even provided the poison. She'd been with Brian for five years. She was twenty-six when they met. Apparently his boyish charm was kept lively by sucking the youth out of his sex partners. According to traditional lore, that would make him an incubus, but one with a twist, since Brian didn't want to father a baby. For him, that was simple logic, if you father a baby you won't be the baby of the family anymore.

----------------------

The clackety clack of the rails had lulled me into the first decent sleep I'd had since the wedding. She stepped lightly into my dream and sat down on the sleeper berth next to me. She was dressed in a white satin robe and looked radiant. She told me that the cops would be calling me in the morning. They'd found the body, but I wasn't to worry because she'd made sure I'd be in the clear. She handed me a newspaper and faded out into the ether on a gust of some exotic perfume.

I looked at the front page of the paper and saw Brian's twisted Prius wrapped around the girder of a bridge. The paper didn't detail how the accident happened other than referencing his blood alcohol level. But I knew in a flash of intuition that chinks in the subconscious weren't only there in dreams.

Designated hitter……Flash Fiction

Fear. That little trickle that ices down your spine when you wake at three am, chest tight, existential dread sitting on your ribcage, its dirty yellow toenails digging into your diaphragm, smiling that smug I know something you don't know smile.

There it is again. The scritch scritch that woke you. A small sound in a big world. But you don't live in a big world. Your world has been a tiny tight ball of terror each and every moment since the last time he found you.

Sliding trembling feet to the floor, heart pounding, you creep toward the door, Louisville slugger at the ready. He calls out in a sing song voice,

"Guess who….oo." But this time only one of you will be surprised.

The door swings inward, and you swing away….

Compromised ……………..Flash Fiction

It's amazing how adaptable the human mind is. Take the light in my kitchen for example. I've been in need of a bulb for months, but couldn't get out to get one, so I got used to the gloom. I can now cook almost by feel. And the dizziness, well, after a while, you get used to that too. Blood loss'll do that to you, complaining isn't going to get me anywhere, so why run my mouth about it? And the smell, that musty cupboard under the basement staircase smell, there wasn't anything he could do about it, so why kvetch? But I tell you what, I'm NEVER going to get used to walking into the bathroom and finding him there, wrapped snugly in his wings, hanging by his knees from the shower curtain rod and snoring.

Maybe when I finally get out to buy that light bulb I can get some of those no-snore strips too. It's going to be that, or a stake through the heart. A girl can only take so much.

Pest control……..Flash Fiction

The last straw was opening my lunch box and finding an apple core and an empty sandwich bag. Jeff was the worst roommate in the history of roommates. I saw him rummaging in the fridge this morning after I packed my lunch, but even while I stood under the cold shower cursing him for using all of the hot water and trying to get clear headed, calm and centered for the grueling work day I knew I had ahead of me; I never imagined he would eat my lunch for his breakfast. No wonder he was whistling as he took my travel mug full of the last of my coffee out the door with him this morning on his way to the unemployment office.

I've been busting my hump trying to get the prototype ready to show to the investors and now Hector tells me that the money men are having second thoughts. They say that before they invest that kind of dough they'll need to see human test trials.

I never thought of myself as an evil man, or even as an evil genius. I have historically had trouble with producing anything even remotely resembling a maniacal laugh, so I had imagined myself immune to sliding down the slippery slope toward the dark side. Until today. When I opened my lunch box and saw my missing tuna wrap something snapped in me. A giant Bwahahahahahahaha bellowed from the depths of my soul. At that moment I knew that Jeff was going to do a great service for mankind. Evil mankind admittedly, but mankind nonetheless.

All I had to do was lure him to the lab.

Luring Jeff to the lab turned out to be surprisingly easy. I just called and said I was working late and had a pizza on the way. He showed up to mooch my dinner about fifteen minutes later. Once I stunned him and strapped him to the table all I had to do was decide between imploding or exploding him. I knew that exploding would be much more visually dramatic, but imploding is technically harder and Hollywood hasn't done it as much, so it might be more impressive to the investors crowded into the viewing room behind the shatterproof glass. Plus, I don't really relish the idea of mopping Jeff's intestines off of the ceiling. And Hector is a strict vegetarian, so it doesn't seem fair to ask him to do it.

Receptionist……….Flash Fiction

Stupid bitch. She did it just to get me in trouble. The boss told me she had a heart condition and to cut it out, but what was she, 22? 23? I figured she was just shining him on to get sympathy. And now she'd gone and died on me.

She thought we were all out to lunch. Taking out the shelves and hiding in the fridge to jump out at her when she came for her lunch was supposed to be funny. I was hoping to get her to wet her pants, or scream or something, not freaking die.

The rest of the crew will be back in twenty minutes. I guess I should have listened to Slim. He told me not to do it. To lay off her, that enough was enough.

I can stuff her into the fridge. I'll get Slim to help me strap it to a dolly and load it into my truck. Then I guess I'll have to take care of him too. Mom'll be pissed. But if she makes trouble there's probably enough room in the fridge for three.

Monstrous Flash Fiction

Trick or treat….

Hunger like a million crazed hamsters digging their sharp claws into the lining of my stomach. Days since I’ve eaten. Hiding, creeping along the hedgerows, I watch them trip gleefully from puddles of light to enveloping shadow. Just one. One wouldn’t hurt. I’d eat it standing up. Everybody knows that if you eat standing up it doesn’t count. Any minute now, I can feel it. One will drift a little off the path. With any luck it’ll be a plump one, but not the little whiny one. He’d be sour. I want one who smiles, one who says thank you at each door. One like the little sparkly fairy princess. She’d be sweet. She wouldn’t put up a fuss. But she’d be missed right away. A child like that would have watchful parents. I’ll have to choose another. But not the little whiny one. There’s still time. I can wait. They’ll be out for at least another hour.

Heel…......Flash Fiction

The wind howling through the window broke into my sleep and replaced the ghastly sounds of tearing flesh. Panicked; I replayed the dream in my head, laughing a bit as I realized I was warm and snug under the covers.

In the dream I was dancing. My body too warm, the room off kilter. My brain seemed to itch where my neck met my spine. I left the dance floor, disgusted with a partner taking liberties. Outside it was cool and sharp. The full moon beautiful in the clear night sky. He followed me out. Running, running in the woods, branches tearing at my clothes, twigs slashing at my tender skin. Ragged breath, pounding heart. Prey and predator.

He should have kicked off his cowboy boots. That's the first thing they tell you to do when you're running for your life. Barefoot is best. Of course, I'd had the advantage once I was on all fours. They're unlikely to find the bits of him that were left.

I'll have to go back this morning before his car is discovered. Searchers would find the tatters of my red dress covered in blood at the edge of the ravine. They'd think the worst. But they'd be wrong. I'm safe. Safe and snug in my bed.

Ravenous again.

Go HERE to MadUtopia where you'll find Jon Strother's master list of the week's 83 #fridayflash offerings.

Swarm ……… Flash Fiction

They clawed at the dirt, pushed at the stones, groaning and scrabbling, freeing themselves from the earthy bedchambers grieving loved ones had provided. When the Governor called us in that first week, we stood at the fence and lobbed grenades into the cemetery; thinking it would destroy the things that crawled from the crypts. But how do you make the dead more dead?
Nothing stopped them. They swarmed like locust over whatever was in their path, leaving husks of automobiles and buildings behind. Flesh was easiest of all, and once assimilated, the bones of the freshly departed joined the masses.
They came. And came. Never resting. Relentless. Expressionless. Destroying anything that hindered progress toward some goal that lay in a straight line beginning at St. Basil's cemetery. Television coverage brought gawkers and thrill seekers. As they filmed or photographed, they were rolled over and consumed.
By the second week the skeletal march was a mile wide and four miles long. Lieutenant Christopher was somewhere in the pack. His men held the line at his order. The swarm had gone through his squad like a hot knife through butter. Not even a tank tread was left, anything softer than iron was consumed by the horde.
By the third week what was left of my troop trailed cautiously behind, watching from a distance as the swarm continued its grisly parade. We'd lost both the President and the Governor when the horde had raised itself on its own shoulders, like a macabre version of a cheerleading pyramid, and pulled their helicopter down.
Day and night the horde progressed; bones gleaming in the sun, glowing in the moonlight. The chirping of joints audible like crickets on a summer's evening amplified to a deafening volume.
By the fourth week religious leaders from all over the world were making their way to the only building left standing in the path that now looked like an ever expanding cone, the tip in Topeka, the base falling into the North Atlantic. Satellite photos showed the waters of the ocean churning white as the marching dead continued underwater on their grim journey.
The mathematicians tell us that if the ever widening swathe of destruction continues at its current rate, the earth will be completely devoid of life in six month's time.
Earth's only hope is that there is some clue; a book, an object, protective magic words of some kind secreted in this single untouched building that can save mankind from the skeletal future that seems inevitable.
We're making our way to the building to help. I'll do whatever they need me to do. I'll guard, cook, sweep the floors, hell; I'll stand on my head and sing Swing Low Sweet Chariot if it'll help someone trying to figure out how to save the world.
This looks like our last battle, and I'm much too young to die.




Thanks to Cathy Russell [ganymeder] for the Story Starter inspiration. Her start: Even daytime hours were fraught with peril, now that the dead no longer feared the sun...
I didn't actually use the line, but it jump started the grim frame of mind needed to write it.

Hardboiled ----Flash Fiction

Non smokers taste wonderful; clean and like soap, or salty with sweat from an honest day's work. A smoker tastes bitter, yellow nicotine oozing from every pore. His tongue, skin and cum all yellowish and sharp on the palate. But they're easier to catch, what with all that wheezing while running.

And afterwards, when you cut off his smoking hand and boil it in a pot, the water turns saffron, filling your lovely lair with the intoxicating reek of the addictive pacifier of the masses.

My landlady objects to the smell though, so sometimes I throw in a little tarragon.

 

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.

 

Good clean fun --flash fiction

Right in the middle of my very meager and very late night dinner the intercom buzzer went off. It's so loud that even when I'm expecting it the damn thing nearly scares me to death. Well, if I could die from a heart attack, it might scare me to death. I walked over and pushed the talk button:

"Who is it?"

"Marcus"

"Marcus, what the hell are you doing here at this hour?"

"I have to see you. It's an emergency."

"Are you bleeding or is there a bone sticking out of you somewhere? Because that's an emergency at 2:00am, but as far as I'm concerned nothing much else is."

"I've been thinking about you all day and I just have to see you."

Ah. A booty call by a twenty five year old in the middle of the night. That's all I need. I'd have to change, shower, put some makeup on, what a pain. But then my appetites and an idea hit me at the very same time. Marcus is a succulent Italian dish and it had been a while.

"Ok, I'll buzz you in, but I have to hop in the shower, so you just come in and have a beer and wait while I get freshened up."

I buzzed him into the lobby and left my door open a crack. I'd have a minute or so before he got up the stairs. I scurried into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

I hid in the closet where I could look out through the slats to see if he came into the bathroom. About a minute later he came into the room on tippy toes. He stripped, and crept toward the shower. Just as his hand made contact with the curtain I bounded out of the closet and caught him by the neck in my jaws and around his taut middle with my claws.

His eyes widened as he saw me, then all the blood left his face as I dragged him into the shower. It's so handy when they take their clothes off first, then there's no need to spit up the zippers and buttons afterwards.

As it turned out having dinner in the shower was very convenient since all of the fluid splatter just went right on down the drain. But even with the water running I was relieved that my shower curtain is plastic and easily rinsed down, because Marcus turned out to be even juicier than I thought and it always seems like any time I have Italian I just get it everywhere.

A link to the list of this week's 78 #fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

Love can be so surprising - -flash fiction

"We're really going to miss you around here Mr. McCracken."     

William put down the box long enough to clap Stanley on the back

"The heart wants what it wants Stanley, gotta go where the lady is. Can't do long distance anymore, I need more face time, you know what I mean?"

"Face time, is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?"

William gave the half smile half eye roll that Stanley's remark required, picked up his box and went on toward the exit of McMillan and McClellan, the law firm he'd helped build for the last eighteen years.

Just before he bumped through the door backward he said:

"You did remember to wire all the money from my old bank to the new account that you set up in Chicago right Stanley?"

"Yes sir, about twenty minutes ago, and I've had phone confirmation that everything was received just as expected."

The movers were already done filling the truck when William arrived in his driveway. He inspected the van, signed off on it and the driver slammed the door. William stood in the driveway and watched as his boxed and blanketed things started off on the journey to his new place. Correction their new place.

Since the moving van had to stop at all the weigh stations on route, William calculated that even if he lingered in the house for a few minutes to say goodbye, he'd be able to stop to eat and stretch his legs a few times and still beat the van by hours to Reanna's home. Correction their home. It was going to take some time to get used to being part of a we instead of just a me.

William had no idea how he'd gotten so lucky. He'd been in a bar one night in Chicago nursing a bourbon after settling a huge case and a gorgeous leggy brunette came up and asked him if he had a quarter for the phone. She said that she'd just dropped her cell into a toilet in the ladies room and she had to make a call. He loaned her his phone instead of a quarter, she stepped off a few paces to make her call, then came back to thank him and buy him a drink. The drink led to dinner, and dinner led to a night in his hotel room that still made him sweat when he thought about it.

They hadn't managed to be together since, but she made him smolder in texts and late night phone calls. Reanna was very invested in her job and her community and William understood finally that he was going to have to make a drastic move if he wanted to be with her, so he sold his house, quit his job, packed his things, and was moving half way across the country to be with her.

***

Reanna stood on the loading dock checking off items from William's home. Stanley stood at her shoulder reading the manifest. After a minute he exclaimed

"Wow, this stuff will go for a pretty penny at auction, especially the paintings and antiques."

A mover came up to her with a puzzled expression, "Excuse me miss, but Mr. McCracken told us we'd be delivering to your home, and this is just a storage facility. The address is right, but I think I need to call it in before we unload the entire truck."

"Oh no, Jeff," Reanna said as she read the name badge ironed onto the breast pocket of Jeff's coveralls, "please don't call it in! I bought a new house just for the two of us and I don't want to tip William off until he gets here, boy is he going to be surprised."

***

William was so surprised when he saw Reanna emerge from the ladies room in the rest stop just outside of Topeka. She kissed him until his knees got weak and told him that she just had to ride the rest of the way into Chicago with him and couldn't wait to set up their house together.

"What would you think about a little pit stop on the way?" Reanna murmured into his ear.

William found a suitable hotel and they spent the afternoon getting reacquainted. Anyone who saw Reanna leaving later might have noticed that she looked rather more self satisfied and somehow sleeker coming out than she had going into the hotel.

And they might also have noticed that even though she had what looked like a rather cumbersome garment bag, she handled it as if it weighed nothing. Looking closer they might even have noticed a tiny fleck of red on her shoe, but anyone trying to get that close would have been warned off by the gleam in her eye.

***

The moving van rolled away as Stanley and Reanna went to the rental car to get the very last thing out of the trunk.

She unzipped the garment bag a little bit for Stanley and said

"See just like I told the mover, Stanley, doesn't William look surprised?"

***

Reanna put out the last of the flames in the dumpster with a heavy duty fire extinguisher. It was too bad about Stanley, he had been quite useful and she may even have loved him a little bit. But why share when all it took was the snap of a scrawny neck and a flick of the wrist to add just a little more fuel to the fire……..

The thing that irked Reanna and may have even kicked the tires near the place where her conscience once resided was that Stanley hadn't even looked a little bit surprised.

 

Link to this week's 70 #fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

A Bat for Mr. Roxby -- flash fiction

Through the open window the screams were as loud as if they were on the tv two feet away. He had to imagine that the screams were coming from some fictional place like the tv or the radio or he'd go mad. He pointed the remote at the screen and increased the volume to max…. that's how most tenants dealt with the screams on hot nights.

The heat was suffocating. Closing the window wasn't an option. Helping the person screaming wasn't an option. No one went out onto the streets at night. No one but the evicted.

You could get evicted now for the smallest thing; running your disposal after eight, playing your guitar too cheerfully, tracking mud into the foyer.

There was no rhyme or reason to the evictions. And once you were evicted you had maybe one, maybe two days to live. The things that came out at night fed on the evicted.

Alan had lived in this apartment now for three months. Mr. Roxby had lived here prior. Mr. Roxby had been evicted for leaving mail in his mailbox overnight.

Mr. Roxby had only lasted the day. That night Alan had witnessed him being devoured by the things. Alan had even tried to help by throwing Mr. Roxby a baseball bat so he could whack them back and away, sometimes if someone got an opening in the pack and climbed high enough they could last another night. But the bat Alan threw down to him did little to help Mr. Roxby. He had not been able to swing it more than twice before they had him on the ground. Then no amount of noise could block the screaming. Alan had watched with his stomach churning. He felt he owed it to Mr. Roxby.

The next day Alan had gone down to the street and hosed away the stain.

Through the open window the screams were finally still. Alan muted the tv and put his face into his shaking hands. He heard a swish and looked up at the door just in time to see a slip of paper glide over the threshold and slide to a stop right next to his chair.

His first thought was good thing I retrieved the baseball bat, his second was I wonder how long I'll last.

A link to this week's 75 #fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

Something Simple -- flash fiction

I found it in a basket in a garage sale. I had one just like it in junior high. Those wide staring eyes. The stumpy feet. The strange lack of genitals, but a belly button and a fully formed backside complete with buttcrack.

Its hair was hot pink. I reflexively stroked it as I picked it up.

"That's a quarter miss."

I stood frozen to the spot. Watching a story play out in my mind's eye.

"Miss? Miss that's a quarter."

I still don't really believe that my wishing on something made of rubbery plastic with glued in hair could have caused everything that followed, but sometimes……

"Miss? Are you alright miss?"

I sat down before I fell down on a rickety lawn chair and put my head between my knees. All that money on therapy. Did seeing a stupid rubber doll in a basket just undo several thousand dollars worth of therapy?

My clothes were soaked through. I could see sweat from my forehead dripping onto the driveway between my sandals.

"I'll get you a glass of water. It must be the heat…..you just sit there a minute."

It was all coming back. Washing over me. The humiliation. The feeling of powerlessness. Cindy, Rosie, Dianne. The terrible trio. The ones who stood in the door to eighth grade homeroom passing judgment on my overbite, my hair, my hand-me-down clothes.

Then the wish on the wishnick. Something simple. Just a little bit of power. Dr. Joseph said that their disappearance had nothing to do with me. And over the years I had come to believe her.

I had oral surgery and six years of braces. I finished top of my college class and got a good job. I wore comfortable yet stylish clothes. I smiled at myself in the mirror. Now holding this stupid grinning troll doll had made me unravel.

It had only been that once. Ever since I had been able to hide it, or beat it back into submission.

This is the first time that I have had a meltdown like this in public. And in the daytime. I just hope that I can manage to drink my water without showing the lady my fangs, or worse yet, ripping out her throat and burying her in the woods right next to Cindy, Rosie and Dianne.

 

A second offering for those who dare... Fresh is Best... my new flash piece at Flashes in the Dark


And lastly a link to this week's 67 #fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia

Catsup soup -- flash fiction

David stood in front of the open refrigerator looking at its meager contents. Nothing. Nothing appealed to him at all. And no wonder….. the sticky shelves held few options. He took in the entire contents of the fridge in one mournful glance, his eyes telling his stomach it could choose between some really old takeout, a few slices of questionable cheese and various jars of condiments. That was it. Not even a jar of pickles. He looked over at Jessup who was also hoping for something marvelous from the refrigerator and said "I could kill right now for a pickle, Jessup."
It had been a lot better when Molly was around. Molly could whip up something delicious out of nothing. Even in the middle of the night. He'd open the refrigerator and stand there looking but not seeing anything worth the trouble of eating and Molly would wander in, nudge him gently out of the way with her hip, take out a few leftovers and voila they'd have a seafood burrito or western omelets or some potatoes and ham fried up to crispy perfection. Molly was a leftover genius. She could make nothing into something in under ten minutes.
That was back when David thought that he knew what nothing was. Back before the incident. Back when he could still look at himself in the mirror and recognize the self that stared back. Back before the constant noise in his head. Back before the cracks appeared.
After that day things had spiraled. In a matter of months he had lost his job, his car, his house, his health insurance, his self esteem, his friends and finally his wife. But that wasn't Molly's fault. He'd driven her away. When Jessup needed a place to stay and he'd brought him home Molly had looked at him and said that having another mouth to feed just wasn't possible. But David had insisted that he needed Jessup to talk to since Jessup understood him. Three weeks later Molly had left. She had kissed him on the lips and said "David, I love you but I can't live like this any longer. Please get some help. You're spinning into the abyss."
Now most days David walked in the park. He knew a lot of the other regulars by sight and would nod at them but never made an attempt at connecting further. He would do his chin ups and walk his three miles and then trudge back home to sit on the floor in the empty living room and talk to Jessup until they both fell into fitful sleep.
The only variation to the routine had been one day last week when he'd found the gun. It was lying on the ground under some leaves and he had just happened to see the sun glinting off the short blue black barrel. It was a small hand gun, maybe a .38 caliber, maybe a .32, David wasn't sure. It had one bullet left in the cylinder.
"Jessup I don't want you to think that I'm crazy. But I keep thinking about why the universe would supply me with a gun with one bullet. You know I don't believe in passing up opportunities given by the powers that be. We discussed that at length the night we met."
David closed the refrigerator and crossed the room to open a window a couple of inches so Jessup could squeeze out afterwards.
Then he put some water on to boil, opened the refrigerator again, pulled a couple of things out and put them on the counter.
"It's all settled then, Jessup. It looks like a piece of cheese for you and catsup soup for me."

The Choice of a Lifetime -- flash fiction

Maggie wandered listlessly from room to room. Mr. Smooshy gathered cat hair and dust bunnies in his fur as she dragged him along behind her.

Denise peered through the window across the alley and saw the neglected toddler roaming around the empty apartment again. She had on the same grungy footie pajamas as yesterday only today she was holding a sippy cup in one hand and dragging a stuffed toy around behind her with the other. She looked awful. Her skin was blotchy and dull and her hair stood out around her head like a dandelion seed pressed into service as a depository for bits of lint and what looked like leaves. Denise wished again that she had binoculars. She'd love to be able to look closer at the notes and things stuck all over the refrigerator. There was bound to be a phone number for a relative or a babysitter on the refrigerator. Who leaves a child alone like that without a babysitter?

"There she is again all by herself in the apartment. I'm going to call the police or child services and this time you're not talking me out of it Fred." Denise looked over at Fred on his perch. His beady parrot eyes gleamed back at her. "Where's my purse? Where's my purse?" he squawked.

"I know that I'm too soft hearted. But this isn't like the hurt pigeon that the cops wouldn't come to rescue from the window ledge, this is a child. A child who needs assistance."

Denise picked up the phone to dial 911 but then she remembered the dispatcher telling her in a rather sharp voice that she should only call if it was a life threatening emergency. She put the phone back in the cradle and wondered how she'd know. She had thought that the pigeon's life was threatened and therefore it was a life threatening emergency, but the dispatcher hadn't seen it that way.

Denise made up her mind. She removed her indoor sweater, hung it neatly on a padded hanger in the closet and took her outdoor sweater off the hook by the door. She inserted her spindly arms and counted all eight buttons neatly shut. She stood a moment running her arms over the soft familiar fabric while taking deep calming breaths to steady her nerves. When she was ready, or as ready as she'd ever be, she undid the bolts, opened the door and stepped out into the world.

Maggie was so very hungry. She could feel the lady across the alley staring. She willed her to come. She took a sip from the sippy cup and made herself look even smaller and more pitiful. She looked down at Mr. Smooshy. Nothing could make Mr. Smooshy look more pitiful. After all, what's more pitiful than a dead cat? He hadn't suffered. None of them ever suffered. Maggie made sure of that. She hoped the lady made up her mind soon because she was so very hungry. She was so very hungry and it had been days since she'd fed.

The link to this week's 60 #fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia


The Choice of a Lifetime also appears HERE at WEIRDYEAR a very cool online magazine published by the very cool E.S. Wynn.

Fashion advice from the great beyond -- flash fiction

When I was five I met my grandfather for the first time. Since he'd been dead for seventeen years meeting him came as kind of a shock to say the least.

I was in Grandma's front yard rocking on and pretending to fly the giant pink flamingo that had pride of place in the flower border. Technically the bird was just for decoration, but it was big enough for me to ride and Grandma encouraged me to play on it. I think she may have been hoping that I'd break it since she wasn't a fan of kitsch and Uncle Bill seemed hell bent on regularly sending her tacky gifts instead of calling or visiting. I think he secretly knew that she secretly hated the things that he sent. But he kept sending them and she kept displaying them and sending him photos. They had been going on like this for years and at this point it was pretty much a stand off. To say that their relationship was complicated would be an understatement of gigantic proportions.

So there I was, happily soaring and swooping the flaming pink flamingo through the brilliant cerulean sky when out of nowhere a small pebble bounced off of my knee. I looked around for one of my cousins but didn't see anyone. I shrugged and went back to rocking and pretending to fly through the clouds hot on the trail of evil doers, only me and my bird up to the task of saving the planet from complete and utter annihilation when another pebble took me out of my imagination by grazing my shoulder. I brought the bird in for a landing and got off to go investigate.

The stones seemed to be coming up from the cellar stairs.

Grandma's cellar was built in two parts. Half of it was enclosed under the house and half of it was open to the air under the porch. I had been playing in a trunk that I'd found in the enclosed part of the cellar earlier in the day and Grandma had given me permission to wear a really cool hat that I'd found.

Curious about who was in the cellar pitching pebbles at me, I pushed the hat rakishly to one side like Bogart in a movie, cocked my finger gun and wandered over to the top of the cellar stairs to smoke them out. A stone flew up from the cellar and knocked the really cool hat right off of my head. I ducked around the corner and tried to see who was down there in the gloom throwing rocks at me.

It was a bright sunny day but the cellar looked murky. I could make out the shape of a person, but no details. The shape was too big to be any of my cousins. And no uncles were visiting. I knew it wasn't Grandma because I could hear her singing off key over the hum of her sewing machine going full bore in the sun room at the front of the house.

And besides, Grandma would never throw a rock.

Puzzled, I stood there and called out "I've got a gun, come out with your hands up or I'll shoot" just like I'd seen the cops do in all the gangster movies that Grandma and I watched when we snuggled together on her couch in the evenings.

There was no response.

I waited a bit and then cautiously retrieved the hat and stuck my handsomely haberdashed head back around the edge of the stairwell. No further rocks sailed up so I crept closer. When I got to the top of the stairs I saw a glowing form at the bottom of the stairs raise its right arm. I was yanked off my feet into the air of the stairwell and without touching a single stair somersaulted to a flat on my back bone jarring landing on the concrete at the bottom of the steps.

My right arm took the brunt of the fall and I heard it snap as I hit the floor. When I rolled my throbbing head to the side to look at it I could see the white bone sticking out at a funny angle.

I smelled pipe tobacco and cologne as a shadow leaned over me and plucked the hat off my head.

"Sorry about the arm kid, you need to learn to take a hint. You really don't look good in a hat."

This week's list of 57 stories at Mad Utopia

Remembered kisses -- flash fiction

She looked so innocent. But he knew that she had betrayed him. How? Don't ask. But still, those lips, those luscious, luscious lips. So soft, so firm, so kissable. He could never get by without them.

He gazed a final time at her, basking for a moment in the recollection of her warm sweet kisses, her loving promises. Then he said a last goodbye, his thumb gently stroking her lips as they parted.

He turned away secure in the knowledge that even though the relationship had ended her lips would always be his.

They would always be his to stroke, his to kiss.......his forever.... since they now lay lovingly nestled inside his warm but rather bloody jacket pocket.

The link to this week's 52 fridayflash stories at Mad Utopia