31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 24

The Butcher’s Son
His fingers ache from the work, but it is done.
He watches the gathering after the wake, the ones he hates so much sit side by side, consoling one another after the loss of their son.
They didn’t cry like this when Daniel died. They didn’t cry when they caused his death. His little brother has been in the ground three weeks, their son only hours.
He sees the waiter bring the hors d’oeuvres and tenses. The silver plate with the chopped meat on fancy little crackers. They pause and speak to another couple, nodding with the condolences. She takes two of the crackers from the tray, hands one to her husband. They both pop the snacks into their lying mouths.
He stands from his seat in the corner of the room. No one has noticed him there, the unwillingly adopted child. His knees are dirty from his work, his hands clean but smelling of formaldehyde. He walks across the room toward them, remembering the way the meat cut away from the bones.
And he smiles before he tells them what they’re really eating.   

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 23

Hope everyone's having a great October!

I know I'm having fun writing these little tidbits.

They
He watches them move in the dark.
They are stealthy, quick and careful as they run and lope between the trees.
But he sees them.
Their smiles are what betray them.
The glint of teeth and blue light from somewhere inside their mouths.
It’s like they’re on fire deep within.
He watches them through the riflescope, wondering where they’ll attack the barricade next or if they’ll try at all tonight.
He wonders if the small settlement will survive the coming years or the horrific winters since this all began.
He watches them move in the dark, and wonders what their names were when they were people just like him.  

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 22

Picture
I found a picture of my sister today.
She’s standing behind me while I sit on the couch, the Christmas tree to our left poking into view.  
The eerie smile that only she was able to create on her face.
Her wild hair pulled back and her green eyes luminous in the low light. My own aren’t quite as bright but you can still tell we’re twins.   
I stared at the picture so long that I thought I might go insane. Wondering, waiting. For what I didn’t know. For it to start moving? For her to wave?
I’m not sure.
I’m trying not to think about it right now as I lay in bed, awake and thinking about it. I’m trying not to see her mouth, open, as if trying to tell me something. And I both want and don’t want to know what she’s saying.
Because you see, my sister, my twin, was my best friend and I would never fear her.
But this picture is from last Christmas.
And she’s been dead for sixteen years next May. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 21

Happy Monday!

I know, shut up, right? ;-)

The River Inside
Where there’s one, there’s many.
That was the motto the world lived by when the parasites turned up. They appeared in the water tables. Hooked mouths that chewed. A hundred feet that crawled. Something they secreted that made people, do things.
Terrible things.
The world ended three years ago.
A new one for me began seven months ago when Lily became pregnant.
But today I found one of them in my stool.
And now that I look at Lily’s bulging stomach, I wonder why I ever thought it was a baby at all. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 20

It's snowing here.

Yuck. But hey, a little cold weather never killed anyone! Well, maybe it has, but anyways- enjoy today's story!

Stuffed Animal
Her small hand strokes the teddy bear’s fur.
His button eyes, cold, hanging loose on strings.
And when her fingers move down, they fall into his mouth.
The sound of his teeth snapping shut the loudest sound.
For a second. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 19

There Is No After
There is no after.
That’s what he said to me after the doctors revived him.
Only darkness and cold, nothing else. We’re being fed a lie, he said. False ideas and ideals mixed with the cold drought of fear. Makes for a bitter but convincing meal.
But I believe him. He’s the only person I’ve known that’s died and returned.
So when I found him with the inside of his head sprayed against the wall tonight, I wondered.
Why did he want to go back so soon? 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 18

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope your week was great!

Trees
There are faces in the trees.
They watch me as I pass. Licking their lips.
I catch them out of the corner of my eye. When I look, they’re gone.
I’ve been lost for 3 weeks. Walking blindly through the autumn woods. Peter is gone and I’m still lost. We came to hunt, to camp, to laugh.
We did the first two and some of the third, until we got turned around.
I’m determined to make it out alive, but the trees-the trees know my secret. And they smile and watch as I wander alone.
Like I said, Peter is gone now, all used up.
And I’m still hungry. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 17

Two weeks until Halloween!

That is all.

Enjoy.

The Last Flight
The sea called to him.
Each time he flew over it, it said his name. It could be a calm night, the moon lighting its surface as if it rested beneath the water instead of over it. It could be a humid day, its waves tipped crimson by the sun.
It called to him as his wings hummed with the air currents. His eyes sought its depths, a lover’s gaze that wouldn’t falter. How many times had he soared above it, wondering what lay below, what waited for him? Tonight was the night, there would be no more resisting its pull.
With careful movements he pushed the controls forward and listened for the sea’s voice above the screams of all two hundred fifty people onboard.  

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 16

 

Dust
My father used to hurt me.
Sometimes for doing something wrong. Sometimes for not doing anything. A magazine, a bottle, his fists, he used whatever was handy.
I think he loved me. Somehow beneath all the anger there was love. Maybe that’s what everyone tells themselves. It’s what my mom told me after he died a year ago.
She was always so blind.
I remember putting him in the ground. It rained that day, and it was hot. Big dollops of water muddying up the grave. And when we came home, things were better.
I think he loved me. At least I tell myself that.
Because each night since he died, I can hear him calling my name from far away.
And his voice is getting closer. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 15

About halfway through the month, hope everyone's still enjoying the stories!

Cabbage Patch
When I cut the squash open I didn’t expect a baby to fall out.
He was perfect. Smooth skin, a tuft of dark hair just like mine, his eyes the same color blue. I would’ve claimed him as my son in the natural world if I’d ever been married.
He was strange. Besides being born from a large butternut squash, he didn’t cry, eat, or drink. He just stared, looking at me with eyes that could've been my own. All these things should’ve tipped me off. But I didn’t know anything was really wrong until this morning.
When I woke up to the oven heating around me. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 14

Every Monday needs a little pick-me-up, right?

Hope this does it for you!

Jack And The Bean
He’d been tricked.
Half of his animals and three pieces of silver traded for one dried up bean.
Jack wept, staring at the ground, waiting for even a miniscule green tendril to appear. He’d planted it in the sun, just like the old man said. He’d watered it, kept the ground free of leaves and weeds around it. Tended to it for weeks.
Nothing.
He was starving. Slowly he dug up the ground and found the bean right where he’d put it. Unchanged. Dry. Dead.
He brought it in the house with him just as a thunderstorm began to crackle in the heavens. Rain pattered in the hole he left, began to fill it up.
He washed the bean and sat down at the table, poured salt and pepper on it, and downed it in one bite.
Jack went to bed, his stomach still crying out for food. The storm raged above his small house, making the walls shake.
And in the middle of the night, the bean began to grow.

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 13

Happy Sunday!

Outside The Window, Inside The Room
The lights are outside his window again.
At first I ignored them, wrote them off as headlights from the neighbors or some strange reflection shining through the trees.
But my son is different now.
I noticed the day after I found his bed empty in the middle of the night. I heard him cry out and then nothing, a vacuum of sound where his voice had been. When I went in his room, he wasn’t there. Which is impossible because he can’t go anywhere without me lifting him in and out of his wheelchair.
I rushed around the house, screaming his name and by the time I’d made the full circuit, he was back in his room, sleeping like he’d never left.
The next morning his eyes were different. His pupils oval instead of round. The movement of his legs stronger. His teeth sharper. He doesn’t even look like my son anymore.
They’ve taken him five times. Each time he comes back there's less of him.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
Except tonight I’m hiding beneath his bed. When they come to take him, I’m going with.
Then I’m going to find him. The real him.
And bring him home. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 12

Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy of Lineage yesterday, I really appreciate it! It's still priced at $.99 so if you're so inclined you can still get in on the deal here.

Hope you enjoy today's story!

In The Night
She held his hand, close to her chest and tried to fall asleep.
Had he touched her with this hand? She supposed he had. There was no getting around it, he’d been unfaithful before and she’d ignored it, but this time was different.
She traced the lines of his palm in the dark, wondering at which juncture their lives had intertwined. Had they always been meant to be together? Or had fate made a mistake? She didn’t know. All she wanted was to have everything back the way it was before, but that wasn’t going to happen.
She rolled over and put his hand on the nightstand. Tomorrow she’d cut off the other one if only to get his wedding ring back. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 11

Happy Friday everyone!

The Corner
“Your wife’s standing in the corner.”
The doctor started and glanced at the empty corner of the room that Edwards nodded at.
“Now you know that’s impossible, right, Mr. Edwards? We can both see that the corner’s empty.”
Edwards shrugged, the straightjacket creaking with the effort. “Just because you can’t see her doesn’t mean I can’t.”
The doctor smiled, taking off his glasses to clean them. “Okay, Mr. Edwards, what’s she wearing this evening.”
“A blue dress with a white flower pinned on it. And there’s a golden chain around her neck with a heart at the end engraved with her initials.”
The doctor’s eyes bulged and his mouth slowly dropped open, his voice a whisper. “H-h-how do you know that? My wife’s been dead for five years.”
Edwards leaned closer, smiling. “Yeah, and she’s really angry that you made her that way.”

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 10

Before you read today's flash fiction I just wanted to mention that Lineage, my first novel, is on sale for $.99 for a limited time. If you have the chance to check it out that would be great!

Now, on to today's piece...

From Below
We’ve been trapped in the mine for five days.
Four hundred feet down.
Don died yesterday morning. I’m the last one left.
But I awoke last night to noises in the small opening we’re trapped in.
Furtive, quiet, but there.
I would say it was the rescue crew, boring in, getting closer, the sounds belonging to their equipment, that freedom is not far away.
And there is light illuminating my little space where I’m crouched, which would add to my hope.
If it weren’t coming from below.  

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 9

It's my birthday today and this is my gift to you.

Enjoy!

Dirty Love
The pine trees swayed overhead, speaking to him as he buried her.
“Shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have done it,” he said, tossing another shovelful in. “I was the one guy you shouldn’t have done that to.”
He grunted, pushing more dirt into the hole that was almost filled in. “Now I’m gonna have to leave town, and it’s all your fault.”
He wiped away sweat that might’ve had a tear mixed in with it. “I loved you so much.” He patted the earth once, tamping it down. “I’m just glad you’ll never be able to hurt anyone else like you did me.”
As he walked away the wind gusted once more, cutting through the pine needles overhead, and almost drowned out her screams from underground.  

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 8

The Quiet Thing
It waits on a mantle.
Sometimes a table. Sometimes a bookshelf.
But always it waits.
It travels from one house to the next, handed down, sold, traded, but never discarded.
It sees the gun flash, the spray of red.
And it waits.
It sees the shining grin of a knife, cutting arteries.
And it waits.
It sees the noose drawing tight, feet swinging free.
And it waits.
It watches all death with glazed marble eyes.
And it smiles. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction- Day 6

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Hope you enjoy this one!

Monday Morning Blues
His head ached.
The echo of whiskey beating in the back of his skull, a war drum of pain.
The shower helped very little since there was no water. He cussed.
A rat waited for him on the dining room table. It had a finger in its mouth, turning it for the meat. He sighed and walked past it to the coat closet, donned his suit.
When he opened the door the fires weren’t burning as strong as the night before.
But the stack of bodies was higher.
A hundred feet high.
He whistled a little inside the containment suit as he picked up his shovel and got to work.
  

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 5

Happy Saturday everyone!

Tingle
The plague came a year ago today.
It crushed us, pummeled humanity under a relentless fist of death until we were few. Only hundreds immune.
But all that succumbed didn’t die.
I don’t know what it does to the body, but when we don’t perish, we grow.
Tall. Unbelievably tall.
And hungry.
They come at night, on long legs too fast to outrun, too tall to hide from, their eyes seeing far in the dark.
But tonight is different. All day I’ve had a tingling in my bones.
Tonight I’ll un-barricade the door.
And hunt. 

31 Days Of Flash Fiction - Day 4

Here's a little creep to ease you into the weekend.

Hope you're not washing clothes tonight. ;-)

Last Wash
The thumping sound is muted by the falling coins, but not enough for her not to hear it.
She turns, glancing down the shining rows of washing machines, all quiet but one.
The Laundromat empty, except for her.
She moves down the row, clutching change, her fist tight, eyes wide-staring at the frothing water on the other side of the porthole.
She leans close.
And sees the teeth in its mouth before it bursts through the glass.