Virtual Reality

I'm back with another flash fiction post, thanks to the ever present, force of nature that is Mr. Chuck Wendig! The guy inspires and can wrench some serious creativity out of me. 


This week his challenge was presented by giving us 20 words. We had to pick 10 of them and incorporate them into the story. 


The 10 words I chose were: 
Beast 
Dinosaur
Brooch
Finger
Moth
Scream
Tornado
Cape
Fever
Gate

And now I give to you...

VIRTUAL REALITY

His breathing was hard but quiet. Crouched in the dark, his long cape trailed behind him like a scarlet river; the golden, oval brooch in his hand glowed. Its crimson stone filled with fire.

Keeping low, he poked his head slowly around the rock. The night was an obsidian wash over a silver landscape that allowed his eyes to see the details with shocking accuracy.

It was still.

Glancing back at the large stone edifice behind him, he clutched the brooch tight.

From the left came movement.

He could see the large beast was scanning the terrain, its armored head lifting and lowering alternately, as it attempted to focus in the dark. Vision was obviously not its strongest defense.

The dinosaur long tail slid across the ground as it walked, gouging trenches into the soil.

The area was filled with thick vegetation. He moved between the large leaves with stealth and silence. The brooch’s glow warmed his fingers almost uncomfortably, yet he gripped it tighter.

The wind began to blow sending a hissing sound through the lush forest.

Readying himself to run to the next tree for cover, he froze when the dinosaur looked in his direction. He pressed tight to the tree’s narrow trunk. Sweat formed on his forehead, tickling his temples. In a few moments the beast went back to the familiar bobbing motion, turning its head away.

Clouds were forming quickly, thick and roiling with flashes of lightning and thunder. His time was running out.

Lightning lit up the sky and he could see the gate at the far end of an open area. The dinosaur pawed at the ground, licking where he had been only moments before. There was no time to stop. In order to get to the gate he would have to cross it in one bold sprint.

Taking a deep breath, he bolted from the safety of the tree. The dinosaur roared in anger as it saw him and charged. With his cape flying behind him, he pumped his legs harder to gain speed. His boots kicked up clods of dirt behind him.

The ground shook with the dinosaur’s footfalls. The gate was still far away. The dinosaur, jaws snapping, would catch up soon.

The closer he got to the gate, the hotter and brighter the brooch became. It was burning into his flesh with an unforgiving fever, scorching his skin. Pain shot up his arm.

Lungs burning, he ran ever faster.

CRACK!

The dinosaur’s great jaw snapped shut, missing him by inches. He could feel the warm breath on his neck. He wasn’t going to make it.

Broad white wings appeared in front of him. He felt his feet leave the ground as his body was lifted. The world below was becoming smaller.

The enormous moth screeched as the dinosaur leapt into the air after it. It flapped its wings harder and they both rose quickly into the sky.

The wind had become brutal, whipping at the two of them. He clung to the moth’s spindly legs. He could see that it was taking him away from the gate.

Suddenly a different noise filled his ears. Turning his head he could see that the rumbling roar signaled the approach of a large TORNADO. 

The moth began to tilt and beat it’s wings faster. He was struggled to hold on, all the while keeping the brooch clasped in his hand. Behind them, the dinosaur was snatched up in the strong winds and tossed out of view. The tornado bore down on them.

The moth’s giant wings were ripped from its body as it beat against the gusts, and the two of them plummeted toward the ground, turning and tumbling.

The man opened his mouth and a scream was pulled from his body, lost in the sound of the storm.

Just before they slammed into the ground, the funnel snatched them. The moth let go and they were thrown in separate directions.

He was thrown from the tornado, flying fast through the air. When he landed, the carcass of a large, dead dinosaur beneath him lessened the impact. He rolled off and saw that the gate was in front of him. His hand sizzled from the intense heat of the brooch.

He ran, sore and bruised, and crossed through the large, iron passage. A bright light blinded him and he shielded his face with his arm.

There was no sound. His body felt weightless.

In an instant, he fell back into the familiar cushioned chair.

“What a ride, hey?”

The helmet was being lifted from his head. He blinked to adjust his eyes in the dimly lit room.

“So… was it worth the money?” The assistant didn’t wait for him to reply, leaving the room with the helmet.

His hand was aching. Bringing it up to his face he saw the red, angry oval mark.

“Yeah. Yeah it was.”

Christmas In A Strange Place

This post is another answer to a Chuck Wendig flash fiction call. He asked us to write about any situation that would fulfill the strange Christmas request.

I have had little Elizabeth in my head for a while. She's been begging to have a story written about her, so she gave me the following.

I call it...

CHRISTMAS EVE

 “Wake up, Elizabeth. It’s Christmas.”

A small Elizabeth shifted away from her brother’s shaking, deeper under the covers.

“Elizabeth, come on!”

Elizabeth grunted.

“Let’s see what presents Santa brought us!”

Elizabeth’s eyes opened, filled with excitement, if only for a moment. William had already jumped out of bed.

It was very quiet.

As she sat up, her excitement left her. She knew what to expect.

Pretty soon her parents were beside her bed, urging her to get up. She did so reluctantly, with a scowl on her face.

Passing by a small window, Elizabeth could see that it was dark outside. She sighed.

“Come on kids,” said their father, smiling brightly as he guided them to a small table set with bowls at each place.

They all sat down and soon the clinks of spoons scooping and scraping at the bowls filled the air. Elizabeth didn’t eat a thing. She only watched the others and felt angrier.

They finished up, leaving the bowls on the table.

“Let’s go see if Santa came,” said their father, clapping his hands together. His happiness gnawed at Elizabeth. She crossed her arms. No one seemed to notice.

William was the first to get to the tree.

There were presents under it, of course, and Elizabeth watched as he fell to his knees, beckoning for her to come sit next to him.

She shook her head and didn’t move.

William shrugged and began to pass out the presents.

Elizabeth’s became a pile at her feet.

The others opened their presents, sharing their surprise and excitement.

With the last present open, one by one, they looked at Elizabeth with concern.

Her mother spoke first.

“Why haven’t you opened your presents, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth was exasperated.

“My presents?” barked Elizabeth. She bent down and picked up one of the still wrapped presents. “You mean this doll?” She put it back down and grabbed another. “Or this bag of candy?” Reaching for the last one, she said, “How about this set of new hair clips?”

Her parents stared at her blankly.

Elizabeth pushed the presents away from her with her foot.

“Did you go snooping?” asked her father, who was beginning to be cross with her.

“Snooping? I don’t need to snoop! I always know what they are.” Elizabeth started pacing and flailing her arms as she spoke. “You do, too! You’re just blind to it.”

“What do you mean?” her mother broke the silence with a whisper.

“Think about it! Every year it’s the same thing. William gets a ball, a set of jacks, and some licorice. Father gets a tie, and some socks, and mother gets some powder and a kerchief.”

They all began to look at their presents and back to each other in shock.

“You still don’t see it, do you?”

Elizabeth marched to her brother. “Come here.”

William got to his feet, and their parents did the same.

Elizabeth took them by the window where the first rays of morning were softening the sky and back to the table.

Elizabeth grabbed a bowl.

“See. They’re empty.”

She walked around the table tilting each bowl so that they could see.

“But we finished our meal,” said their father, trying to sound strong but squeaking out the last word.

“But look at mine.” She showed it to them. It was empty and clean. “I didn’t eat.”

Her mother’s eyes were starting to brim with tears.

“You could be tricking us,” her mother pleaded, her hand covering her mouth.

“You still don’t see!” Elizabeth squealed.

She grabbed William’s hand again and led them out of the room, down the stairs.

They all stopped abruptly at what they saw.

There was another family in the living room. They were sitting at a Christmas tree, and a small child was opening presents.

“What is this?” asked their father.

Elizabeth said nothing.

Their father walked slowly toward the people.

“Excuse me, but who do you think you are, breaking into my house?” He shouted as he stood with his hands on his hips.

The family did not answer, did not even acknowledge him.

Getting annoyed, the father walked in front of the other man.

“Now see here,” he said, stooping down in front of his face.

The man kept laughing with his wife, looking through their father.

Elizabeth went to her father. His face had turned blank, and he let her guide him away. Her mother’s soft cries could be heard behind them as they walked back up the stairs to the attic.

When they opened the door to their room, everything had changed. They could see the dining room table was really an old piece of furniture, beat and banged up. Elizabeth and Williams bed was an old washtub, the Christmas tree, an old, broken coat rack.

The room wasn’t bright and happy anymore; it was brown and dirty.

“We died in this house many years ago, on Christmas Eve night. There was a fire. See?” Elizabeth pointed at the black marks that spread up the walls to the roof.

Their father held their mother as she sobbed.

“We’ve been here since then. We always celebrate the same Christmas that we died. Every year. That’s how I knew what presents I would get.”

Turning back, their true form appeared. Burned and scarred, the family saw each other as they really were.

For the first time, they could accept their fate.

Elizabeth walked to the small window.

Her family joined her, and they held each other tight.

The snow fell softly outside as the sun rose above the horizon.

Elizabeth and her family faded away together, into the light.

The Woods

This story is a call to Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge to create a brand new monster. Monsters are my thing. They breed inside my head like a swirling mass of snake orgies. When one is written down, a new one is born. I see them in my dreams, I hear their bastard noises in my head as I write. 


So I couldn't pass this one up, right? 


I give you my little homage to the recent news of a possible ancient kraken. Those articles really seeded into my brain and I spun this tale on a whim. I hope you enjoy!

THE WOODS

He could hear the raspy breathing.

David hunkered down in the dark woods, trying to stay quiet. His heart pounded hard in his chest and he was sure that would give him away.

He thought of his wife and children, how they were probably sleeping sound in their warm, familiar beds. For a moment, a streak of warmth spread through him, only to be replaced by an ice-cold dread that ran through his bones when he heard twigs break nearby.

He couldn’t stay here in the open, hiding feebly behind a tree.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he peeked around the side in the direction the noise had come from. It was so dark that most of the forms were nondescript shades of black in the night. The trees canopy blocked out almost the entire moon light, leaving him mostly blind.

Something moved in front of him and slightly to the right.

He took off in the opposite direction.

With his body tucked tight and low, he ran. His feet hit the ground, light and swift. He was amazed at how little noise he was making.

He took off in a sprint, running a zig zag pattern occasionally, other times straight shots in one direction, trying to lose it yet waiting for it to grab him from behind.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he wasn’t sure, but it looked like there might have been movement about 30 feet behind him. It wasn’t directly behind him; instead it was as if the thing was paralleling him, merely staying with his pace.

He knew he would have to stop soon. His breath felt like fire in his chest, each burst burning up his trachea, rushing out his open mouth. Sweat fell into his eyes, stinging, but he didn’t care. It had been many years since he had ran like this. Honestly he didn’t know how he was doing it now, other than the sheer, raw feeling of survival coupled with fear coursing through him.

Another glance, the same. Suddenly his leg met with a sharp object. He fell head over feet to the ground, rolling onto branches, twigs, and the mossy floor below. Pain shot through his left leg and he heard a sickening snap as the bone broke.

His sharp scream bit into the night.

When he came to a stop, he was disoriented from the tumble and his body began to throb with the pain.

It was here.

It was stopped, and looking at him, its head cocked to one side.

The shiny, almost transparent skin was rippling. Two large eyes slanted upward, moving their gaze over him.

Tentacles, too many to count, all sizes and lengths, undulated in a never-ending spiraling mass around its body.

As he watched, it moved forward using two thick legs that bent backward, the opposite of our own. The tentacles curled up at their ends and touched the earth much like an ape’s fists.

When it was directly beside him, it leaned its enormous head over his body and peered over him.

Afraid to move, and no longer noticing the pain, he watched.

Slowly a mouth opened underneath its eyes. It started as a small slit, and enlarged to a gaping hole. Many teeth glistened, and it drew breath in large gasps.

Watching its mouth, he never saw the tentacles fold in over his body. Quickly they lashed onto him, and the poison was warm, filling his body with a pleasant numbness.

It drew him up under its body. There was no more pain in his leg.

His body rolled a few times once it reached the creatures belly, and he could make out the strong legs. They were covered in a course, sparse fur, and flexed with each small movement.

They began to move.

He began to feel as if he were being pulled backward through a tunnel. Now he couldn’t feel anything. It reminded him of being numbed at the dentist office, only all over his body. That thick, spongy feel covered him.

He could hear the sound of water. It was the lake.

Still, he felt no fear.

Nearing the water, it lowered itself to the ground, splaying the tentacles out all around.

He could barely see anything now. Everything seemed so far away.

It drug him along the ground, sliding and pulling him at the same time.

They entered the water, and slipped in with ease.

When the water filled his lungs, he felt nothing.

His vision merely left him. Faded out.

The creature swam deep, taking him to its nest.

Once there, it tore him limb from limb.

But he was already gone.

Revenge

I have Chuck Wendig to thank, once more, for another inspired blog post. His challenge for this week was based on the theme of revenge. Any genre.

I know my last post was a crime laden tale, and, surprisingly, this one is, too. 

He gave us 100 words this week instead of 1,000. An entire story, not a vignette. This was a challenge, but a fun one.

I give you my offering.

REVENGE

"You did it and now you will pay."

The gun dug into the soft skin under his chin.

He swallowed and choked out, "Please, I didn't know."

"You saw us together. You knew she was mine."

There was a sharp pain and a loud crack as the baseball bat met his ribs.

He bawled like a baby.

"You did it and you will pay."

He could hear the trigger being squeezed.

"No, please!" he shrieked. His hands, tied behind his back, opened futilely.

The gun fired and he fell to the floor.

"She's all mine now," she said.

Who's Got the Money?

When Chuck Wendig issued his weekly flash fiction challenge, I looked at it thinking, I don't know much about guns and crime is not really my modus operandi, so I filed it in the back of my head and figured I would skip this one. The prize, however, was very tempting. He would pick his one favorite story and the writer would receive a copy of CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA by Frank Bill. Well, hello howdy, that was some incentive. The thought of getting that precious gem in my hot hands was eating at me all week. 


What happens but twenty minutes before the shut off for getting my story in, I have a glimpse of a tale involving crime and guns. I decided to write it and even though I won't be considered for the book, I would have challenged myself to write something I normally wouldn't. We'll call it an exercise in crime, or futility. Whatever. 


The story follows, and I hope you enjoy. It's short and to the point, and it just may be a little too predictable, but please take it for what it is: a fun little foray into crime and guns on a Friday afternoon. 

Who's Got the Money?

“For fuck’s sake, you could have gotten us killed!”

Bob used the butt of his gun to whack Toby up the side of his head. A dull thud resulted.

“B-buh ma gun jambed,” said Toby, holding his head.

“Ma gun jambed,” Bob mocked. “You’re a fucking idiot. You’re lucky I don’t use the other end on you.” Bob panted his words out in choppy syllables as they sat in the darkened room.

“Th-thorry, d-don fweak out.”

“Freak out? FREAK OUT???” Again with the gun and thud. This time Toby cried out and started to whimper. “Where’s Angel? She should have been here by now.”

Their backs were pressed up against a metal shelving unit, which dug into their flesh with each movement. This didn’t really matter. What did matter was that the duffel bag was beside them, cash in hand, so to speak.

“You th-th, th-think we’re thafe?” asked Toby softly.

“What are they going to do? Run after us on their bloody stubs?” Bob snorted.

“Angel was going to take care of anybody that was left. You do remember the plan, right shithead? And I don’t doubt that she had a bit of fun while doing it.” Bob sniffed.

“Wh-what now?”

“What now, you stupid twit. Now we wait. Angel will be back soon. When she gets here, the plan sticks. We leave. That’s it,” he continued. “We’re done. No one left to come after us, and we celebrate. “

Bob hopped up and walked to the end of the shelves, ducking down and looking around the corner.

After a moment’s pause, he shuffled back, low to the ground.

Toby rubbed his aching head.

Bob sat down next to Toby, closer this time, and started fidgeting. “Listen, there’s something you and me need to talk about. It’s Angel. I don’t think we can trust her.”

Toby stopped rubbing and looked straight ahead.

“Sal said she was dirty. I’m talking real bad. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my days wondering if she’s going to come and get me, do you?”

Toby sat still.

Bob was fidgeting more, shifting, and making a small sniffing sound, messing with his nose.

“The way I see it, we need to take care of this problem. Tonight.”

Bob pulled another gun from his pocket and handed it to Toby.

“Here, use this. Just make sure you get a clear shot, and don’t let her suffer. She may be a bad egg, but she was good to us once.”

The gun sat in Toby’s limp hand. He could feel the sweat from Bob’s hand on it. It felt greasy.

“Don’t say a word, and I will try to get her so you can have a clear shot. Just don’t hit me, ok?”

Silence.

“OK?” Bob nearly yelled, his voice echoing in the empty room.

A moment passed with nothing, and Toby still sat with the gun in his hand.

Bob lifted his hand to strike Toby in the head again, when there was the small sound of a bullet passing through a silencer.

Bob made a stifled grunt and fell sideways onto Toby, his blood and brains oozing from the hole in his forehead. Some of the mess was on Toby’s legs.

Angel slid around the corner, putting her gun away as she walked.

Toby shoved him away, and stood shaking his legs to rid himself of the gore.

“You did good, Toby,” she purred as she walked up to him and ran her hands through his hair. “Now it’s just me and you. I will take care of you.”

Angel bent down to grab the duffel bag.

“We need to get out of here before the cops come. I took care of the leftovers. The DeLoache’s are all gone.”

Angel stepped forward to Toby, running her fingertips over his cheek. She pulled his face to hers and started to kiss him.

The shot was loud, ringing off the walls.

Angel fell.

Toby pulled the duffel bag from her hand.

“No, bitch, the DeLoache’s are still here.”