Tag: Flash Fiction

Writing challenges from the internets

The Bag Man

PavowskiLeave a comment

Chuck’s challenge for the week: The car chase.

The fact is, I am not that thrilled with car chases. All they ever seem like is another tool to demonstrate how clever the chasee is and how inept the chasers are, and usually that’s just a big game of cops and robbers but with explosions and smashed fruit stands and millions of dollars in collateral damage. So I tried something a little different, a sort of Walter Mitty glimpse inside a familiar scenario.

The Bag Man

Wednesday mornings are the best. I get left alone most of the time, only occasionally getting called upon to fetch this or that. Mostly I hang around trying to dig up dirt on the neighborhood offenders, a couple of crazy cats that like to loiter around and cause trouble for the locals. Makes me sick, really. Dunno why they can’t keep that stuff in their own neighborhood. It’s sort of a little game we have: one of them will set up shop in a shady spot until they see me coming, and then they just bolt. Truth be told, I don’t know what I’d do if I caught one of ’em, but I chase ’em to send the message: this is my turf, not yours. But before too long they hop a fence or scramble up a fire escape or something, and well, I’m not in the shape I once was, so that’s usually the end of that. I can’t help but get the sense that they’re laughing at me, but this is my turf — it’s not like I’m going to STOP chasing down the no-goodniks.

But there are none of them hanging around this morning, which is good. Leaves me undistracted so I can focus on the big kahuna.

I’ve been chasing this guy for years, but I’ve never truly had a good chance at catching him. He always catches me unawares, showing up and dropping off packages for his associates, and clearing out before I can question him. He doesn’t wait around for payment, so I’m guessing he’s just some sort of bag man for some even bigger, more sinister syndicate operating right under my nose. I’ll hear the roar of his engine as I’m sitting down for a nice bowl of chow, or while I’m hunkering down for a midday nap, and by the time I can get on the road to look for him, all I can see are his taillights going around the bend. He’s been dodging me for years, and all I’ve got is his vehicle; a flat white truck with blue stripes. Inconspicuous. Blends right in. Vanishes quick.

But not today. Today my superiors have been a little lax with the call-ins, and as a result I’ve been ensconced in this sweet little spot all morning. I’ve got the whole road staked out, from the Johnsons’ place with the absurd little Cupid fountain out front, to the Smiths’ down at the end of the block with that gorgeous picket fence. The kind the neighborhood toughs want to pee all over. Sleepy little town. My town. When this guy rolls through today, he’s gonna feel the heavy weight of justice as I clamp down with my —

Son of a bitch. There he is.

I hear him before I see him, the peppy little coffee-grinder sound of his engine betraying him from around the corner of the Johnsons’ yard with that low-hanging Magnolia tree. He’ll lurch into view, turn this way up the street, and then I’ll have him. And, sure as sunshine, there he is, the boxy front end of his little white truck poking into view, before he makes his move…

Bingo.

He turns down my street and I turn from my post, hopping down from my window seat — its comfortable shape, molded perfectly to my butt, forgotten as I fly into action — and down the stairs. I skid out of control when I hit the linoleum in the diner — they must’ve just waxed — and crash into the kitchen wall with a decidedly unheroic yelp. Not my proudest moment. I spin around in a jiffy, though, and dart for the back door, which crashes open as I barrel through it and bangs shut the moment I am clear. Its clatter sets my teeth on edge as it does every time I give chase, priming me for the hunt.

The truck is almost at the Smiths’ by the time I careen onto the road behind him, my tail end swinging wildly out into the far lane as I fight for traction on the rain-slick asphalt. Then everything catches and I am flying, hurtling through space toward him, his white-paneled exterior growing large in my vision, the absurd red-and-blue eagle taunting me from the back hatch. I see his arm withdraw, empty of packages, and I know it’s him. Another successful drop. The wind of my pursuit flows like fingers through my hair, whistles in my teeth, tastes of paper and diesel and lunch meat on my tongue.

His engine growls and he lurches away from the curb, that tinny grinding sound like a nest of angry bees infuriating me. He’s not getting away, I silently vow, not today. And I am certain that he can hear my growl from behind, because he’s picking up speed, scattering tiny pebbles like living, malevolent marbles and causing me to slip and fall further behind.

He can’t get away. But he’s going to. If he makes the turn onto Oak, he gets away every time. I can’t keep up with him in the open.

I call out for backup, barking out in short, clipped phrases to my colleagues, trying to get them to join the chase — The bag man! He’s on Studebaker Street! I’m in pursuit! — but I know, in my heart of hearts, that nobody will help me this time. I’ve roused them too many times, I’ve made this my own personal crusade, I’ve exhausted them with my tales of my great chases after this guy. I can see them now, elbow-deep in piles of trash looking for leads, asleep at the desks catching a nap before their shifts, lazily munching a snack of congealed bacon and beef from last night’s leftover burgers (probably going bad, but some guys will eat anything). They’ll hear my call, think to themselves, Rufus is at it again, and start laughing, already anticipating my tale of another failed pursuit.

Not this time, boys. I dart forward and just miss his bumper, go sailing into the road as he clips the turn short. An oncoming wood-paneled wagon slams its brakes and skids, its occupant just visible above the wheel, squinting through glasses that make her eyes look somehow twice as big as her head. She stares at me and I shout at her, “Get outta the way!” but she’s frozen behind the dash like a deer that’s just scented a predator, and I have to take to the sidewalk to get around her.

She’s helped this monster get away without even knowing it — Oak Street is a long stretch of straight road, and the white truck has opened up a tremendous gap on me. I slide back onto the asphalt, ignoring the honks of the angry motorists I cut off, and continue halfheartedly down the street. His taillights are tiny in the distance. He’s going to get away, I think, but then his taillights light up like great red eyes, and they stay lit. He’s stopping.

I’m renewed. Adrenaline surges into every inch of me as I open all the way up, cannonballing down the street, shocked motorists swerving aside and shouting out at my passage. He’s only a hundred yards away now. Fifty. I’m actually going to catch him. It’s happening. I can taste my victory. My tongue slides out across my teeth and hangs there.

I close the last twenty yards in a frenzy, sliding in sideways on the glossy black street to block his escape. I stare at him through the windshield, my weapons out, howling at him. Out of the car! He looks out the window, sees me, and jumps in surprise back against the door. Never expected I’d catch you, did you, you lowlife? He looks panicked. His eyes dart from me to his steering wheel, to the traffic stopped all around, onlookers gaping in dumbfounded wonder. I hear the chatter of my colleagues echoing in the background. They can’t believe I’ve done it, and they’re rushing to the scene to get a firsthand look. This is how it’s done, boys.

With a sudden movement, he slips the vehicle into low gear and tries to dart past me into the oncoming lane, but I lurch sideways and head him off. He backs off and tries to take the sidewalk, but I’m there in a flash, shouting at him now louder than ever. His eyes are wide, terrified. I can smell the fear washing off him in waves. He eases his hands off the wheel and holds them up, in the universal “nothing to fear here” gesture.

Horns are sounding all around, people are shouting. This has gone on long enough; they want to get on with their business. I realize, suddenly, that I have never actually thought of what I would do if I caught this man. I can’t kill him. He won’t talk to me — probably doesn’t even speak my language. We stare at each other in silence for a few moments as I decide, as slowly as the leaves turning, that there’s nothing for it. I have to let him go.

It’s enough, I think, that he knows I caught him. That I could catch him again, any time I wanted to. It’s enough that he knows this street belongs to me. It’s enough to let him go, terrified of what might happen next time. I pull my lips back in a snarl and move out of the road to let him pass.

He slides by with terror in his eyes, but he can’t resist having the last word. Through his rolled-down window, he shouts in a tremulous voice full of defeat: “Nice doggy.”

Then his wheels spin and in a spray of mist from the road, he’s driving off into the distance.

I lick my paws, as if this was my plan all along: to catch and dismiss this man. I move to make an explanation, but nobody’s even looking at me now; the cars are just sliding past, moving on with their own respective Wednesdays. I see my colleagues, gathered at the edges of fences, tugging at the ends of their leashes, trying to get a better look. Their faces are a mix of amazement and wonder. I know what they’re thinking. He caught the bag man. It’s enough. I pad back to the house, my head and my tail held high. Smells like lunchtime.

Dead Obvious

Pavowski11 Comments

Chuck’s challenge this week: the Subgenre Mash-up. My mixed up genre? Zombie Whodunit.

I can remember, once in my youth, reading an Agatha Christie book, and I am sure it was nothing like this.

Dead Obvious

It’s all anybody can hope for in this world, to leave it without knowing whence the end comes. A surprise, like breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day or something. Surprise! You’re dead. And in that way, I was fortunate, because I didn’t see it coming. Middle of a dinner party. Excused myself for two minutes, and then it was lights out.

But here I am. Dead. And Alive. Which means two things.

One, somebody I know is a zombie. And two, that somebody didn’t exactly do an outstanding job covering his tracks. Just a nibble, I’m sure he thought (or she, I guess, the virus doesn’t discriminate, but it just feels like a guy’s lack of consideration), and then a total failure to kill me properly. You know, to ensure I didn’t come back.

I can feel it now, the bite on my shoulder, burning like a brand, spreading out like a fiery web. My head could be splitting open for the pain I feel; somebody must’ve clubbed me but good, to try to kill me before I came back. Nice job, that. My heartbeat sounds like the thumping bass at a rave right inside my ears. The burn is spreading. Whole body on fire. On fire with hunger.

I find myself wondering: Why the shoulder? Seems like too much sinew and bone up there to really get a good bite. Somehow, I feel like an expert in anatomy. The thigh is what I’d target, lots of muscle and fat and blood, inches of it before you tangle up in bones. Nice and soft, too, chewy and moist and…

They’re staring at me. I know this because I can feel their heat, smell their blood, hear their hushed whispers and slightly panicked breathing. All of them shocked. How could this happen? At our dinner party, no less? Right before the dessert course? Well, guess what, idiots? I may be dead, but there’s another zombie out there waiting to get you, too. It could strike at any moment.

I open an eyelid with a tiny squishing sound and they all jump. Not astute enough to catch wise to the zombie in your midst, but you don’t miss me sneaking an eye open, do you? Bunch of short-sighted jerks.

Okay. Everybody’s here. The biter is hiding in plain sight.

Could it be James? The snot-nosed trust-fund baby who’s here in a suit that costs twice the average monthly salary for a blue collar worker? He’s clinging onto the waist of his date, Barbara, like he’s more scared than she is. And she, the daughter of a hotel empire, wearing more furs than a snowbound wolf, screaming vacuously into his ear, like I’m about to get up and eat her face. Actually, that sounds rather tempting. I try not to think about how her skin would disintegrate between my gnashing teeth, how her blood would cloy in my throat, how…

Man, the bug works fast. All of them look delicious, in fact, especially tubby Vera, who’s crammed herself into a dress three sizes too small to accentuate her curves for her date, a man she hopes to ensnare in order to rescue her from the one-bedroom flat she shares with her sisters. Too bad he’s gay. Tobias there, lending her his elbow in order to keep up the charade even though he keeps sneaking glances at Francis, stands to inherit millions if he’d only marry a nice girl like Vera and give his mother some grandchildren. Poor woman knows she’s got a better chance of being eaten by zombies now than of seeing her son breed — there’s not much hiding his condition with the spangly tie, the perfectly coordinated pocket square, and swooshing sashay of his walk — but it’s nice to hope. Much like I hope to suck the meat from his fingers, slurp slurp slurp like chicken wings, and…

I slam my eye closed again to shut out the visions of devouring my ex-friend, and collectively they sigh in relief. Dead after all, they say, and shuffle from the room. Francis, the one Tobias has been eyeing, comes over to check my pulse — I know it’s him because he reeks of his cologne, smelling like cut grass and musk and cognac and spinal fluid and… maybe I’m just daydreaming a little, but he smells intoxicating — and determines that I am, in fact, dead. He announces it to the rest of the guests and they sigh in relief and move the party to the parlor. No sense hanging around in here while I lie in a pool of my own blood, going bad like the hors de’ouvres, ruining the evening the way my murderer has ruined my three-piece suit and my skull.

But wait. Francis. He’s the internet dynamo who founded a dozen different companies before he was thirty, and has been married almost as many times. Could he be my killer? It’s almost too much to imagine: as much as he’s been in the tabloids for dating this or that supermodel, that he might be the country’s highest-profile zombie to boot. How salacious. Everybody knows you can’t tell if somebody’s a zombie by checking their pulse, after all. Well, everybody except the people at this party, apparently.

Or maybe it’s Carol, who, after everybody else leaves, stands in the door frame hugging herself tightly, like all the heat’s been sucked out of the room. That’s not the room, dearie, that’s me, going cold over here on the Spanish tile. She thinks she loves me — or rather, loved me — but everybody here knows she could have done better than a third-rate investments agent. I could have bought her the mansion and the yacht, sure, but not the vacation home on the coast that she really has her heart set on. But I don’t think she could have killed me. She’s too innocent, and sweet, and delectable, and her face just looks like it would melt in my mouth, and… And there she goes.

All of them gone. Maybe now I can sneak to my feet and…

Arnulfo. The butler, of course. Pretending not to speak English so that he can simply nod and serve our drinks without a word. That ever-so-subtle limp that we all assumed was a scar from his troubled life in the third-world country of… wherever he claimed to be from. He lingers by the door, his smarmy, faintly clouded eyes lingering on me, and wipes a drop of my blood from his lip. His lip falls off, and he quickly replaces it, tamping it into place with clumsy fingers. That sneaky son of a bitch. His face contorts like he’s trying to giggle at me, or maybe he’s just moaning with the eternal torment of the living dead; it’s hard to tell which. He slips out the door toward the others.

I have to stop him before he kills again.

Shit. Did my blood congeal into glue or something? My face is stuck to the floor with sticky crimson, my limbs feel like they’re strapped with lead sleeves. I haul myself to my feet, but I feel shaky, unstable, like my body is made of jenga blocks balanced on a rope bridge. I splay my legs unnaturally to better hold my balance, throw my arms out in front to counterbalance my ungainly torso. That works. I hobble to the next room, throw the door open —

They all gasp at the sight of me, even Arnulfo, that treacherous swine. In a flash, Carol collapses in the corner with Francis, Vera starts screaming at a high C with Barbara in perfect harmony, Tobias grabs a chair and brandishes it like a medieval greatsword and James draws a little pistol from his coat pocket quick as a cobra. But that’s okay, I’ve figured it out, and I can explain it all to them in an instant, and we can kill that prick Arnulfo together.

I hold up my arms, take a shaky step toward them, and state my case: “Grrraaaaaaaaaarrrgh. Uuuuuuuuhhhhh… HmmmMMMMMMMMaaaammmmfffff.”

That’s odd. I try again: “Rrrrroooooooooooorrrrrrzzz. Nnnaaaarrrrssssshhhhhhhhhhh. Ffflllllllleeeeeeeeeeeccchhhhhhh…”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Out of the corner of one eye, I see Arnulfo’s hand fall off. I scream at them all to look (“Blaaarrrr, BLLAAAAAAARRRRRR”), but he grabs it and shuffles out of the room, unnoticed, while they’re all staring at me like I’m some kind of monster or something.

Everybody’s shouting at me now. The girls are crying, the guys are advancing on me with their weapons, and it’s all a big mess. Still, all I can think about is eating their brains to save them from their own stupidity. I figure it’s worth a shot, so I lunge at Francis, he of the sweet cologne and flesh smell, and that’s when I hear the meat of James’s finger tighten on the trigger.

I hope he hits my brain this time.

Search History Stories

Pavowski5 Comments

Chuck’s challenge this week: Tell a story using search terms.

Sounds weird; is weird; is also tons of fun. I wrote one, then while thinking of something completely different, another one struck me. So here’s two for the price of one, and I might just return to this format.

Make your own honey
Amateur beekeeping
Increase beehive productivity
decrease beehive productivity
controlling beehive population
webMD how many bee stings are fatal
webMD buzzing in my sleep
webMD urge to eat sunflowers
how to attract a mate through dance

meteor shower viewing
identifying a meteorite fragment
webMD strange rash on hands
webMD rash on entire body
are meteorites radioactive?
visions of the future are they real
biggest lottery jackpot america
private islands for sale

The Immutable Mr. Jenkers

Pavowski18 Comments

Chuck’s challenge for the week: The Opening Line challenge. I took a few weeks off from the flash fiction game, but it’s time to saddle up again. The task at hand: choose an opening line from another author and build it into a 2000-words-or-less story.

I took a line from a guy calling himself Nicholas. The first line is his. The rest is all me.

The Immutable Mr. Jenkers

The 3rd time I killed Mr. Jenkers I knew i had a problem.

Not because he came back to life. That happens all the time. Once is rarely enough when you start talking about quantum murder. Sorta like fixing a wobbly chair. You shave a few millimeters off one leg, then it’s wobbling the other way. Go back and try again. Or like swatting cockroaches. Sure, you get that one, but there’s a thousand just like him in the walls just waiting to pop out. That’s why there aren’t too many guys working solo like me anymore. Murder’s one thing, but that’s one universe, one reality. You want somebody well and truly wiped out, it takes legwork. Timelines have to be rewritten, sometimes memories have to be wiped, hell, I once had to take a two-hundred-year detour to make sure this one woman didn’t date any men from India, so that her descendant’s bloodline could be clean enough for her to marry into a rich family. People ask for the craziest things. And I’ve been back and forth across time so often, sometimes it feels like I’m older than the dirt itself.

Certainly felt like that after Jenkers. Who hires a hitman for a cat, I should have asked. Why not just, you know, stop feeding him, or drop him off across town. But it’s a hard thing to say no to a hundred thousand credits. And besides, how hard could it be?

I should’ve asked around before I took the job. I did, after the fifth try. Turns out, this cat’s been around for over three millenia, and maybe longer — they just don’t have good records going back past ancient Egypt. And no, I’m not making that up. Best I can make out, there have been over 800 documented attempts on the life of this particular feline; most of them successful. But like a bubble under a static sticker, you squish it down, it just pops up somewhere else.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The owner’s this sweet old lady. ‘Bout 60 or so. All white hair, glasses on a chain, looks like a librarian except for the dark circles under her eyes and the smell like she hasn’t bathed in a few months. And she wants Mr. Jenkers whacked. “Do it humanely,” she asks. On account of she still loves him, despite the fact that she’s pretty sure he’s eroding her sanity. Those were her words. “He never sleeps,” she says. “He just watches me all the time. Like he’s accusing me of something. Like I had tried to kill him and he knew all about it.”

I know, right? She didn’t get the irony, and I guess that’s fair. I didn’t get it right away either, but of course she was trying to kill him, and he absolutely knew about it.

I’m getting ahead of myself again. It’s a hazard of the job.

Protocol says you always go the straightforward route on the first try, because you never know when once will do the trick. So — that afternoon, picked up a cat carrier, came by Harriet’s place (her name is — was — Harriet). Jenkers in the carrier along with a couple of bricks, and into the river he goes.

Next morning, he’s back. I fire up the ReClocker and arrive at her house a day earlier. No frills, just a hammer to the back of his head. Get back to Now, the cat’s still there. I try this a few different ways, go back a few years on the cat, come to find out she adopted him fully-grown from a shelter. So I go back further. Try to kill him every time, naturally, but sure as the sun, there he is every time I go back to Now. Trace him back to another family. Two kids, picket fence, and this psycho-eyed cat. Thing is, though, I’ve gone back five years now, and the cat looks exactly the same. Killed it over a hundred times, now, and every time, he’s back. Mr. Jenkers. Orange stripes, big chunk missing from his ear, eyes sparkling like black diamonds. And now, Harriet’s words are in my head, and I feel like when he looks at me — in the past, you know, not in the Now — he knows what I’m doing.

I go back ten years, and there’s Jenkers. Same as ever. I go twenty years back. Same old Jenkers, same old scar on his ear, same evil eyes. He’s living with some World War 2 vet, and I can’t bring myself to kill him in that timeline, so I go back even further. Thirty years. Then fifty.

When you first suit up in this line of work they tell you not to go getting crazy notions in your head about drastically altering the flow of history. Can’t go back and wipe out Hitler, for example — something’s broken on that guy’s reality and he always comes back. Can’t scrub out Mussolini, or Pol Pot, or Rasputin, or any of those guys that the history geeks would really like a crack at, right? Thing is, those guys — and I’ve gone back and messed with them, who wouldn’t? — they at least exist in a normal timeline. They’re born, they turn into big world-altering jerks, they die. And you can’t erase them from the Stream, but at least they’re just little contained pockets of horror and atrocity.

But not Jenkers.

This thing is beyond anything I’ve ever seen, beyond anything the Bureau’s ever seen, and maybe beyond anything the universe has ever seen. You go back to the Renaissance, Jenkers is there scratching at the edges of a Botticelli painting. Go back to the Middle Ages and Jenkers is chasing plagued rats down alleys. Ancient Egypt, like I said, was a good time for the old boy — they worshipped cats back then, you know, and with his eyes like eternity, well. You think cats get spoiled now when they end up with somebody like Miss Harriet, it’s nothing on Egypt in the pyramid days. He had his own entourage.

Suffice it to say, as far back as we can go — and we can go pretty damn far — I can’t find an origination point for this cat. For all I know, he’s existed since life first crawled up out of the swamps. He can’t be killed. Can’t be erased. Can’t be unmade. He’s like a scar in the fabric of the universe.

So what else could I do?

I adopted him from Miss Harriet. Took him back to my house. Bought a bunch of toys, you know, feathers on strings, little jingly balls. Found this guy on the internet who sells catnip by the pallet — god knows Jenkers will go through all of it.

It was unnerving at first, coming home every night to those empty black eyes staring at me like death itself. But he grows on you after a while. I always laughed when people said their cats had personality, but Jenkers… he’s got a sense of humor. Like, he’ll run under my feet when I’m coming downstairs in the morning. As if he were trying to kill me, to get back for the thousands of times I killed him. But it’s all in good fun. Late at night, he sleeps on my feet. When I’m reading, he’ll nose under the book and demand to be petted, with that one floppy, chewed-up ear.

I still kill him at least once a week. Just to see what happens.

But he always comes back. Dependable as the Sunday paper. Watching me with those eyes like midnight at the bottom of the ocean.

Some Stories You Should Read, 2nd Ed.

PavowskiLeave a comment

Over the past month, I’ve been taking part in a round-robin writing challenge over at TerribleMinds. Week 1, we all started open-ended stories, and every week thereafter, each participant was tasked with continuing a different story.

I’m happy to say that most of the stories I had my hands on managed to complete an entire story arc, and saw finished versions. It’s a funny thing… as the weeks went on, there were fewer and fewer participants, and a lot of the stories just kind of trailed off into the void.

I’ve done my best to track down all of them, and when possible, to provide links to the websites of the other authors whose hands touched these stories. It’s been an enlightening experience.

1: Cold Blood. Contributing authors: Catastrophe Jones, Helen Espinosa, Lauren Greene.

2: Bart Luther, Freelance Exorcist. Contributing authors: Josh Loomis, Paul Willett, Henry White.

3: Wasteland. (Unfinished as of now, sadly. My chapter was the last.) Contributing authors: WildBilbo, Angela Cavanaugh.

4: Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. Contributing authors: Peter MacDonald, J M Beal, Liz Askew.

In short, if you’re on this site reading my fiction, you owe it to yourself to check out some of the links posted above. There’s something of a common thread binding all of us together, and this writing exercise has made those threads a little more visible.

Thanks to everybody who picked up pieces that I worked on, and for laying the groundwork for the stories I continued. This was a lot of fun!