WE'RE BACK after a month's hiatus due to NaNoWriMo. Our original plan for hiatus was to post some flash fiction and excepts over the month, buuuut that kind of fell flat on its face. Maybe next year!
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME EXHILARATING FLASH FICTION? THEN LET'S GET WRITING!
Rules: Read Me!
(Pay Close Attention to Rule #2, as it is the one that is usually broken most often)
(Pay Close Attention to Rule #2, as it is the one that is usually broken most often)
Judges This Week: Rin and Si
Word count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). Only one entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT!
Results announced: Next Wednesday, likely around 10 pm - 11:59 pm!
Remember: The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition.
Word count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). Only one entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT!
Results announced: Next Wednesday, likely around 10 pm - 11:59 pm!
Remember: The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition.
Prompt
"I told you he had a dungeon."
One person’s Dungeon is another person’s…
ReplyDelete“I told you he had a dungeon, Ted. A deep, dark, damp dungeon.”
She is quivering like a bowl of watery batter. She should be baking me a rack of cinnamon buns instead of pretending to be a G-man. Well, maybe in a few years, once the war is over, when we’re married.
“Gee Wilikers, Nancy. It’s not that I didn’t believe you. It’s just…”
“What are you going to say, Ted, that Mr. Duffy is our biology teacher, that teachers don’t have secret dungeons?”
“Well, yeah, they usually don’t.”
“Oh, applesauce, Ted. Put on your thinking cap. If it is not a dungeon, then what the heck is it?”
We peer through the ground level transom. It’s as grimy as Schicklgruber’s black heart.
Nancy rubs the glass with her driving glove.
I squint.
“Well, maybe it’s not a dungeon,” she finally allows.
“It’s a laboratory, for gosh sakes.”
“Shhh,” she shushes me. “Look, he’s not alone.”
Old man Duffy is a tubby fellow and looks a bit like Prof. Magenbruch in Ball of Fire, except Mr. Duffy has a pencil thin mustache that gives him an evil John Carradine look.
There are two other people with Mr. Duffy, a man who looks like the Regal Hotel desk clerk and a knock-out older woman, thirty, with a big floppy feathered hat, and a slick looking grey dress and jacket. Her bright blonde hair rolls out from under the hat like Grable and I’m wondering why a dish like her is hanging around dumpy old Duffy.
Noses pressed up to the glass, we see Duffy hand the cute cookie a sheet of paper.
She folds it carefully, places it in her purse and then…the Heil Hitler salute.
“Hot diggety dog,” we both yell, and amscray.
300 retro words
@billmelaterplea
www.engleson.ca
Carin Marais
ReplyDeleteWords: 297
@CarinMarais
www.maraiscarin.wordpress.com
Not According to Plan
“I told you he had a dungeon.”
“I know.”
“I told you we were going to be captured.”
“I know.”
Chains dragged over a stone floor.
“I’d do my ‘I told you so’ dance, but I’m a bit tied up.”
Chains jangled.
“It just always looks so simple. In the movies, I mean. You travel back in time, have an adventure, and go home.”
“You’re having an adventure right now. Are you happy?”
“I mean, even if you do get captured there is always a way out, right at the very end.” A pause. “I didn’t mean to kill the king’s cousin.”
“But you did.”
“I’ve never even hit a pigeon with my car. And now I killed a member of the royal family.”
“Unfortunately you killed one of the family favourites. If everyone hated him we would probably have been knighted and gone home showered in gold.”
“We have until tomorrow morning, at least.”
“Then you’d better hope that the time machine works as it should. We hardly have the prowess to fight our way out of here even if we do manage to get out of the shackles.”
“Any moment now the princess will come down those stairs and proclaim her love for one of us and then help us escape. Just you wait and see.”
A deep sigh. A scrape of chains.
“My lord!” It was a female voice, followed by melodramatic sobbing. “I love you and I have come to save you!”
“Now we simply-”
They heard the footsteps pass their cell and stop at another.
“My lady!” they heard from within that cell.
“That machine had better work or I’m strangling you with these chains.”
They waited for the sound of the machine coming take them back to their own time.
Liar’s Skin
ReplyDelete299 words
@el_Stevie
#FlashDog
“I told you he had a dungeon. But you wouldn’t believe me, would you,” said Tanya.
Alison smiled to herself, a smile that grew into a shadow-cloaked grin. “Let’s go back,” she whispered, lacing her words with fear, suppressing her loathing.
“You’re scared!” sneered Tanya, moving towards the mildewed door.
Alison choked back her anger, managed a suitably pathetic whimper. She followed Tanya along the subterranean passage, drawing comfort from the familiar chill of centuries-thick stone.
“Tanya … are … are you sure you want to go on,” she said. “He might be in there, waiting.”
“How can he?” said Tanya. “He’s gone, moved on the police say.”
Alison smiled. That was true. She moved closer to the woman. Smelt the cloying perfume that had scented Robert’s clothes on too many occasions and beneath that the stench of her liar’s skin.
Tanya had no idea that the monster reputed to have inhabited this realm was the man she had attempted to steal from Alison. Nor did she know that Alison and Robert were partners in more ways than one.
“Ready?” said Tanya. She grasped the handle and pushed hard. The door swung open.
Soft music and flickering candles welcomed them, the flames picking out steel blades and heavy chains, the ceiling glittering with these reflected fireflies.
In the centre, an old oak table had been set for two. One guest was already seated. He did not acknowledge the new arrivals; merely continued to look glassily at his half-drunk wine.
“What …”
Alison pushed Tanya into the empty chair before she even finished her question, bound her as tightly as she had her unfaithful Robert. Then she picked up the knife and turned to Tanya, traced its tip round her throat, down to her breast.
“Shall I carve?” she asked.
Dungeons of the Mind
ReplyDeleteby Stephen Shirres (@The_Red_Fleece)
www.theredfleece.co.uk
Word Count = 141
'I told you he had a dungeon' I wanted to say after he died but it wasn't suitable, decent, whatever word you want to use. I'm not even sure most folk would know what I’m talking about. At the end he was sleeping on friend’s sofas, his last night was on mine.
The thing is I’m talking about a different kind of dungeon. Not a place made out of bricks and mortar but a social construction. Yet he still couldn’t escape. Everyday I wish I could travel with him there to see the demons that would always drag him back. I saw the means day after week after year, yet never the reasons. Maybe if I knew I could have helped him more. However, that was the problem with his dungeon; he was the only person who could ever travel there.
Belledenne (@Belledenne)
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 299
Title: “Simon and the Batcave”
“Morning, Peter,” one of the twins said as he walked into the kitchen. He still couldn’t tell them apart. Simon pushed aside the annoyance, opting not to protest - again - that his name was not Peter. He needed coffee before he could talk anyway. He helped himself to a mug.
“Glitch is waiting for you down in the Batcave,” Dupin, or was it Doyle?, told him.
That took a moment to register. “Batcave?” he sputtered. No way. He wasn’t falling for it this time. Those two had already tricked him too many times. He looked around at the others in the room.
Striker glanced at him over his newspaper. “Batcave.”
“Complete with a red telephone.” Hawk reassured him.
“You even have to find the hidden switch inside a Shakespeare bust to get to it.” Shade spoke up, in between mouthfuls of cereal.
Simon still wasn’t convinced. “Yeah, right. And he drives the Batmobile too, I’m guessing?” His sarcastic abilities were more awake than the rest of him.
Rhys grinned as he passed by. “Nope, the Batmobile is mine.”
This was a joke. They were all in on it. Had to be. Simon’s eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room at the others. They were all nonchalantly going about their business, paying little attention to him.
After breakfast, he followed Hawk’s directions to the room where he was to meet Glitch, but all he found was a small study, bookshelves lining the walls. A bust of Shakespeare caught his eye. Further investigation revealed a switch. He pressed it, and the far wall slid open. His mouth fell open as he stared into a dark room, filled with computers, monitors and other such equipment.
A hand clapped him on the shoulder as Dupin joined him. “Told you he had a Batcave.”
((I didn't find the rules till after I wrote it, my apologies.)
Sounds Like...
ReplyDelete233 words
@mishmhem
#FlashDogs
“I told you he had a dungeon,” Dani hissed as she glared at Rolland.
Rolland, for his part, looked around their cell and shook his head. “You said ‘wine cellar.’”
“I said he was a ‘wine seller…’”
Rolland shrugged and looked at the bars on the windows. “Getting out of here is going to be a pain.”
“Well, if we hadn’t been caught, we wouldn’t be here.”
“If we hadn’t come ‘here’ we wouldn’t be ‘here.’ You were the one who wanted to make a haul…”
“I said I wanted to see the hall, besides you were the one who said we should come in the afternoon.”
“I said, after the mourning… don’t you listen to what I say?” Rolland sighed in exasperation.
This time it was Dani’s turn to shrug as she surveyed their surroundings. “Do you think he’ll leave us here to die?”
“You mean he’d put us to work staining things?”
“Die, not dye…”
“Let’s not overdo it.”
“You’re right— people will worry when we’re overdue…”
“Shhhh… I think he’s…”
From the doorway their captor shook his head and opened the door to their cell.
“Enough, already… just get out of my house!” He growled as he shooed them towards the door..
“Matt…” Rolland objected then stepped on their host’s foot. “What do you know… he’s a homophone.”
When their jailer groaned, Dani smiled and corrected him. “He’s a homophoneophobe.”
Ares Tomb
ReplyDeleteby Trisscar368
300 words
“I told you he had a dungeon!” Sam squealed and hugged Neal as the hidden door slid open.
“Yeah,” he brushed her off. “Big surprise. He was the most traditional Martian Overlord ever. All the old Earth tropes.”
“So there should be treasure!” Sam dashed down the tunnel, flashlight bouncing. Neal ran after her with a curse, and tackled her to the floor. Both of them coughed as red dust filled the air.
“Get off me,” she growled.
“Traps.” He shone his flashlight ahead; two feet away a gossamer thread ran from wall to wall. “All the old Earth tropes, remember?”
“I hate it when you’re right.”
“I know,” he said, pushing himself up. “We go slow, okay?”
They found seventy-three traps; everything from laser spears to old dry vats of caustic lye, and what appeared to have been a pit of mutant spiders. They almost died a dozen times, and when at last the great treasure vault spread in front of them, Neal simply collapsed against the wall. Sam danced forward, flashlight dancing across the gold, silver, the gems, and the countless statues.
“Neal, I found him!”
He stumbled down to where her flashlight danced over a jagged stone throne. Twin jade dragons arched fifty feet overhead. A rainbow bismuth crown rested on the head of a desiccated mummy, who sat with his hands resting on an old sword.
“I can’t believe it! We actually found Ares’ tomb.”
Sam leaned over and kissed him. “Go ahead. Take it.”
Neal stepped forward and gingerly lifted the crown off of the mummy. It fit him perfectly. “How do I look?”
“Like an Overlord should.”
He reached down and took the sword. The laser blade activated with a threatening hum; Ares undefeated legion of machines was his to command.
“What do you say, baby? Wanna rule the world?”