Weird, Wild, & Wicked

#ThursThreads - Tying Tales Together - Week 275

7/20/2017

Welcome back to the Weird, the Wild, & the Wicked. Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing! And now we’re in our Fifth year! This is Week 275 of #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Want to keep up each week? Check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook and the Community on Google Plus.

Need the rules? Read on.

Here's how it works:

The prompt is a line from the previous week's winning tale.
The prompt can appear ANYWHERE in your story and is included in your word count.
The prompt must be used as is. It can be split, but no intervening words can be inserted or tenses changed.

Rules to the Game:

This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
The story must be new writing, not a snippet from something published elsewhere with the prompt added.
Incorporate the prompt anywhere into your story (included in your word count).
Post your story in the comments section of this post
Include your word count (or be excluded from judging)
Include your Twitter handle or email (so we know how to find you)
The challenge is open 7 AM to 8 PM Mountain Time
The winner will be announced on Friday, depending on how early the judge gets up.

How it benefits you:

You get a nifty cool badge to display on your blog or site (because we're all about promotion - you know you are!)
You get instant recognition of your writing prowess on this blog!
Your writing colleagues shall announce and proclaim your greatness on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, etc.

Our Judge for Week 275:

Computer programmer and writer, Katheryn J. Avila.

Katheryn on Facebook
Katheryn on Twitter
Katheryn on Goodreads

And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.

The Prompt:

“You’re staying the night.”

All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck!

Charles W Jones link

7/20/2017 08:30:21 am

“Sylvie, fetch sheets and towels from upstairs.” Petula glanced at her, then moved her attention to Elise. “Would you like privacy while you undress him?”

Elise shook her head as her trembling fingers unbuttoned her husband’s shirt, finding sweetness in the quick assessment of the woman’s normal gruff exterior.

“If you’re unafraid of seeing mortal wounds and a nude man,” Petula said to Daphne, Minora, and Felicity. “Stay, otherwise…” None moved. “Felicity, fill the pot on the stove from the well.” Fear flickered in the young woman’s eyes; she didn’t blame her for not wanting to go outside alone. “Daphne, help her.” They disappeared from the room. “Minora, his boots.”

Petula’s husband and Dr. Avery burst into the house, then the room where Conrad laid on the table, blood oozing from him.

“What the hell happened?” the doctor asked.

“Bear attack,” Petula answered, confident with the lie. “The girls and I had finished our bible study when we heard a rumble of growls, then screams.”

“Pretty late for that, isn’t it?” Dr. Avery glanced at Elise.

Petula gave him a sharp look, continuing, “They’ve been awful this year.”

Once he’d stitched up Conrad, and told Elise how to care for the wounds, the doctor left the house as the clock struck three.

“Your families must be worried sick,” Elise said.

“We told them we’d be late with Petula at church,” Minora said.

“You’re staying the night?” Elise stared at the woman, the group had serious problems with the truth.

@ChuckWesJ
249 Words
The Women of Ashcroft WIP

Sheilagh Lee link

7/20/2017 11:11:37 am

“You’re staying the night.”
“No, I’m not! They’ve got my sister…”
“When did this happen?”
“They want you bad you’re the heir, Willa and you’re not ready.”
“I’m not going to be captured, Gabriel and I am ready.”
“I am your âme sœur. I can use my abilities to help.”

We broke into the basement of the Gallant mansion. I was grabbed as I stepped over the threshold.

Gabriel waved his hands and found the room they held Ferne in. I opened the door as Gabriel held them back, untying Ferne’s hands.

“Go ahead I’ll hold them back,” Gabriel cried.

Leading Ferne to the outside, we were free. Ferne began to laugh and I grew worried until the witches grabbed me and strung me up against a tree.

“Grandma thought you were so special; but with you gone I will be the heir and the most powerful,”Ferne cried.

They all began chanting. Something inside me told me to chant the words my grandmother taught me in the cradle. The wind began to surge, the sky turned dark and lightning flashed burning the ropes that bound me, but not searing my flesh.
I could have killed them all in my anger, but sanity prevailed. I erected a barrier where the witches are unable to leave to this date. My sister too remains. I cannot let them leave for I heard my dead grandmother’s voice warned me the safety of the town came first. I did my duty as the heir.
249 words
@SweetSheil

Mark A Morris link

7/20/2017 12:52:59 pm

He unscrewed her foot and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.

“You’re staying the night,” he said. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“Oh, I HATE it when you do that!” Eleanor pushed a chestful of air between her lips, looking down at the stump at the end of her leg. A threaded spigot protruded from the lower end of her calf, her ankle and everything beyond it out of sight and now out of reach. “You know you’ve only got to ask. I’m programmed to comply, whatever you ask.”

“That’s true, isn’t it?” Jacques clapped his hands and then threaded his fingers together, turning his palms outermost and then flexing them until his knuckles cracked. “Okay, remove the other one too. And your left hand.”

Eleanor sighed. This evening was not progressing as she’d anticipated.

But she still obeyed him. She had no choice.

“Right. My turn.” Jacques took hold of her remaining hand, pressed the opposing points on either side of her wrist to disengage it and then removed it too, holding it triumphantly above her. “Looky here,” he said, grinning. “How about that for underhand behaviour?”

Eleanor turned her face away. He was incorrigible enough without her encouraging him. She closed her fingers so her nails bit into her palm, forming a fist.

“Hey! You can still use that? Now, that gives me an idea!”

He dropped her hand onto the bed, his face suddenly close to hers.

“Memory purge time,” he said.

249 disturbing cyber-moments
twothirdsrasta.blogspot.co.uk

Tina Glasneck link

7/20/2017 01:27:31 pm

“You don’t have to do this,” Sissy. My little sister sat in her tattered clothes and pulled at me. “We should leave.”

“No, you’re staying the night in this place,” I whispered through clenched teeth. How long would it be before they find us?

We’re caught in the war, the violence that rings out every night as the gods battle, and this is their playground. Pantheons fighting for control, and us humans unfortunately stuck in the middle.

“If you plan on saving us, Sisssy, we have to do more than hide.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“If we don’t try, if we don’t fight back, they will erase us all. There must be someone you can talk to.”

I gulped.

The door flew open, and there stood the Valkyrie, but not as mythology depicted them, but instead in dark leather brandishing semi-automatic weapons.

“Run,” Sissy said, and before I knew what she had planned, the room imploded with orange and blue light, the magic of the dark elves. It lifted me up and tossed me across the room, and through a false wall, where the portal rested.

I hadn’t walked through that portal in ages, but if anyone could save humanity, it would be him.

Loki had a way of wanting to do anything to spite the gods. Maybe saving humanity would be enough to bribe him into acting.

We don’t need a hero, just an anti one.

@TinaGlasneck
238 Words

Bill Engleson link

7/20/2017 02:00:10 pm

Once Deep in the Dark of Morning

“I don’t know what it was.”

I’m familiar with that voice.

I believe that I am the speaker.

But that’s a wild guess.

A woman is looking down at me. She’s wearing a large flowered moo moo.

Or a wild-assed bedsheet.

Fiercely patterned, predominately orange.

The room looks very much like a very white bathroom.

Moo Moo Woman is a blazing sun in the painfully white sky.

She nods as if it is quite evident what it was.

“It was probably the Ouzo,” she says.

“Hugo?” I ask. “Who the hell is Hugo?” And, being compulsively rhetorical, I say, “Montenegro.”

Which immediately raises the question, “Am I the Good, The Bad or the downright Ugly?”

“OOOOOOZOOOOOH,” she laboriously, punishingly articulates, like a deep-voiced old creaky door opening at snail-speed.

I’m thinking. My synapses are in hibernation mode.

She leaves, returns with a bottle.

She offers me a close-up look.

I clutch the bottle.

It tells its spirited story.

Ouzo.

The bell rings.

“Ugh. Who drinks this stuff?”

From the ground floor of the tub, where, apparently, I am sprawled, I hand the bottle back and try to right myself.

Out the bathroom window, all is dark.

“What time is…?”

“2:00,” she reveals.

“In the morning,” she adds.

“I gotta get going,” I say.

Her head shakes, “You’re in no shape. You’re staying the night.”

The party’s over.

I crash on a couch.

In the morning, I swear off drinking.

Ouzo, at any rate.

250 moments of personal reform
@billmelaterplea

Siobhan Muir

7/20/2017 03:47:35 pm

Flashing lights hit his peripheral vision as the ambulance and cops finally showed up, but he kept his gaze on the other men just in case they wanted to try one more time. When the emergency vehicles stopped, Deli relaxed marginally, still far enough away to take on anyone threatening. The only thing he didn’t expect was the light touch on his shoulder and he spun to grab them.

A feminine gasp made him pull his punch, but the dizziness that came with his spin took him down to his knees. He tried to keep his gaze on something still, but ended up with an eyeful of breasts and his brain went into pleasure mode.

“Are you all right, Rubenovich?”

*Pretty.* He wanted to shake his head to get his mind on straight, but all he could focus on was the lovely woman in front of him. *Don’t let my guard down. Enemies remain.*

“Fine. You?” How was he down to one-word sentences?

“I’m all right, but you don’t look so hot.”

He snorted. “Sorry. Will try to be sexier.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Not what I meant. Will you let the EMTs take a look at you?”

“I’ll be f-f-f-fine.” Why did his head feel like it was spinning?

“And my name’s Mary Poppins. You’re gonna let the EMTs take a look at you and then you’re staying the night at my place. No argument. Copy?”

“Copy that, ma’am.”

244 ineligible #WIP500 words
@SiobhanMuir

Cate Derham link

7/20/2017 04:12:02 pm

"You're staying the night?" Eve scrambled to find a reason, an excuse, for why that was not a good idea, but the older vampire had already settled in.

"Why? Is there a problem?"

Eve glanced over at me. I was standing at the entrance to the guest room trying not to be too conspicuous.

"Sofia ..." Eve stopped abruptly.

Alex raised an eyebrow. He looked over to me and then back to Eve. "I won't bite her if she belongs to you."

Eve turned red. She was actually blushing? I didn't think vampires blush. I started to say something when Eve shot across the room almost like a bullet whisking by.

"Alex, Sofia is my friend and roommate. She doesn't 'belong' to me. But if you do anything to her I promise I will stake you."

"You're welcome to try, Eve. I'm four hundred years old and much more capable than you. Think about what that means."

Okay. This was not going very well. "Eve? Fleet messaged my new orders. I think we should talk."

The space fleet was disembarking from the station at 2300 hours and I was ordered back to Defiant.

"The investigation into the mutiny is over. I was cleared."

"It's about time," Eve said.

"We should celebrate," the four hundred year old vampire said, grinning. Leering almost.

Eve's eyes met mine and I sensed her protective instincts coming through. She made a move for her stakes, but Alex proved much faster.

What made me think living with a vampire was a good idea?

Cate Derham
@cate_derham
247 Words

Silver James link

7/20/2017 04:38:12 pm

Zoe eyed the formidable woman with more that a bit of trepidation. She now understood why Tucker, Deacon, and Dillon got a touch of awe in their voices whenever they spoke of their mother.

“Mom, this is Zoe.” Tucker put it out there like Mrs. Tate would know exactly who she was.

“About time you got here, Tucker. Bring that baby inside.” The woman swept her with a cool, appraising gaze, then her eyes flicked to the Volunteermobile and her lips might have twitched just a little. The movement was so quick, Zoe couldn’t be positive. “Well, at least that monstrosity is orange. Come in, come in.”

Like ducklings, the brothers followed their mother into the house. The brother she hadn’t been introduced to herded her in front of him. Zoe slipped through the door and searched for her son. Too late, she realized Kathryn Tate had absconded with baby Nash.

“You’re staying the night.” Mrs. Tate said the words to Tucker but she was staring at Zoe. “I have your room ready, Tucker.”

Tucker leaned down only a little bit to kiss his mother on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. What’s for dinner?”
“Fried chicken and all the fixings.”

Mrs. Tate fixed Zoe with another long look and a thought hit her. What would happen if Kathryn Tate tangled with Etta Smithee? A scene of the two women “wrasselin’” in a WWE ring popped into her head and Zoe burst out laughing.

“I like her, Tucker. She can stay.”

*Yippee*
****
250 desperately need #WIP words
@SilverJames_

Barbe

7/20/2017 05:44:00 pm

A strange feeling permeated him. He felt indefinably untethered. He had the impression that he could see all, but judgement seemed suspended, just observation prevailed. He saw all his loved ones in one glance. Physically, he knew, that was impossible because they didn’t all live in the same geographical area. How could this be?

He felt as if he had just awakened from a long sleep, a refreshing and painless sleep, such as he hadn’t enjoyed for years. Years? This location seemed to have no time structure and the thought of years suddenly seemed strange to him. He felt suspended, and yet very connected to something or someone.

“You’re staying the night” repeated itself in his mind, and yet there was no obvious night or day. Then it came to him … he had died, had left the earthly realm. He had fought to the very last moment to stay, but his body gave up on him, quit, exhausted from the continual push by his mind. So this was … Purgatory? Heaven? Hell? Was this the local form of night?

He could hear people around him, even their thoughts, and was surprised by many of them. It was as if he could absorb all the information and conversation at once. It became obvious that they couldn’t see him though; did that make him a ghost? Maybe there was something to the theory that one’s soul became a released energy upon death.

240 Words
barbara.crabtree@shaw.ca

Rose Sharon So

7/20/2017 06:01:15 pm

It was the end of yet another blind date. They had met at a 24 hour diner, one of the best in the city before moving to walk through the well-lit park. Admittedly, it was the best blind date she had ever had. They could talk and had for hours about a wide variety of subjects from politics and religion to education and books and so much more.

Gwen smiled as Sean turned to her and said “Soooo, you’re staying the night?”

Gwen just gaped in shock and horror at him hoping that he wasn’t assuming that she was going to put out on the first date.
Sean backpedaled a bit in response “I mean that I’m really interested and was hoping we could continue this conversation in a much more intimate setting. I really hope that I wasn’t coming off like a horn dog or anything. I am just REALLY into you and yes you turn me on and….I’m just going to shut up now before my mouth gets me into any more trouble.”

Gwen blinked as her shock and horror turned into mirth and she doubled over in laughter “Sean, its okay. I happen to really like you too. I just don’t think it would be a good idea at this point for me to stay the night with you at this point. I mean, we hardly know each other that well.”

Sean smiled and said “Yet….we don’t know each other that well yet.”

246 hastily written, yet needed, words
@ssogioka

Aightball link

7/20/2017 07:04:14 pm

Boxes of pizza sit on the floor, grease stains dotting the cardboard surfaces. Countless empty bottles sit nearby, less than a drop of beer left. On the screen, a movie we've watched a thousand times. So often, it's been reduced to background noise.

A few hours ago, the apartment was alive with the boisterous sounds of friends. We played board games, drew horribly bad pictures in Pictionary, and ate far too much junk food. Now, as the clock ticks over to four in the morning, the last of the party goers and I laugh at a joke in the movie.

"Well, I should go."

My friend stands, swaying on her feet. She yawns, rubbing her eyes. Too much beer and all of us up far too long have caught up. I stand up, too, and shake my head.

"Nah. You're staying the night. Or what's left of it." I gesture to the couch. "It's surprisingly comfortable."

She giggles as she wobbles into a wall. I know she's got a cross-town drive to make. She braces herself then finally nods.

"Okay." She takes my arm and we make it to the couch. "You sure?"

I nod, as she sits down. "I couldn't live with myself if something happened if you left."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She takes a blanket from the past of the couch and I hunt down an extra pillow. Finally, she settles in and closes her eyes.

"Thanks."

"Any time."

I turn off the lights and head to bed.

@Aightball
249 words

M.T. Decker link

7/20/2017 07:20:47 pm

Conventional Thinking

“Danni, if I ever volunteer for something like this again, just put me on a 96 hour psychiatric hold and remind me that I am never doing this again!”

“But you like conventions, what gives?”

Kevin stared for a moment.

Danielle still thought it had been a simple convention detail— a chance to experience something new while remaining outside the event enough to stay comfortable.

Hell, Kevin thought the same thing when he’d volunteered. He’d worked all the other conventions that came to town, romance novelists, science fiction… gamers… he’d even worked a BDSM convention. Security is security, right?

Uh… no. Actually, HELL NO!

He’d reported for duty according to schedule and that was the last normal moment he’d had. Next thing, he knew he’d been checking a guests’ room for intruders.

It was a no-brainer. She’d thought she’d see something and isn’t it security’s job to make people feel secure?

Yeah, that.

He had just finished his check when she sidled up to him, cuffed his wrist and whispered in his ear, “looks like you’re staying the night…”

It was cute… maybe even a little hot, but when she hadn’t returned within 20 minutes - he’d picked the lock.

From there he’d been drugged, kidnapped, locked in a broom closet, the stairwell, and the weight room…

Let’s face it, when people don’t feel secure around security, it’s just not going to work.

“Let’s just say this is the last time I work security for the Conspiracy Theorist’s Convention.”

@mishmhem
249 words (not including the title)

Cara Michaels link

7/20/2017 07:31:04 pm

“Listen, Colt—I know Janelle put you on the spot, but you don’t have to give up your night for me.” Meghan trotted ahead of him in her needle heels, up the sidewalk to his front door. “You were fucking hawt up on that stage though, Doc. Here I thought you were in the business to keep blood pressures on the level.”

“And I thought you didn’t like men,” he said.

“Ha,” she snorted. “Fine art is fine art, babe. If it’s pretty, I notice. But if you ever tell your sister I said that, I will cut you.”

“Uh-huh.” Colt jammed the house key into the deadbolt and twisted.

“Babe, I’m sorry. You know I’m the last person to cock block true love.”

“True love?”

“Bitch, please. I know all about your redheaded soulmate in gun-inspired names. Seriously, your collective parents did not think that shit through. Wynchester and Colt?” Meg rolled her eyes. “So what now?”

“You’re staying the night. Do us both a favor and don’t tell Mal you slept here.” His sister might kill them both. Colt dropped his keys to the coffee table. Metal crashed against glass, and Meghan flinched. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you.”

“I know,” she said. “You’re mad at my ginger sister in soul stealing.”

“You are on the internet too much.” Colt sighed.

“You should call her.”

“I don’t have her number.”

“Oh.” Meg headed for the guest room, tossing an evil grin over her shoulder. “Good thing Mal does.”

@caramichaels
250 WIP words

7/20/2017 08:01:08 pm

#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to see you next week for the Cheyenne Frontier Days themed challenge. :D

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#ThursThreads - Tying Tales Together - Week 275

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