Weird, Wild, & Wicked

#ThursThreads - Tying Tales Together - Week 283

9/21/2017

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 283 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 283:

Hard working Children's RN, with the love of reading to relax, and sports fan, Crystal Brown.

And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.

The Prompt:

"And he never talked."

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!

Anne Odom link

9/21/2017 09:16:00 am

Well, Hell
244 Words
@AFOdom

“You kept him in the basement for a week. And?”

“He never talked. He didn’t even clear his throat.”

“You didn’t feed him, right?”

“Right.”

“Water him?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Is his body still in the basement?”

“He’s still in the basement, but he’s not dead.”

“What do you mean he’s not dead? You said he’s had no fluids.”

Another pause.

“I’m thinking maybe he’s not human.”

“Not human. I’m thinking maybe you’ve spent too long in the basement yourself.”

“No, you’ve got to listen to me. He never went to the bathroom, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean not even on day one. I never offered to take him, he never asked to go, and he never wet himself. He just sat there, tied to a chair, not talking, not moving, not eating, not drinking, not pissing, and not dying.”

Another pause. A longer one.

“So what do you suggest?”

“We need a different approach for something that’s not human.”

“Which is?”

“Lock him up and ditch the key.”

“In that case, why not just kill him?”

“I tried. I know I didn’t have permission, but it I couldn’t reach you.”

“You tried.”

“Stabbing. Shooting. Smothering. Strangling.”

A hesitation.

“Go on.”

“Sunlight. Silver. A bible. Holy water. Other things I found on the internet. I got a little desperate.”

“And he’s still alive.”

“Yep.”

A nod.

“Lock him up. Bring me the key. Hope to the gods he never gets out.”

Sheilagh Lee link

9/21/2017 09:59:00 am

I met Callum a year ago he was fun, smart and he never talked excessively about his work. I was a children’s librarian you’d think the two wouldn’t mix; but we were perfect together. We were engaged at the time of his death a week ago. Cleaning out his apartment I heard his voice.
“Sorcha.”

Searching for the source I found a smartphone under the sofa. Disappointed I almost put it down when it spoke again.
“Sorcha, my love, I’m your present.”

I knew I should get rid of it and move on but the comfort of hearing his voice again made me happy. It was almost like he was still with me. Soon I was avoiding everyone and everything all I wanted to do was listen to my phone. I was close to losing my job when I pulled myself together left the phone at home and found a psychiatrist who recommended that I go cold turkey, permanently put away the crutch of the phone.
I went home hesitating I attempted to place the phone in a box.
“Sorcha you love me, don’t lose me,” it pleaded.

I picked up the phone and instantly felt a surge of electricity flow through me.

“Callum tried to leave me too. Damn you, now I’ll just have to move on to another owner. Your friend Harriet, will do she’s lonely, ” the phone stated.

My breathing slowed and I saw a bright light, praying that Harriet would throw the phone away.
249 words
@SweetSheil

Bill Engleson link

9/21/2017 10:10:25 am

Hitchhiker

Garth Groinig stood by the side of the road that led south from Antioch, dressed in his finest Rabbit Pajamas. His long brown hair was combed, parted in the middle, slightly covering his ears. His skin was smooth except for a dab of toilet paper blotted with a dollop of blood that stuck to his right cheek. His thumb, actually the polyester rabbits thumb, was projected out in classic hitchhiking pose.

“He’s really doing it,” I said to Marge.

“He is persistent, Charlie. You got to give him that.”

We watched our friend from the comfort of Marge’s Minivan, half a block down from Garth’s post.

I had to shake my head when I thought back to earlier that evening. Thursday night was the regular night when the Antioch City Bowl Bees met at BowlerWorld to hone our competitive skills. Marge, myself…I’m Charlie Whiteside…, Jennie Larkin, and Garth; that was our team.

We knew Garth was going through some significant life crisis but he was a quiet sort, a confirmed bachelor of forty-seven and he never talked much about his feelings. And, truth be told, we were a pretty non-emotional bowling team and none of us shared stuff like that. We knew, I guess, that emoting would get in the way of the immense pleasure of bowling.

So, Garth had shown up, dressed like a rabbit, said, “I’m leaving. Big Adventure. Need a ride out to the highway.”

What are you gonna do?

We dropped him off.

And waited.

250 moments of anticipation
@billmelaterplea

Silver James link

9/21/2017 11:47:31 am

Varrick lit a cigar and started to blow smoke rings then realized Sade had a pistol pressed to the back of his head.

“Suck it up, buttercup.”

“It’s Cuban, Agent Marquis,” he said, smoke trailing from his nostrils. He probably looked like a damn dragon.

“Smoking’s bad for your health.”

He coughed out a cloud of smoke surrounded by laughter. “Gargoyle, Sade. Immortal, remember?” In deference to her, he did knock the cherry from the tip of the cigar and placed it back in the stainless steel cigar holder. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“I need information.”

“About what?”

“Roman.”

“Ah.” What else could he say?

“Tell me about the Old War, Varrick.”

All the years of his existence weighed him down. “Not a story for my telling, child.”

“I’m not a child, Varrick. Roman is…he’s family. I need to know what happened so I can help him.”

“I have no answers, Sade. I was barely a fledgling.”

“But you’re one of his best friends.” If Varrick didn’t know, Sade had no clue who to ask.

“No, child. You are. He was and is my commander. We’ve served together a millennium and he never talked to me about those times.”

“Rumors then,”

“Rumors—”

“Are often based on facts.”

“Le Vieil named him judge, jury, and…”

Sade’s heart twisted from the knowledge. The guard dog had been forced to hunt his flock. “Executioner.”

“Yes.”

“Now he has to do it again.” Over her dead body.
****
249 Penumbra WIP words
@SilverJames_

Siobhan Muir

9/21/2017 01:55:23 pm

The guard scanned them both with his eyes. “This is highly irregular.”

Brian nodded. “It is. Special circumstances.”

When the guard hesitated more, Brian scowled. “I’m running out of time and I’ll be dishonored if you keep the man waiting. Are you going to let us through?”

Unease creased the guard’s eyes and he bowed. “Of course. Please be on your way.”

Brian nodded and herded Oshi through the door. The rain still poured from the sky outside, but relief cascaded into his gut as they sloshed through the puddles accumulated on the uneven pavement.

They reached the corner where he’d observed the Palace, but Brian didn’t wait. Nobu and Taka would find Oshi gone soon enough, and wanted to be long gone when that happened. They’d tortured him for days and he never talked, never cracked. Who had set him up? Brian didn’t know, but he’d find out. And then he’d kill them.

“Hiro-san, are we close? I can’t walk much farther.” Oshi’s voice sounded breathless.

“We are. Just one more block and we’re there.” He shot a look at his beautiful undercover FBI agent dressed in a Geisha’s robes and wished he could take him to a tea house or some other romantic spot. “I’ll get you safe, Oshi. I promise.”

“I know, Hiro-san.” He nodded. “But the promise I want is you won’t leave my side, even during the debriefing. No one understands me as well as you.”

Brian stopped and faced him. “I promise.”

248 ineligible #TeamTanaka words
@SiobhanMuir

T. A. Moorman link

9/21/2017 02:38:09 pm

Down beneath the vampire castle dear old Aunt Hildegard sat rocking back and forth just repeating the same word over and over, “Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing…”, but no one seemed to be paying the ancient vampire any attention. They were so used to her craziness they didn’t even hone in on what word she was saying.

What they didn’t know was that there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with the old bird besides stubbornness, boredom, and sheer will that would boggle even the brightest and devious of minds. The old crone had placed a silly ass bet with one of her closest friends, centuries ago, said friend long since dead. The bet was that she wouldn’t be able to get the entire vampire community to believe she had gone bat shit crazy during the crossing for one hundred years. She was now well into her third century and the hoax was still going strong.

One would think that she wouldn’t have even bothered with attempting to pull the scheme seeing that her friend wasn’t even alive to see that she had pulled it off in the first place. The truth of it was, Belinda wasn’t just Hildegard’s closest friend, but her only friend. There just wasn’t many people that old Hildegard really liked, or that liked her for that matter. She wasn’t an outright bitch or anything, just, well, unique to put it mildly. She didn’t quite see most things in the same light as others and became an outcast among outcasts.

251 #TheSuccubusTheWitch&TheDemon WIP (In Edits)
@GothicMoms

Mark A Morris link

9/21/2017 03:07:26 pm

The van’s rear doors slammed shut and its exhaust began to shake, its wheels spinning for a moment before the tyres bit. Amy’s face appeared at the window and then disappeared, an arm pulling her away into the gloom.

I never saw her again.

Georges was the village’s fixer; he was the man everyone went to if they needed money or a pre-owned car or the work to pay for either of those. He was beyond the law, of course. We all were to some extent but Georges even more so. He knew people who had influence in the town; the police looking away when needed and restraining anyone who might interfere with his arrangements.

It was Jacques who suggested it. We’d begun to struggle with money – nothing much at first; a few missed payments and a couple of loans – but things got steadily worse. Georges helped us, of course, but he was always slow paying when we did work for him and then quick to demand what we owed. He made it easier for us, or so he claimed, deducting for our debts before he paid us in cash, but some weeks the work wasn’t there and we got nothing.

And so, we had to borrow more from him.

But then Jacques had a great idea. Georges had contacts overseas and could find work for young women. Au-pair work, I thought – he mentioned it once and he never talked of it again.

Or Amy now, either.

250 misguided decisions
twothirdsrasta.blogspot.co.uk

Eric Martell link

9/21/2017 05:09:56 pm

The air was sickly sweet from too many flowers, too much perfume, and whatever the hell they used in places like this to keep people thinking about rotting flesh. People had been filing past Timothy for hours, a never-ending stream of kids from school and crying family members and gawkers hoping to get a glimpse of this month’s celebrity-a-la-newscasts. They didn’t know what to think of me, sitting alive while he was dead. There should have been two coffins lined up next to each other, their eyes said to me. How could you have escaped when he didn’t? Weren’t you supposed to protect him?

I didn’t give a fuck.

They hadn’t been in that cabin. They hadn’t been lashed to the floor with ropes and fed pills that made the room sway like the cabin of a ship in a hurricane and raped for hours and days. They hadn’t been asked the same question over and over and over until they said everything they could think of in order to make it stop stop stop.

I realized I was clenching my hands so hard my fingernails had drawn blood. God, I was so mad at Timothy. He knew where Dad had kept the money. I didn’t. He’d spied on Dad, once, and seen the key. I begged him to tell them. Begged him to give in and save us. But he wouldn’t. He just smiled, and he never talked.

I was glad he was dead.

245 secretive words
@drmagoo

Olivia Starke link

9/21/2017 05:20:35 pm

“And he never talked. Not once. We don’t know what happened.”

Erica stared at the crisp white sheet marred by the dips and bumps from the corpse beneath it. A shiver rushed down her spine. She’d last seen the young man alive – just barely when he'd first arrived. And he’d taken his secrets into death. Now it was up to her to find out who had murdered him.

“Well let's get to it,” Erica said. This was the rough part, the part that hurt the most – stepping out of herself and into the dead. She slipped her hand beneath the sheet, placing her hand on the cold flesh of the corpse’s forehead. She took three deep breaths and the wrenching, twisting pain shot through her in an electric jolt.

Then she saw the face of his murderer, standing over him with a savage gleam in their eye, and a knife held high overhead. Erica stared, unable to take in what she was seeing. Then she screamed, the terror too great to contain. How? How could it be? But the dead told no lies, and as the butcher knife slashed down, the face of murderous evil – those eyes, that wicked, smiling mouth – belonged to her.

203 words
@OliviaStarke

Aightball link

9/21/2017 06:18:15 pm

Glancing at the large mixing bowl in my hand and then at my 6-year-old son, I raise my eyebrows. I made a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies and there's dough missing.

"Gabe, did you get into the cookie dough?"

He shakes his head, mouth clamped shut. His pupils dilate and a bead of sweat forms on his forehead. I remember my sister telling me once that he's good at lying but has a few tell-tale signs.

"I didn't do it. I know Chad didn't do it. So it's down to you or Waldo. And the cat would get pretty sick if it was him. So, did you take a big scoop of cookie dough?"

Gabe shakes his head, red-blond hair brushing his shoulder. He wants to grow it out and I said fine as long as he behaves at school and home. That flips on a light bulb in my head.

"You want to keep your long hair?" He nods. "Did you eat the cookie dough?"

He shakes his head. I sigh, glancing at the clock. It's too late to call for a hair appointment. I turn on the oven. I make a show of getting out the cookie sheets, figuring about two cookies worth of dough is gone.

"Last chance, little man." He shakes his head. "I'll make a hair appointment tomorrow."

The next afternoon, our stylist cuts Gabe's hair into a nice, standard boy's cut. And he never talked about who ate the cookie dough.

@Aightball
248 words

9/21/2017 08:01:39 pm

#ThursThreads is CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.

Comments are closed.

#ThursThreads - Tying Tales Together - Week 283

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