Living Colour

As the museum burned the police watched Hobbs and his statuary carefully.

As wax dripped and ran, twisting and warping into esoteric and erotic poses, steel and aluminium wire was laid bare.

"Using human beings as armatures?" Hobbs laughed. "God how beastly. Not to mention graceless and impractical."

Lighting a tallow candle he gazed lovingly around his room. "Painting has always been my love, the anatomy and mechanics of the strange my muse."

Blasted landscapes from which twisted smoking limbs curled strangely under multiple moons, outré and gibbous.

Corpse-like portraits, amoeboid, bloated and obscene, painted in livid intestinal shades cast baleful gazes.

Hobbs smiled broadly as the police dismissed his paintings with disgust.

Each blasphemous canvas rendered lavishly in thick, lustrous pigment; bone white, blood red, spleen mauve.

Pigments rendered from the living flesh of Hobbs's many, many victims.

Prisoner's Cinema

Probing in darkness with his tongue, Holbeck was pretty sure his gums were shrinking.

Pulled back into light, he watched with a grim, detached fascination as old scars ran wet, opening again like painful memories.

Barlow, the warden, rolled an orange around one broad, thick hand.

"This all can stop, " he said, "you know what we want."

He thrust his hand forward. Sharp citrus scent filled Holbeck's nostrils, an acidic life-giving tang.

Holbeck stared mutely at his body, daubed purple with weeping blotches.

His silence: rewarded with being thrust back in the hole.

A phosphor glow burst in the darkness, a shower of lights coalescing; approaching.

The filmy, translucent form of Sara shone before Holbeck.

Peace, my love, she whispered. Great dark wings enfolded him, sighing.

Say nothing. You will be rewarded.

Hope filled him, and she was gone.

Infected

Scott watched the city from what he laughingly called his Penthouse.

They were there as always, the shuffling infected, clogging the streets like a putrid cholesterol.

Safe behind his barricade Scott spooned beans into a battered pan.

Three hours till night fell, the crowds thinned out and he could make another supply run.

Later, crossing the plaza, Scott saw them.

One fed, gnawing at a girl's neck. Scott fired once, shearing away it's head, stepping forward he discharged again into the girl.

Hearing others approaching he ran, scattering his plunder like chaff. 

A muffled pounding shocked Scott awake; they had found him. 

He opened fire indiscriminately from his shielded embrasure into the screaming throng below.

Behind Scott a heavily armed rapid intervention team spilled through a splintering door, a cacophony of shouted commands.

Scott heard only moans as they approached.

Soap

"Who did you say you represented?"

"Interested parties." The man smiled, his tongue flickering. "Parties who, I may remind you, have significant resources at their disposal."

Harry wondered why the offer of money sounded so much like a threat.

The buyer leaned in, steepling his gloved fingers.

The object on the table between them was greenish stone striated with black.

Frankly, it creeped Harry out, being all tentacles and gold flecks that reflected strange internal lights, but his nose for value said it reeked cash.

"I've had academic interest," Harry said, "an archaeology professor from Massachusetts has expressed great – "

"Morgan? A dabbler." The buyer waved his hand contemptuously in arcane shapes and stormed out.

Harry stared after, absently scratching a scleroidal rash that had sprung up in the folds of his neck. Unnoticed, the statue began emitting a pallid light.

The Travelling Salesman Problem

A truck departs at 5.30am, travelling east at 55 mph.

Jack leaves home at 5.39am. Travelling 430 miles within his territory, and visiting five towns. Each town takes about an hour to travel between, and each meeting Jack has takes approximately 25 minutes.

Jack has three assignations en route that will take around 30 minutes each.

Which rep is going to receive a truncated presentation?

Jack has parked his car 175 yards from Kelly's trailer.

To reach it, how fast will Jack have to run, considering her husband owns a Remington 1100 shotgun with a muzzle velocity of around 1700 ft/s and an effective range of 100 yards?

For extra credit, following a recent anonymous tip received by his long suffering wife, express the chances of Jack's brakes operating correctly while approaching a truck at a crossroads at 72 mph?

Festival

The church was bedecked with garlands of late flowers.

Naïve fabric appliqués of vegetables and grain adorned the banners that lined the walls.

The children dutifully shuffled in, two by two. Filing into the nave they ambled forward, pressing aimlessly.

The adults barely noticed as they were shepherded to the back.

The children gathered.

At the door a little boy turned a key in the lock and shot the bolt. Smiling blandly he joined the others.

The grown-ups, unnerved, huddled back toward the altar, now slipping over crushed produce, tins knocking noisily down the steps and rolling across the transept floor.

In a strange incredulous silence they sank to their knees, holding out beseeching arms.

The children fell upon them. Snarling. Hungry.

The sun shone coldly through unseeing transparent saints, scattering hard bright rainbows of light.

The harvest had begun.

Second to last straw

Water had got into the instant coffee tin.

Mike sat against the door watching Jared chip a spoon against encrustations like a jilted lover wielding an icepick.

"It's shit like that puts me about two steps away from a rampage," said Mike.

Jared laughed, putting the carbuncled tin aside.

They sat instead with cups of tea, eked thinly from the last bag.

"Dwindling supplies," said Jared, "are not great for our prospects."

From the office beyond came a sharp staccato bark like a backfiring car. A collection of whimpering screams followed.

"Most of these end in suicide you know."

"Y'think we should get out?" Mike cast a look at the window.

"Depends if Harry hated us specifically. We could escape unscathed."

Grabbing a knife, Jared cracked the door.

He smiled. "I say carpe diem, settle some scores. Who's to know?"

The trinity of afternoon tea

High ceilings echoed with the clink of Wedgwood syncopated with the metronomic tick of knitting needles.

The Nyxon sisters worked surrounded by a mountainous cloth expanse. Rills, peaks and gullies draped every surface except for an Arts and Crafts occasional table piled precariously with delicate tea things.

Nona leant forward teasing wool from a large skein.

"Surely it's time to cast off now?" said Moira.

"I can't find the end," said Aisha.

"How peculiar." Moira had stopped knitting, watching Aisha hold scissors aloft, thumbing the multicoloured yarn through her thin fingers.

"Just cut it in the middle," snapped Nona.

"Ah!" Aisha wagged her finger. "Each gets their full term."

Moira leaned in, Nona too. Where the ends joined the fabric the thread had intertwined and double knit, inextricably with another.

"This one we watch." Moira pointed. "This could be trouble."

Closet

Steve had followed all the instructions and still had pieces over.

Always the same with this flat pack furniture, he thought. Obtuse instructions, arcane pictograms, like some carpenter's strange invocation.

"The power of joinery bids you arise!"

He dropped his hands, laughing uneasily.

Steve'd always had this thing about wardrobes; it had taken some courage to buy the damn thing.

You should never have read that book, his mother had told him

Still, he thought, now I have somewhere to hang my clothes other than the floor.

Then, a thrum ran through the birch wood, rattling and shaking as from distant footsteps.

A note slipped sharply from between the doors.

"We have delights," Steve read.

A prank, he thought, it has to be.

He approached, gripping his screwdriver tightly, and threw open the door.

It wasn't Mr. Tumnus who greeted him.

Cryptid

Bocharkov entered the dimly lit signal room, coffee in hand, wafting his way through a dense cloud of smoke.

Vasiliy Kropotkin lit another cigarette. His fifth since he came on shift.

"Dimitri, listen to this," said Kropotkin.

They'd been pulling double shifts since the escape; monitoring chatter, sigint intercepts, movements of Cellar operatives.

The FSB had always maintained a cordial relationship with the Cellar, but it paid to be careful.

Slipping on headphones Bocharkov listened, brow furrowed.

"They've taken delivery of creatures," said Kropotkin.

"And?" Bocharkov scowled, he didn't need Vasiliy to translate. "Do they know about escape?"

"Not yet," said Kropotkin, "but Simonov will talk to Laing. He'll have to."

"We don't know where Aleksi is going. Yet."

Kropotkin coughed out a laugh. "You know where he's going as well as I."

"Then I hope Podval has strong locks."

A problem shared.

Tom's eye was drawn by a laughing group of girls in the corner.

"Cheer up you bell-end." Charlie grinned at Tom, placing fresh pints in front of them. He extricated two packs of crisps from his pocket. 

"Head's up!" he called, throwing one squarely at Tom's head.

Tom sighed. "Do you think that she's, y'know?"

"Dude, she's single. She has a pulse and tits." Charlie raised his eyes heavenward. "Of course she's banging someone new."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"But that's what you wanted to know." Charlie took another swallow of his pint. "I'm off for a piss," he remarked.

Tom stared deeply into his pint as if the answer lay within. He supposed in a way it did. Or could.

One of the corner gaggle passed him and smiled.

For the first time in days, Tom smiled back.

The Whole Truth

It started one day in July.

At first the scientists claimed it was a virus, eventually admitting they didn't have a clue.

The usual crackpots spewed forth theories and politicians summarily rejected them.

And then of course, everyone admitted everything and things became unbearable. Truth is a piercing arrow.

Tertullian was right about the first reaction being hatred. Within days there weren't four friends left in the whole world.

The killing began quickly, without ceremony, and spread. For some reason, I can but guess, the religious and the advertisers went first.

Those that had no axe to grind with others turned on themselves.

I write this because I must; it is the truth, and it is all I have left now for the dead.

Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end. Perhaps it has set us free.

R&R

Quinn swam in fire, his body contorting as searing flames blackened, crisped with an indescribable pain .

His skin was slick, heat-stretched and taut as he fought his way upward, kicking against liquid pain, searching for the cool surface.

He broke, gasping, agony rolling over him in incandescent waves. Slowly the lapping subsided leaving him sweat soaked and shaking.

His eyes flickered in the blackness, a hiss-click of machinery echoed hollowly. He could feel the pinch of needles feeding fluid exchangers.

A damp pressure sealed his eyes.

Mentally probing he tried to sense the extent of the damage. He flexed, waiting for the sickening crackle of charred flesh, but there was no pain now, just a numbing detachment.

A door swung. Heavy footsteps approached.

Then the questions started, and Quinn began to wish he'd burned in the Rockwell.

What I did on my summer vacation

It was a good beach. First day I found lots of shells on the black sand. My dad said they were baloney shells.

We talked mom into camping up the King Range. It was hot and steep, but my dad carried me sometimes on his shoulders. I said he should carry mom too, she laughed.

When it got dark we set up camp in the trees. It was cooler. I saw a big dog, but my dad said there weren't any dogs up on the mountain.

Then a thing happened. I was asleep, the tent shook, like a hurricane grabbed it.

There was growling. My mom screaming. Then quiet.

The ambulance took my dad and me to the hospital. A police man made me write this. He says it's a statement.

He says they are still looking for my mom.

True Love's Kiss

One day a young princess dropped her golden ball into the river at the very bottom of the palace gardens.

Almost at once a small green frog swam to the surface.

"I'll fetch it," he croaked. "If you will but let me eat from your plate and sleep in your bed."

The princess stared.

"You are joking, right?" She said. "My dad, the king, right, he can just buy me another ball."

And off she flounced.

The frog, crestfallen, plopped back into the water.

"Again?" said his mother, gently kissing the top of his head. "Don't worry there's plenty more - "

The frog raised a hand, "Don't say it!"

"We'll try again," she said. "Another palace, another pond."

I'll buy my own palace, he brooded. You catch more flies with money, right?

His collection of precious metals glimmered, darkly.

Sharashka

The alarm was silent, a red light flashing insistently.

Demikhov knew what it meant. And where.

With great reluctance he pressed the button that would summon Director Simonov.

Even in the near darkness, the cell gleamed wetly.

"Is this his blood?" said Simonov.

"We don't know sir, we're doing a sweep now." The guard studiously avoided looking into the cell,  "But, you know what he was."

Simonov understood. This wasn't the White Swan, with it's murderers, child-rapists and colourful tattooed Bratva, but Chernyi Vorot, the Black Gate, established by the NKVD to dispose of their insoluble problems.

The radio crackled. Guards had found footsteps starting almost thirty feet from the ramparts and leading directly to the outer perimeter fence.

They continued unbroken on the other side, the fence untouched. Unclimbed.

Aleksi Nahkimov was heading east, to the Urals.

Living by the river

The field-dampers did a good job of suppressing the mildly telepathic effects of the nyarlothol-rich atmosphere on Reno.

Meant no one knew I'd flopped the nut: two aces, an eight, with an ace in the hole.

I went all in.

The three-eyed dealer whirred and clicked dealing the turn. Another ace - man, the poon I was gonna buy.

The hard-faced prospector on my left folded. Just me and big guy waiting for the river.

I almost held my breath as the card flipped from the shoe.

Five aces? Shit.

Straining to tune mental chatter, I didn't need to be psychic to know some mechanic had played me a bad beat; cheating is death here.

Wheeling, I faced a man, mind frothing revenge

As I blasted the dealer the field evaporated, I knew.

Her father.

Seems it's a kill game...

Wherever you go...

Smiling broadly, Donaldson walked back to the transmitter looking at his stopwatch.

It had taken five minutes to cross a distance he covered in four strides, but by his calculations it'd take five minutes no matter how far apart the base stations were placed.

The delay was packing and unpacking the Bekenbytes of data and the up-port time to the spintronic cloud server.

After the initial trial's success, an error, some memory loop in the poly-conductor perhaps, crept in.

Donaldson studied the receiver cam-stream from across the Atlantic intently for the first sign of his assistant's appearance.

But he saw himself step from the portal.

Without thinking he stepped into his machine.

Another Donaldson emerged, and another, a sputtering faucet, building a stochastic recursive loop, suddenly spraying forth a torrent.

Hell, as it turns out, is not other people.

Autumn

The smell of burning leaves brought back odd, jumbled memories of Autumn.

No one blamed me of course. You're lucky to be alive, they told me.

But I was ashamed by the insensate workings of random chance.

I've heard it said that losing a loved one is like losing a limb. It isn't.

It took less than a second for the truck to shear off the front of the car. Over an hour to cut us from the wreckage. My grief stretches interminably ahead.

Studying his photograph the pain was palpable like a fist; a gutshot impact that stopped my breath, my heart.

I held on to it, just to feel him, a phantom, like my legs.

I tossed my bottle on the fire unwanted, whisky dregs flared as it broke.

He was my pain. I'd willingly bear it forever.

Zeitgeist

Five o'clock, a cold morning in early March.

Dawn trembled below the horizon, a scintillating arc throwing daggers of light at the silent stars.

A shiver of ghosts sat, inasmuch as they can, round a stone circle at the centre of the graveyard.

Haggard, misty, a Cavalier and a Duke talked of hauntings past. An ephemeral cut-purse bemoaned local gentrification. He now haunted luxury apartments whose owners were rarely there to scare.

A newcomer faded in, a river of light fragmenting around the grave markers.

Conversation hushed.

Ostentatiously displaying his rippling, changing form, he nodded. "'Sup geezers."

Tinny music from his tiny phone scratched ears like a stonemason's chisel.

"He really ruins everything," said Viscount Gamblemere, as one by one the assembly flickered out like the afterimage from a flash bulb.

The newcomer smiled sadly. "Bulbs?" he said. "Well analog."

Good Morning

Esther Gray enjoyed her retirement far less than her old team.

Flicking channels, watching stock tickers with growing annoyance, she silently cursed her decaf and her oncologist.

The only tough calls she made nowadays was how far she could be from a bathroom.

Two stuporous flies bumbled in with the chill morning air as she opened the door out to the deck. She snarled, swatting at them with her Journal.

She stared across the quiet forest. Below, the waters of the cove sparkled in the low autumn sun.

She almost stepped on the racoon. Face down, a viscid pool ringing it's matted corpse.

Esther toed it, Goddamned Ackerson's dog's off the leash again.

She reached for the phone, turning.

The coon's glistening entrails curled purple on her picture window, a single four letter word.

She dialled, furious, and uniquely, afraid.

The First Winter

Autumn coughed itself out in a flurry of leaves, winding down like a dray horse spent at harvest end.

As the first chill of winter rode the wind, Geir sat warming himself by the forge and watched as a wasp buzzed angrily through the smoke and, buffeted by the heat, spiralled toward Gideon.

Lifting his round face to the noise Gideon followed the path of the wasp and, reaching out a pudgy hand, grabbed at it.

The smithy winced, knowing what was to come, but Gideon closed his hand around the wasp and lifted it to his ear. He opened his fist and the wasp, now flicking its wings softly, crawled over his outstretched palm and sat for a moment on his fingertips before taking flight once more, avoiding the fire, and bumbled through the open door of the hut.

Misfits

The pub was quiet, a corner of the bar girded by a set of chairs. A polite looking man sat with a little handwritten sign, Communicating Socially.

I looked on as some mongs and a couple of retards signed in and were given name badges.

I called the barman over. "What on earth are they doing?" I asked him. And he told me.

Their stumbling, stilted efforts to learn social niceties had all the grace of a baby elephant learning to walk. They were laughing in that empty-headed, idiot way.

The barman looked at me, and went on with his cleaning.

"But what the hell's the point? They'll never fit in." I killed my pint with a flourish.

"Yes mate," said the barman, sluicing down the slop tray. "But you're the one sat in here on your own, aren't you?"

4x6

Looking at his casket, I made my choice. I stood and delivered the other eulogy.

"I read the obituary. He sounded like a great father. I wish I remembered that one.

Maybe, if they'd awarded his Pulitzer for drinking, being anger-prone and quick with his fists, I'd've understood..."

They didn't let me continue long.

Always prey to his own, he admired passion in others; in a strange way, I think he would've been proud of me.

Spent, I sat quietly later at home, looking at a dog-eared yellowing photograph of the three of us, taken in Spain somewhere: we're smiling, light bleeding an orange stripe that shines across our chests, and the snaking cable release connects me to his old Olympus.

His gift.

I let the tears come, longing to effortlessly shut them off with a press of my thumb.

Plagiarism

Craig stood on the icy platform, drinking abysmal coffee, reflecting as he waited for the 8.32, that despite this third round of rework he doubted the client wanted a hit out on him yet.

As Craig boarded his usual carriage, he was there again.

A few days earlier Craig had noted the excellent footwear choice of the guy four seats down; the same pair of limited edition Converse he'd treated himself to last month.

Two days later Craig saw him again, sitting only two seats down now, wearing the same red t-shirt, and his hair style.

Today, the man sat opposite him; a reflection, except for blank, dead eyes.

Leaning forward, a whisper: He approaches.

Craig watched mutely as the man leered, picked up Craig's bag and alighted.

The train departed, an abandoned man staring from the carriage, waiting...

All things come...

There was once a princess, famed throughout the three kingdoms for her beauty.

As was customary in those days, her father walled her up, setting tribulations ahead of any suitors.

In the next kingdom King Thorvald petitioned his sons, Dagur, Einar, and the youngest Galdur, to win her, offering weapons from his magical coffers.

The eldest conspired, saying Galdur is green, we should rightfully win princess and kingdom. Taking the best choices and leaving the dross they headed out into the wild world.

Galdur wasn't dismayed. He waited three moons and news came of his brothers; they had met many challenges, but couldn't win the princess and died in the trying.

Heartbroken, Thorvald died shortly afterward. 

Galdur succeeded; Thorvald's army was his to command.

Without delay he annexed the two kingdoms, taking the princess as weregild for his kin.

Tithe Barn

The barn was hot, the bread smell of hay mixing with animals and of sweat.

Forty men stood side by side, straight from the fields.

Two years had brought poor harvests, a paucity of jobs, and the thrasing machine had come last season, separating men from their livelihoods as surely as the chaff from the grain.

As Andrews arrived the discussion raged like hunger.

"One tenth we give them, and Lord knows where it goes."

"The parson knows" came a voice from the back. This last met with loud derision.

"Aye," said Gladwell, "blessings they offer us, then they take from us our work. Surely they should swing."

"Who here can write?"

Andrews was jostled to the front, where Gladwell handed him writing implements.

Putting pen to paper he heard the lighting of pitch-soaked torches, and it began.

The Lost Coast

"This is smooth, satisfying WMPR out of Shelter Cove,

It's three minutes past one and we'll take another caller after Bert Kaempfert, Love after Midnight."

Bryant flicked the mic off and kicked back his chair.

In the far distance a thunderhead on its way to Fort Bragg crackled with lightning.

It'd been quiet tonight, a call about the blood drive in Garberville tomorrow, and Mrs. Gray out on the King's Peak Road complaining about things in the wood again; flying wolves this time.

(Last week, the wendigo walking.)

Looking out across the cove, black sand sparkling in the moonlight, Bryant figured he'd head to Mario's by the lighthouse for early breakfast.

As he watched, one by one the lights were going out, a wave of darkness rolling down the ridge toward him.

Bryant heard a keening howl, the sound of wings.

Mario's

Ernest was a short man, a little thinning on top, a little thick round the middle.

Once, he grew a moustache. You look like Super Mario, his brother had said. He gave the name to his restaurant.

Ernest picked his teeth thoughtfully as he eyed the carcass. Then, with studied ease, he pared flesh away from bone, dividing into fillets, ribs (thick and thin) setting aside the liver and the kidneys and the trimmings for grinding.

His brother's head appeared round the kitchen door.

"Eah, Ernest, guy out front says he's found hair in his meatball mostaccioli, wants to make a complaint."

"Send him back here."

Ernest made ready, moving the offcuts from the board. Feet and hands in the red bin for the dogs, head in the fridge for coppa di testa.

Worksurface prepared, Ernest stropped his cleaver, waiting.

Both original and good...

I've reached my first milestone.

I've been doing this almost a month so far, and by my reckoning I started on the 4th and I've written 23 stories, meaning I owe the pot 3.

There'll be another story coming this evening, about a guy with an interesting restaurant. I'll have some catch-up to do after that. Although perhaps I shouldn't promise the next story too soon, 23 is an enigmatic number after all, just ask William Burroughs. (Time to dig out that tinfoil hat).

Reading back through my 23 I'm pretty pleased. I've managed to condense my thoughts into a very small format and mostly, I think, they hold up.

Some of the ideas were a bit too large and cutting and refining has made them different from my original intention, but still, they're there, on screen, for people to read; a bunch of strange things happening to ordinary people.

I've created some characters and a location or two that I think I might re-visit. I'm pretty sure the Cellar that Leach looks after is a large place indeed, and things grow there.

I'm not the first person to try doing this - I mean, I stole the number of words from Twitter (sort of), and other people have been doing stories of 55 words, 3x69 words and some people have delivered up one a day since 2005 - Flash Fiction has been around for a while. But I hope I can maintain the pace over the next few months, and so far as I can tell, I'm the only one doing all the work myself.

It'll be an interesting journey for me, I hope that I can encourage a few people along with me.

Speak to you next month.