Jonas had settled before the fire, tamping tobacco into his pipe, when a blow sounded against the door. His wife, Ruth, flinched and rose from her chair.
“Fetch the rifle,” Jonas said. He gripped the iron poker from the hearth.
He would not have known the visitor if not for Ruth’s gasp of recognition. White frost clung to his beard and dusted his coat. His sunken eyes stared under the shelf of his brow. In the night behind him, snowflakes as large as doves fluttered.
“Samuel!” Ruth lowered the rifle.
Jonas pulled the man, their neighbor, into the house. What terrible mission had brought him four miles to their home?
Trembling, Samuel set down his lantern. “We’ve lost Aaron.” Samuel turned to Jonas. “I need your help to bury him.”
“The ground’s too hard. Wait until the sun warms the soil…”
“It’s been two nights already. I waited, hoping the snow would stop.”
Ruth grasped Jonas’s arm. “He must be buried before the third day.”
The last coffin Jonas had carried had been his mother’s. She passed in the spring, when his shovel turned the ground as easy as planting a field. They buried her right after her last breath. Sometimes, he heard her voice call his name.
“We’ve hours until dawn, but we’ll need a fire to warm the ground.” Jonas shrugged into his coat.
“Wait!” Ruth scurried off and came back carrying two bundles. “Take this.” She thrust the packages at Samuel. “Salt pork and hardtack. Sorry I don’t have more to send.” Color rose in her face. “Tell Mary I’ll be around when the roads clear.”
Samuel tucked the food into his pockets. “I’m grateful. Truth is, we’ve run short of supplies.”
Jonas paused in the doorway when Ruth called again. She rushed to him and wound her wool shawl around his neck. “Stay safe, Jonas.”
The wind ceased when the men were halfway to Samuel’s home. Clouds scattered, revealing the moon, like a white pearl in the indigo sky. No sound but the crunch of their boots across the snow-covered fields. Their breath hung like smoke overhead.
At Samuel’s home, they found Mary’s mother seated in a rocker at the hearth with the younger child, a girl, playing on a rug at her feet. Samuel handed the old woman the food. “From Ruth.”
The grandmother rose. “She’s with him still.” She gestured to the closed door across the room. Her wrinkled face knotted in anger. “The devil takes us if we’ve come to this. No bread to fill our sorrow, no drink to wash our pain.” She motioned to Samuel. “Go fetch Mary.”
“I’ll go,” Jonas said.
The boy lay on his parent’s bed in the cold room. They had dressed him in black pants that stopped short of his ankles and a white shirt that matched the pallor of his face. His mother slumped from her chair and rested her cheek on the mattress. She clutched one of the child’s hands.
Mary jumped when Jonas touched her shoulder. “Please, not yet. Would it be bad to have him back?”
Jonas thought of all the ones he had lost. Would it comfort this family, to be haunted by their child? “You shouldn’t tie him to this earth.”
“I’d do anything to keep him longer.”
Jonas eased her to her feet. “The dead are never gone. We carry them with us always.”
Samuel hitched a horse to their sleigh while Jonas carried the boy outside. He wrapped the body in Ruth’s shawl. Bundles of firewood rested in the back of the sleigh. Rather than put the boy there, his father held him in his lap while Jonas drove the sleigh.
At last, they reached the graveyard behind the church. The moon cast the snow in blue light. Bare-branched trees cast long shadows on their work as they stacked wood on the grave’s soil. The fire lit, the men warmed their hands in its heat. A howl sounded from the woods on the other side. Jonas glanced at the horse tethered on the cemetery’s fence. “We shouldn’t leave them there, with hungry wolves near.”
While Jonas tended to the horse, Samuel laid his son beside the fire, as though to warm him. He brushed aside the shawl and cupped the boy’s cheek. “If he died in the spring, we’d live with his ghost.” Samuel drew the cloth back over the boy. “But I couldn’t bear the guilt of it, to face him now. He’d been sick. When he died, I felt relief that there would be one less mouth to feed.”
“Hunger makes wolves of us. You can grieve the dead and worry for the living.” Jonas rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
When the fire had died to coals, Jonas swept them from the grave and sunk his shovel into the ground. Samuel staggered to his feet, but Jonas waved him away. He dug, mindful of the passing hours and disregarding the blisters that burned on his hands.
Jonas finished digging as a line of burnt orange stretched across the horizon. A blanket of soft gray fog rolled in. Together, Jonas and Samuel eased the boy into his resting place. The sun rose, scattering the mist and warming the earth. The ice melted from the tree branches and clear droplets of water fell over the grave.
I don’t remember why I wrote this story. Possibly it’s one I entered in a contest on the Vocal website. Like Medium, Vocal is a site where writers can publish stories and collect a few pennies when people read them. I wasn’t successful there and finally closed my account once I reached the $20 minimum to cash out. I won’t mention how long it took to earn that money.
And that, dear readers, is one example of why I don’t recommend trying to make a living writing short stories.
This one’s a ghost story, but it’s not too scary.
The Orchard
Mae Emery returned, as she had each year since childhood, to her Aunt Judy’s orchard. The sultry dog days of summer gripped Pennsylvania, but Mae couldn’t get warm. She wrapped her body in bulky sweaters and stiff jeans, clad her feet in heavy boots. Workman’s clothes.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Your mother would want you to be with family.” Aunt Judy pulled her close as soon as Mae stepped from her car. The last of the season’s blossoms swirled around their feet like snow.
“It’s good to be back.” Mae studied the older woman, searching for some sign of the breast cancer her aunt had survived years ago. They didn’t talk about things like that back then, Mae’s mother had told her, as she herself lay dying from that same disease.
That summer and into the fall, Mae worked in the gift shop alongside her aunt. The orchard had been in their family for generations, passed down at last to Mae’s mother’s older sister, Judy. Less than a hundred miles from Gettysburg, the farm attracted tourists and local families both. As the pears ripened, the orchard filled with workers. The bell above the gift shop’s door chimed as customers flooded in, searching for trinkets and t-shirts. Mae forced a smile upon her lips while her hands dished out pies, jars of pear butter, and doughnuts warm from the fryer.
Evenings, Mae retired to her tidy room above the store, scented with cinnamon and the sweet smell of candles in the gift shop below. Snuggled underneath a faded quilt, she slept beside a view of the trees from her window. Aunt Judy had offered Mae her mother’s old room in the main house, but Mae could not imagine resting there. At night, the house settled with creaks and pops like footsteps on the wooden floors.
Below her window, at the edge of the orchard, the orange flames from the pickers’ campfires glowed. If the wind blew from the right direction, it would carry their soft conversation. Mae could pretend their words were those of the ghosts rumored to haunt the orchard.
One night, when the full moon cast its glow, Mae dressed and strolled barefoot among the trees. The leaves rustled like restless spirits. The grass on the ground as familiar as the rug beside her bed. This was the one place she thought might melt the cold center of dread and sorrow she carried.
She found the canteen, propped against a trunk, as though someone had dropped it there. Worn wool cloth covered the rusted tin container. She tipped it over the grass and a stream of dry soil spilled from the spout. A flash of white drew her gaze. Mae froze. Something drifted out from the trees at the end of the row. Mae drew in a breath. A boy’s pale face appeared in the moonlight. He wore a jacket, long trousers, and a flat-brimmed hat, the colors muted by the dark.
“Hello?” Mae stepped toward him.
His eyes were blank as pennies. He stared past her, alert, as though watching for someone else to come through the trees. A snap, a heavy step on a twig, sounded behind her. A brush of cold flicked against her neck. Mae spun. The row was empty. When she turned back, the boy had disappeared.
Clutching the flask to her chest, Mae jogged back to the gift shop. When she reached her room, she slammed and locked the door then collapsed against it, panting and shaking.
The next morning, before the shop opened, Mae brought the canteen to her aunt. “I found this last night in the orchard.”
Judy turned the flask over, her fingers tracing the circles stamped into the tin. “This is very old,” she said. “Things turn up now and then. Civil War stuff, mostly bullets. Metal lasts longer.” Judy handed the canteen back to Mae. “What else did you see?” she asked.
“There was someone there, a boy.”
“Dressed strangely?” Judy asked. When Mae nodded, Judy said, “A spirit. I haven’t seen him in years.” She brushed the hair back from Mae’s face. “Sorrow calls to sorrow,” she said.
That night, Mae studied the canteen. How had it come to be there, in the orchard? Who had left there it, for her to find? Soft notes of guitar music drifted in through the open window from the pickers’ cabins. Mae carried the canteen outside.
An older man, face creased and lined by days spent in the sun, sat next to a dying campfire. He nodded hello as she strolled by. Mae had known many of the regulars, the pickers who returned season after season. She’d taken turns working the trees, her back aching at the end of the long day, bent from the weight of pears.
Most times, her mother stood at the bottom of the ladder, steadying it and pointing out the ripe fruit. High in the green of the branches, Mae couldn’t see every side of the fruit, but together, they saw all the pears. This was the first year she hadn’t worked among the trees.
With the canteen tucked under her arm, Mae crept through the orchard. The guitar music faded, and not even a whisper of wind moved the leaves. This was her world—the pears, the trees, everything around her constant and comforting. If she belonged here, then so did the boy.
“It’s okay,” she said. She lifted the canteen, an offering.
Then, all around, spectral figures wafted through the trees. They passed by Mae, the stream of ghostly men parting as they flowed around her. Soldiers. Ghosts, filled with fear and sadness, but with courage as well. They marched forward, unseeing. In the distance, a drum beat a tap, tap to their steps. Mae waited as wave after wave of blue-coated foot soldiers appeared.
She spotted him. He marched, beating the drum strung at his waist. Mae held out the canteen. The boy’s icy fingers brushed hers as he gripped the container and it faded to transparency. Canteen slung over his shoulder, the boy took up the drumbeat and joined his company. The soldiers passed—mounted men silent except for the creak of their saddles, foot soldiers gripping their rifles, cannons mounted on caissons whose wheels did not disturb the grass. Mae lifted a hand in a half-salute and stood watch until they faded and broke up like mist over the ground.
This story is one I wrote last year for the NYC Midnight Scary Story contest. The judges liked it enough that I advanced to the second round in that contest. One of the prompts that had to be included was a character that was a nomad. I don’t remember the other prompts. The story also had to be 500 words or less, a real challenge when you have to include specific things.
I’m not entering any NYC Midnight contests this year. They have been a good incentive to stretch my creativity, but I’ve put off writing a novel for too long and now is the time to concentrate on that. For now, I hope you enjoy this little tale. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but not too scary.
The Homecoming
Every October, Evangeline was drawn back to the place she had known as home. No matter how far she traveled, like a bird she returned, drawn to dark mysteries in the East Texas house.
She parked the RV in the weed-filled drive and waited as the witch came outside. The old woman’s name refused to rise in her recollection, but her face was one Evangeline could imagine as her own reflection, twenty years forward.
“You’re here,” the witch said. “Come inside.”
Evangeline left the motor home, with its collage of bumper stickers from places pinned on a map. Never settling, lest she mistake familiarity for forgiveness.
The porch creaked with her steps, the wood gone soft and gray. Beside the house, laundry hung on a line—cotton dresses and sheets that snapped like sails in the wind.
She followed the old woman down a hallway with portraits on the walls. A young man in a soldier’s uniform, a bride in an oval frame, a family of stern-faced folk. Last, a photograph, colors faded to blue-green, of a mother and child. Broken glass hung in the frame. Someone had carved out their faces, taken a sharp edge to the paper. Evangeline trailed her fingers across the clinging shards of glass. A carmine drop of blood bloomed on her thumb.
Inside the bathroom, water dripped into a claw-footed tub. The scent of mold and rain-damp leaves, of things left to rot, drifted out. Evangeline covered her face to hide from the room.
“Sit.” The old woman pointed at the kitchen table. Scattered across the surface were dried herbs, a hen’s egg, a black candle, and a clump of clay molded into the shape of an infant.
After lighting the candle, the woman grabbed Evangeline’s hand and squeezed a drop of blood into the flame. A clock chimed three times.
“Hurry.” The witch pushed a wicker basket at Evangeline.
Outside, dark clouds threatened. She raced to save the wash. When she tried to return the basket, the witch blocked her. “You must face this.”
Evangeline shivered. The bathroom door creaked closed, hiding what waited inside. No giggling play, no splashing. Only drip, drip, drip.
“The spell didn’t work. I don’t remember,” Evangeline lied.
“It was an accident. Forgive yourself.”
Before she climbed into the RV, Evangeline kissed the old woman’s cheek. “I’ll see you next year,” she said. “Goodbye, Mother.”
The story I’m sharing tonight was my entry for the second round in the NYC Midnight Scary Story contest. I didn’t advance to the finals and I’m a choosing to look on that as okay news as this means I now have the weekend free to work on the novel that I’ve started.
I received some good feedback from the judges, and I considered whether I wanted to go in and re-work the story to submit somewhere. But I then decided that it would just be one way of putting off the hard work of novel writing.
The prompts for this story were: burial, skipping a meal, and a couponer. I do love the prompt based writing contests, as they are always a challenge to creativity. And now, here is the story in all its unedited glory. Enjoy! (or not – this one’s a bit dark)
Die Hungry
The line of people wound through the cemetery. At the edge of the graveyard, a backhoe idled. Hayla shuffled forward, clasping her vouchers. Armed guards strode beside them, like wolves stalking prey.
“It’s fine weather for Parting Day,” the bearded man in front of her said. He grinned, revealing rotten teeth.
Shrinking back, Hayla nodded. Was this his mandatory age of disposition? She had signed up on her fiftieth birthday, five years early, to gift the unused time to her daughter.
The man leaned close enough she could smell the onion stink of his body odor. “I heard they don’t embalm or cremate folks so they can test whether the virus is still around.”
“Don’t care,” Hayla said. “Better to be buried with a full stomach than die hungry and rise as a ghoul.”
“You think this is enough?” The man held a single orange ticket, the color of the free government vouchers. Hayla had five meal coupons, one in each color, collected in preparation for today. A full digestive system halted the disease.
She turned, eager to glimpse the feast table. The scent of roasted chicken drifted through the air. Her stomach rumbled. She shouldn’t have fasted yesterday, but she wanted to gorge today. She swallowed, her mouth slick with saliva.
“Get back!” One of the armed men shouted. Across from the queue, a dozen people, men and women, fought against the ropes binding them. The unfed. Hayla shivered. Buried under concrete, unable to claw your way out. The group struggled toward the feast line.
“Go!” A guard pushed Hayla into the bearded man.
Screaming, the bound group surged into the queue. Hayla tripped, falling hard on her side. A large man landed on her, crushing her breath. She rolled, pushing the man away.
Gunfire thundered, bullets thudding into victims. Hayla crawled across the grass, shuddering as people fell wailing around her. Within seconds it was over. Hayla staggered to her feet. She ran trembling hands down her body. Her meal coupons were gone.
She grabbed a guard. “I’ve lost my tickets!”
“Sure. And I’m the pope.” He pulled her toward a pile of bodies.
A bulldozer roared, scooping up the fallen. The guard raised his gun.
Hayla woke, lying cold in absolute darkness. Something soft and wet pressed her cheek. Someone moaned. She grasped their arm and pulled it to her mouth. Hungry. She was so hungry.
This story is one I submitted to one of NYC Midnight’s writing contests. I don’t remember the prompts, but they had to be something amusing to result in the following tale.
The Cook in the Kitchen
Betty Norman held the dusty cookbook angled toward the sunlight spilling through the thrift shop’s window. Her husband Eustace tromped up behind her, his arms filled with a dozen mildewed copies of Popular Mechanics magazines and five dull-brass cabinet knobs. He propped his chin on her shoulder as she traced the spidery handwriting in the margins of the cookbook. Betty flipped through the yellowed pages. She tapped a brown stain on the cover, shaped like the state of West Virginia. “I bet there’s good recipes here.”
Smiling, Eustace agreed. “This one might do the trick.”
At home, she stashed her purchase between a worn Fanny Farmer cookbook and a hardcover copy of The Joy of Cooking. The shelves on the bookcase sagged beneath the weight of thousands of recipes. Despite all this instruction, Betty had never grilled a steak she couldn’t burn to bitter charcoal, had never baked a cake that rose above the batter. If she put eggs on to boil, the water would simmer away until the pan ran dry, without so much as firming up a single yolk. When it came to cooking, she was cursed.
Her mother hadn’t meant to put a hex on her. Betty’s mother had never let her help in the kitchen. Two cooks would spoil the broth.
Later that night Betty woke to the clink of silverware, and the hushed whisper of drawers sliding open. In the dark kitchen she discovered the new cookbook on the counter, surrounded by a dusting of flour. A stove burner blazed blue flame. Betty rushed to turn it off. A pale woman wearing an apron stood reaching for the refrigerator door.
“Hey!” called Betty.
Just then, Eustace stepped into the kitchen and flipped on the light. The woman disappeared. “You fixing a late-night snack?” He pointed to the open cookbook.
“Not me.” Betty shook her head. She picked up the cookbook and shook the flour from the pages. “We brought home a ghost.”
Sighing, Betty pulled a thin, cloth-bound volume from the shelf. She opened it and ran her finger across the bold, block letters scrawled across the margins as she said, “Mom. I need your help again.”
Betty stacked her mother’s cookbook atop their latest purchase. She and Eustace went off to bed, certain the ghost would be gone. Betty’s mother never allowed anyone else in the kitchen.
I’m sharing another piece from a Writing Battle contest. This one had a limit of 250 words. The question I struggle with when writing very short, micro fiction is this: “How do you produce a complete story with characterization, rising and falling action, plot, and resolution when you only have X number of words?” Sometimes I feel like I hit the sweet spot on all those things that make a story a story, and sometimes I just have to be happy writing a vignette.
Vignette: a brief evocative description, account, or episode.
The story below made it to the top 16 in my category, but didn’t win any prizes. My genre was “Summer Fling”, I had to have a character “Bumbling Adventurer” and I had to include the word “Prudent.”
After the contest, I tried to expand the piece and I submitted it to a couple of other contests, only to get it back with the feedback that it wasn’t a complete story. Anyway I like it, so here it is. What do you think? Short story or vignette?
Lantana
Alina rolled through life like a tumbleweed — reckless, never prudent. She wore odd combinations—crimson flowers on an orange shirt and blue striped shorts, as though she dressed in the dark. One summer morning, she braided her sun-gold hair and set off to meet her latest boyfriend, Jay, at the pier.
She strolled across the sand toward a Ferris wheel outlined against a periwinkle sky. After she lost a shoe in the surf, Alina stopped at the gift shop and bought a pair of rubber sandals.
When she found Jay, he held a paper container of fries. His kiss tasted of salt. Holding hands, they weaved past carnival games and their clanging, ringing, flashing lights. A summer season of popcorn bits and peanut shells crunched underfoot. Alina purchased a souvenir cup topped with a plastic dolphin’s head. They shared a pink puff of cotton candy, the hot-sugar stickiness clinging to their fingers. So sweet, before dissolving to nothing.
They paused at a giant wooden track. Overhead, cars filled with screaming passengers rattled past. “Last chance, ride it with me?” Alina asked.
“I don’t do roller coasters.”
She thrust the dolphin cup at him and joined the queue for the ride. At the second hill, the coaster froze at the summit. In the moments before the cars resumed their plunge, Alina stretched her arms overhead. The wind carried a hint of coolness, heralding summer’s end. She searched the ground for Jay. Below, he lifted the cup in salute, or farewell.
The story I’m sharing tonight is from a Writing Battle contest. I like this contest because it is peer judged and each writer gets feedback from other contestants. To make it fair, you read and judge stories that aren’t in the same category as yours. The prompts and genres are always a surprise, and include some crazy combinations. For the story below, my genre was “Military Lampoon” and I had to include the subject of “Justice” and the word “Zealous.” Also, it had to be less than 500 words.
The feedback I received mentioned that the tale didn’t quite meet the justice theme, but I had fun with it.
The War of Roses
Lee Hammond had no quarrel with his neighbor until the crape myrtle incident. He kept silent over the neon dandelions dotting the yard next door, figuring someone who had spent his life at sea wouldn’t understand the complexities of lawn maintenance. Lee’s grass was an immaculate spread of green, like a soft blanket thrown across the ground. Saturdays, at exactly 0800, he zealously attacked the shrubbery, chopping it into uniform rectangles.
He ignored the Navy flag flapping from the man’s porch and ordered a larger version of his own banner—a sparkling white Army flag with gold fringe.
The morning of the crape myrtle massacre, a landscaping truck parked in front of Lee’s driveway. Workers spilled onto the ten-foot-wide strip of grass separating the two homes. Music throbbed from a boom box, accompanied by the buzz of a chainsaw.
“Hmph.” Lee dropped the blind he’d been peering behind.
Lee’s wife folded her newspaper. “You should go over. Introduce yourself.”
He stooped to pet Ike, their English bulldog. “And say what? Why are you cutting down that tree? The one shading my drive?”
“You two have much in common, being retired military.”
Lee grunted and parted the blinds again. “In common? The man has a cat, Helen. I see it over there, in the window.” An orange tabby pressed against the glass, staring at him.
At the end of the day, the lawn between the two homes had been transformed. A squat rosebush sported crimson buds, and pink and yellow zinnias were sprinkled throughout the bed. That evening, while he took the dog out, Lee paced off the distance from his drive to the flowers. He smiled when Ike raised a leg to relieve himself against the rosebush.
Things went on quietly until the morning Ike slipped under the backyard fence. Lee woke to a clamor of shouts, barks, and howls. He raced outside to spot Ike panting in the yard next door. Muddy flower petals littered the driveway and the rose bush tilted half out of the dirt. The orange tabby peered from atop the neighbor’s garage.
“I’m sorry.” Lee grasped the dog’s collar. “Ike never does this.”
“Ike? As in Eisenhower? Commander-in-chief?” When Lee nodded, the neighbor waved at the cat. “Meet Admiral Chester Nimitz.” The neighbor held out his hand. “I’m Jack.”
After securing Ike inside, Lee offered the ladder from his garage. He held it as Jack climbed.
Once they’d rescued Chester, Lee gestured to the ruined landscaping. “Since my dog did this damage, I’ll pay for replacements. And help you replant.”
“I suspect it was a joint operation, Army and Navy,” Jack said. “Half is fair. Why don’t you come with me to the nursery?”
Lee accepted the man’s offer, glad to offer advice on drought and pet tolerant plants. Later, their work finished, he had to admit they made a pleasant view, though he missed the crape myrtle’s shade. Red roses, blue lobelia and white gardenias—a perfectly patriotic compromise.
Tonight I’m sharing a short story I wrote for Writing Battle, one of my favorite writing contests. This piece didn’t advance very far, but I like it enough that I’ll share it here. I don’t remember all of the prompts for this one, but I do remember that the story had to include a ladder.
The Emerald Forest
Neena Dasari called me three days after Katy’s funeral. “Reid,” she said, “Jack’s in trouble.”
“Why isn’t he calling?” I was surprised to hear from her. As senior programmer, she was one level below the CEO. Hell, they had given her my office.
“We were developing an AI with true consciousness.” Neena took a breath and when she spoke, her voice trembled. “He used Katy as a template and placed her inside the new program, the Emerald Forest. Now Jack’s trapped there, playing the game.”
Neena buzzed me into the EIG office and we crossed the empty lobby, our footsteps echoing. Emergent Intelligent Games, EIG, had been founded by me, Katy, and Jack. The first massive multiplayer online game we created launched EIG and made us billionaires before forty. I used to play that game, but I stopped after Jack bought my share of the company, forcing me out. I’d worked with Katy on the coding for Emerald Forest, and played one of the first levels, but I was gone before we completed it.
We took the private elevator up to the top floor suite. Inside, Jack hung suspended in a haptic rig. Webbing cradled him in an upright hammock. He wore a helmet with earphones and a faceplate. A second rig stood next to him.
“He’s been online 48 hours,” Neena said. “He doesn’t respond and I can’t log onto the game. They’ve restricted access.”
I stared at the man who had been my best friend. We hadn’t spoken in almost a year, since before Katy’s diagnosis. The day of her funeral, I hid in the crowd at the back of the chapel.
I strapped into the second rig, then logged onto Emerald Forest using my old password. No one had gotten around to deleting it. The screen displayed a choice of three characters. I selected the third, the Exiled Knight.
Emerald Forest, as we had imagined it, took players through an adventure in an ancient woodland. The opening shot was an overhead view of the land. Now, instead of that green landscape, my character stood in a crush of high school students as they flowed past, down a white-tiled hallway.
The scene dissolved and reassembled as a menu of game levels. Instead of the storyline I remembered, the options were Jessom High, Truman Hall, Mother Dell’s, and Kauai. The last block was just labeled “Final.” I recognized the names. Jessom was where we had gone to school. Truman Hall was our college dorm. The three of us had first imagined and planned EIG over pizza at Mother Dell’s. Jack and Katy had honeymooned in Kauai. Jack had recreated scenes from our past.
I held my hand over each level, ignoring the temptation to replay those memories. What would it be like to linger here before everything went bad? I needed to find Jack and figure out how to end the game. Looking over the menu choices again, I decided to skip to the final one.
The scene for that level was an open field of wheat. At the far end, a rusted water tower rose against the horizon. I strode through waist high plants, toward the tower. In the game, it looked just as it had all those years ago, when the three of us had climbed it on a dare, back when we were college freshmen. When I reached it, I met Jack at the base of the ladder that led to the top.
“She’s up there, waiting, but I can’t climb,” Jack said. He glanced at me, but his character showed no reaction. “Every time I reach for it, it disappears.”
“What is this place, Jack? Why did you create it?”
“I only did the first one. She coded the rest.”
“The AI?” If this was true, it was an amazing breakthrough—artificial intelligence that could change the rules of a digital world.
“It’s Katy. I put everything in—her thoughts, memories, personality fragments.”
If Katy’s consciousness had been responsible for this level, I wanted to see how it would end. In the real world, this place had been the turning point for the three of us. Friends before, but after we climbed this tower, Katy chose Jack. Would she choose differently inside the game? I stepped onto the first rung and shook the ladder. “It’s okay. Let’s go up together.” I was willing to bet the reason the ladder didn’t work for Jack alone was that it needed all three of us. Katy waited at the top.
Like the past, I was second up the ladder. Clothed in the haptic rig, I felt the wind rush past as we climbed, and heard the squeal of metal with each step on the rungs. At last, we reached the end.
“You can see the football stadium.” Katy sat gripping the railing, her legs dangling over the side. She was exactly as I remembered her from that day on the tower. Her green eyes looked up into mine. Hair the russet brown of oak leaves in autumn fell in curls across her shoulders.
Jack settled beside her and I stood on her left. I tightened my hold on the railing, the haptic gloves transferring the feel of cold metal to my hands. Looking down, a wave of dizzying nausea passed over me. The ground below seemed both impossibly far and close enough that if I stepped off the walk way, I would land unharmed.
“I’m going.” The temptation to linger, to try to change this alternative history, was strong. I had taken the first step on the ladder when Jack spoke up.
“Wait,” Jack turned to Katy. “Did you love Reid more?”
She held out her hand. “We can’t change the real past, but we can fix the future.”
This wasn’t Katy. This was a machine system programmed with data and built to respond like her. I couldn’t alter the past, but I could give us a way forward. “She loved you, Jack. Always. She never loved me.”
“That is true.” When she spoke, the screen dissolved to black.
The game ended. Jack had his answer, but I wondered which one of us had told the truth.
The Grand Opera House in Galveston – photo by the author
Tonight I’m sharing another NYC Midnight contest entry. This one made it through the first round of the Flash Fiction challenge this year. I had to write a 1,000 word or less story in 48 hours in the thriller genre with the setting in an auditorium. And I had to include a ladder in the piece.
Here’s my summary of the story: Magician Mark Ruska and his wife Gigi are involuntary accomplices to a pair of armed assassins during a live show. Working together, the Ruskas perform a dangerous illusion that will be their only escape.
And here is the story, complete in 999 words. (Not counting the title)
The Final Illusion
Every illusion depends on misdirection. The magician, Mark Ruska, paced the stage of the Grand Palace, noting where the set pieces would be during the performance. Everything had to be perfect. On the other side of the velvet curtain, murmurs and shuffling footsteps sounded as the audience filed into the auditorium.
“You done?” The man at the side of the stage motioned with his chin. His hands were busy holding a matte black gun. A red, ridged scar traced across his brow, above eyes the watery gray of a shark’s.
Mark’s wife Gigi stood beside the scarred man. She wore a black tuxedo coat and pants—the outfit matching Mark’s. She nodded to Mark, then wiped her face.
“We’re ready.” Mark scanned the fly space overhead. Heavy sandbags and counterweights hung suspended over a metal catwalk. At the top, accessed by a thin metal ladder, was the wide concrete hallway leading to the rooftop doorway and to an entrance to the theater’s third level.
“We’ll do our job and you guys can go,” the man said.
Mark doubted that. Neither the scarred guy nor the assassin perched on the catwalk had bothered to cover their faces. They would not leave anyone to identify them. Hopefully, their sound and lighting guy, Jim, would stay in his booth, isolated and unknowing of the drama.
At last, the house lights dimmed, the curtains opened, and the show began. The scarred man slid hidden at the side of the stage. Mark wheeled out the large steamer trunk, big as a coffin, that held their equipment.
As they worked their way through the first set—levitation, a transformation illusion, and Gigi’s disappearing rabbit trick, Mark wondered who was the intended victim? The Grand held two hundred seats among three tiers, including six balcony boxes with another twenty-four places. The boxes were positioned directly next to each stage side. Whoever sat in those seats would be at the perfect angle for the catwalk sniper.
A silver-haired man wearing a dark suit sat in the middle box at stage left. Two younger men, both with thick necks and arms that strained the sleeves of their polo shirts, sat behind him. Mark, holding up a chain of clinking triangles, risked a glance at the scarred man. The gunman leaned forward, weapon lowered, his gaze fixed on the man in the box seat.
With a flourish, Mark held the metal triangles up. The chain magically separated into two parts. When the applause faded, he spoke. “For our next trick, we will need a special assistant.” Their usual routine would be to call on a pre-screened audience member. Mark turned to Gigi, hoping their decade of performing this illusion in this theater would allow her to understand his desperate plan. Mentally counting off his steps, Mark rolled the trunk to the position he had noted earlier. Gigi met his gaze, smiled and turned to bring out the folding screen.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our backstage assistant, John.” Mark waved to the scarred man, motioning him forward. Several beats of awkward silence followed as the man scowled and shook his head.
The next few moments would determine whether they would walk out or perish in the gunfire. Mark assumed they planned to kill their target at the show’s end, hoping the distraction of everyone exiting would cover their escape. Now, some in the audience began to mutter and confused laughter sounded. The silver-haired man half-rose from his seat and looked around. Would the sniper take this as his chance? Mark held his breath, waiting.
Finally, the scarred man strode onstage. “There you are!’ Mark led the man to the steamer trunk. Gigi spun the wooden box, showing the audience the lid and locks. As she helped him into the trunk, Gigi whispered escape instructions to the gunman—instructions he wouldn’t be able to follow. Mark rattled the lock and spoke to cover her voice. “One person goes in, but who will come out?”
Mark leaned to whisper to the man inside. “Listen to the music and wait for the drumroll.” He slipped the lock from its fake, unsecured position and threaded it through the clasp holding the lid closed, then spun the box to show the audience. After he helped Gigi move the screen into place, they walked behind it. The lights dimmed and music played.
In normal times, the audience member would open the fake unlocked panel on the steamer and Gigi would climb inside. Mark would escape the stage by climbing the ladder up to the top and take the door to the third level, reappearing in the audience at the end of the drum roll. It all came down to timing. If they got this right, they might have a chance.
“Go out the back, get security, and call the police.” Mark kissed her. “Don’t look back.”
Gigi squeezed his arm. “I love you.”
The music rose in a crescendo, covering the squeak of the metal rungs as Mark climbed. The lighting changed to dark blue with silvery flashes that looked like stars. All distraction to keep the audience on edge.
When he reached the catwalk, Mark slipped off his shoes and crept toward the sniper. The man remained focused on his target, not noticing as Mark neared.
Four feet away, Mark swung the nearest sandbag in an arc at the gunman. The bag, with its thick rope, knocked the man to the edge of the metal ledge. He grabbed the rope, wrapping his hand around it to steady himself. Mark rushed forward. He pushed the man off the catwalk, then released the counterweight to the bag. The sniper, still grasping the bag, plummeted onto the stage. At the end of its line, the bag jerked to a stop. The sniper fell the last twenty feet—onto the steamer trunk.
The police arrived. An ambulance carted off the handcuffed and injured criminals. Mark looked for the silver-haired man, but he had vanished into the crowd.
Tonight’s story is one of the first that I wrote for the NYC Midnight writing contest. I don’t remember the prompts, but I think the genre must have been mystery or crime. And I do remember that one of the words that had to be used was “surrogate.” Anyway, here it is copied below. I spent more time selecting the photo to accompany it than I did posting the story, so please forgive any editing that might need to be done.
Speaking of photos – I always try to use something either my husband or I have captured. This is harder when it’s a fiction piece. For this story I wanted something mysterious, but most of my landscape shots tend toward picturesque and not eerie. I almost used the one below as the top picture, but decided on one with “water” as the theme. After you read the story, let me know which photo best captures the mood of the tale.
Photo by the author
Blood Over Water
I picked up the hitchhiker a quarter-mile past where our Main Street became TX-86. A rusty pickup blew past where she stood with her thumb out. When his brake lights flashed, I hit my light bar and beeped the siren. The truck kept going. Hitchhiking is legal in Texas, and I wouldn’t have pulled over for just any traveler, but this one looked nine months pregnant.
“Hot for a hike, isn’t it?” I leaned toward the open passenger side window, smiling and hoping the girl wouldn’t bolt. Skittish as a deer, she wavered at the edge of the asphalt. Dark sweat stains circled the neck and armholes of her gray t-shirt, stretched tight across her belly. A black leather purse rested at her feet. She shrugged and tucked a lank strand of brown hair behind her ear.
I pushed open the car door. “Hop in. We can talk about it in the air conditioning.”
“You arresting me?”
“That depends. You committed any crimes?” This earned me a smile. To my relief, the girl eased into the seat beside me.
“Thank you, officer.” She glanced at me, then away. “I’ve never been in a police car before.”
“Good to hear.” I held out my hand. “Chief John Lawson, at your service.”
“Cindy Brinkman.” Her hand was hot and slick with sweat.
“When’s your baby due, Cindy?”
“It’s not my baby.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she turned to stare at the flat West Texas landscape.
I wondered about that, but figured it was best not to push her. “I tell you what, there’s a Dairy Queen in town, has a cold soda waiting.” She nodded, and I put the cruiser in gear and drove off.
Over a pair of cherry Cokes, I learned Cindy was twenty-three, five years younger than my daughter Alice. Cindy lived in town with her boyfriend, Jamie, when he wasn’t working. He stayed in Midland during the week, in a trailer with other oil field workers.
“We had a fight, and I left.” She spread her hand protectively across her stomach.
“He hurt you?”
“Oh, no! Jamie would never do that!” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “It’s just hard, you know.”
“You have someone you can call?”
She rummaged in her purse and brought out a pink phone. “My sister. But my battery is dead.”
“You can use mine.” I went to the counter to order food while she made the call.
Cindy polished off a double cheeseburger and two refills of cola before her sister arrived. I recognized the woman that pushed through the door of the Dairy Queen—she’d made an unsuccessful run for school board last year. Brenda York. Her husband did something in tech.
“What were you thinking? It’s hot as hell and the baby is due any day. Why didn’t you call?” Angry red blotches dotted her face. She swept her arm toward the window, almost clocking her husband, a tall, whip-thin man hovering behind her.
Brenda’s husband leaned across the table. “Carl York,” he said, shaking my hand. “Thank you for picking her up.” Carl had close-cropped black hair—like a military cut.
“Part of the job. I’m glad some good Samaritan called in when they saw her on the side of the road.”
Before Cindy left, I pulled her aside. “You folks go ahead.” When Brenda and her husband were out of earshot, I asked Cindy, “You sure you want to go with them?”
She nodded.
“When things calm down, call Jamie. I’m a father myself, and I know he’ll be worried about you and the baby.”
Cindy gave me a startled look, her eyes wide. “Oh,” she said, “it’s Brenda’s baby.” She pointed outside, where her sister waited, one hand on their SUV. “I’m her surrogate.”
Later that night, while we loaded dishes into the dishwasher, I asked my wife about the surrogacy thing. Barb, my wife, worked as a nurse. I could have looked it up on the internet, but I’d rather someone explain the medical terms in words I could understand.
“There are several ways they can go about it,” Barb said. “The surrogate carries the baby because Mom can’t. Sometimes they use a donor egg.”
“Who’s the father?” I rinsed a plate and handed it to Barb.
“They can use the husband’s sperm, or a donor. Either they fertilize the surrogate’s egg, or if they use the mom’s egg, they’ll fertilize it and transfer the embryo to the surrogate.”
“After that, it’s business as usual? Nine months later, you have a baby?”
Barb laughed. “We hope everything goes as usual. If the implantation is successful, yes—the embryo clings to the uterus and nine months later you have a baby.” She closed the dishwasher and punched the button to start a load. “Now tell me, John Lawson, why the sudden interest in where babies come from?”
I explained about picking up Cindy and meeting her sister and her brother-in-law. “She told me twice it wasn’t her baby.”
“There’s sure to be a contract. She would have to sign away any rights to the child.”
“Why would someone agree to that? Have a baby and give it up?”
“Why does anyone do anything? It’s always for love or money.”
Two months passed before I thought of my pregnant hitchhiker. Labor Day, we had a record of four calls for drunk and disorderly at the RV park. The next week, a grass fire swept up to the edge of town, almost igniting the First Baptist Church.
The night of the grass fire, after our volunteer fire department had it under control, I stopped at the Allsup’s convenience store for a cup of coffee and a fried burrito. A haze of smoke hung in the air, blurring the stars. The heat had broken, ushering in the promise of cool nights in the fall. I leaned against the cruiser, careful to keep burrito crumbs off my uniform shirt. A baby’s wail erupted from the black Lincoln SUV parked at the pump. I recognized the man pumping gas—Carl York. I wandered over.
“That’s a healthy set of lungs. Congratulations.”
Carl grimaced. “Do babies ever stop crying?”
“In my experience, hardly ever.” I peered into the back seat, nodding with approval at the fancy carrier turned backwards to face the seat. I tapped on the window. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy.” Carl hung the hose back in its holder. “I better get going. Only time he stops crying is when the car’s moving.”
“Colic?”
“Yeah. Brenda is exhausted, and I barely get any work done. I’d give anything for a quiet night.” He collapsed into the driver’s seat. I held onto the car door.
“What about Cindy? Can she help?”
“We don’t think that’s a good idea.” Carl tugged at the car door and I stepped back. He snorted a half-laugh. “We gave her the money, and she gave us the baby. Over and done.”
Under the fluorescent lights of the station, his skin looked sallow, like he’d aged ten years in the past month. Lack of sleep would do that. I thought I’d ask Barb if she’d pick up a gift for the baby. Give me an excuse to stop by, check on them. I didn’t follow through, though, and the next time I spoke to them, their baby was missing.
The call came in early on a Sunday morning. Sunrise was a yellow line of promise across the horizon when the police scanner in my den crackled to life. Donna, our night shift dispatcher, called out the code for a missing child. By the time I made it to the York’s house, two of our cruisers sat parked in their drive, lights spinning.
The York’s lived in a sprawling, ranch style home. I met them in their living room. Brenda was wrapped in a pale blue robe. Her brown hair was flattened on one side. Carl had pulled on a pair of loose sweat pants and a t-shirt. He held a heavy-duty flashlight in one hand. As we talked, he tapped the light against his palm.
“Tell me what happened,” I asked them. They’d have to repeat the story later for the FBI field team. I’d called my contact there, and they’d be on the way from Dallas. I wouldn’t wait for them. Time is the biggest enemy in a child abduction.
“I thought he slept through the night. Then when I got to the room…” Brenda broke down in sobs. She took deep, hiccupping breaths.
Carl put a hand on her shoulder. “We heard nothing. Not a sound,” he said.
A uniformed officer stood guard outside the baby’s room. She stepped aside to let me enter, but I stopped at the threshold. I scanned the room. Bright red letters hung on the wall, spelling out the boy’s name, Colton. A framed picture of the baby hung below the letters. He had the flat, formless features of a newborn, topped with a thatch of strawberry blonde hair.
The window curtains over the crib had balloons and rainbows printed on the fabric. The rails on the side of the crib were raised and something white and square lay on the floor. I used a pencil to flip on the light switch. The white thing was a baby monitor.
“Anyone else been in here?” I asked the officer.
“No sir.” She straightened her shoulders and adjusted her belt. “Not since we got here.”
Carl met me in the hallway. I asked him, “Was that window closed last night?”
“Closed and locked.”
“What about the doors? You folks have an alarm?”
Carl shook his head. “I let the dog out the back door last night before I went to bed. I don’t think I locked it after.”
“Was this before or after you put the baby to bed?”
“After,” Carl answered. “Last night, he was fussy. I had to take him out in the car to get him to sleep. It was past midnight when we got back. Brenda was asleep.”
“You see anything on that monitor?” I motioned behind me into the baby’s room.
“Nothing. Not until this morning, when Brenda…” His voice trailed off, and he cupped both hands over his face. “What do we do?”
“The FBI folks will be here later. Right now, we’ll keep things secure, talk to your neighbors and see if anyone noticed anything. We’ll send out an Amber Alert.”
I walked with Carl back to the living room. “Have either of you talked to Cindy?”
Brenda looked from me to Carl before she answered. “You mean this morning? No. Not yet. I should do that.”
After the FBI team arrived, I met with the agent in charge, a tall, square-jawed woman named Twyla Carson, and gave her a recap of all I knew. Agent Carson had steel-gray eyes and a firm handshake. Her suit, despite the five-hour drive from Dallas, looked fresh off the rack. I left the feds at their work and I drove over to check on Cindy.
Her address belonged to a small, wood-framed house close to the Allsup’s where I’d seen Carl and the baby. An apple red Honda Civic with paper dealer tags sat in the drive. Cindy opened the door before I could knock. She stood in the half-open doorway, blocking my view into the house.
“Hello, Cindy. How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay.”
The young woman in front of me looked a world different from the pregnant hitchhiker I’d met three months ago. Instead of a sweat-stained t-shirt, she wore a floral print blouse and dark jeans. I studied her face for signs of tears.
“Is your boyfriend home? If not, it would be a good idea for you to be with family right now.”
“I was gonna go over there, but Brenda said to wait until later.”
“Mind if I come in? I wanted to go over a couple of things. You never know what might help us find Colton.”
Cindy bit her lip and hesitated, but she backed away and opened the door. We walked down a short hallway and into the living room. Empty food containers—pizza boxes, hamburger wrappers and Styrofoam plates—covered the coffee table. A breast pump sat atop one of the pizza boxes. Cindy hustled over and started clearing the trash.
“When’s the last time you saw the baby?” I asked.
“I was over there last night.” She picked up the breast pump. “I’ve been dropping off breast milk. They tried formula, but he does better with this.”
“You’ve done that from the start?”
“I don’t mind it.” She carried the pump into the kitchen and called, “You want a glass of water or something?”
“No thank you,” I answered. “But I’d like to borrow your bathroom.”
“Sure.” Cindy came back into the living room. “It’s right down the hall.”
I didn’t need the bathroom, but it was the best excuse to get a look at the rest of the house. The door to the master bedroom hung open, and I glimpsed an open suitcase laid out on the bed. When I left the bathroom, I stopped in the hall opposite the second bedroom. They’d set this room up as a sort of den. A pair of gaming chairs sat in front of a television.
Back in the living room, I picked up a framed photo of Cindy and her boyfriend, Jamie. The picture showed them standing at the base of a red, sand-stone cliff. Sunshine gave the photo a golden tint, lighting up Jamie’s reddish-blond hair. I handed the photo to Cindy.
“Where are they, Cindy?” I thought at first she wouldn’t answer, but then her face crumpled.
“I thought it would all work out, but after he was born…” She collapsed on the couch. “We’re going to be in so much trouble, aren’t we?”
I called Agent Carson and gave her the address of the hotel where they’d find Jamie and Colton. For the second time, I gave Cindy a ride in my police car. At the station, she told the whole story.
“We already had the money when I lost the baby,” she said. “It was right after the first round. I didn’t go to the doctor. I thought they’d be able to tell at the next checkup and I could pretend I didn’t know.”
But by the time Cindy had her next check-up, she was pregnant. This time, the baby was hers and Jamie’s. They decided not to tell. They had the money—fifty thousand dollars, and Cindy had signed away all rights to the baby. That was the first baby, though. The one that didn’t take. As her due date approached, Jamie pressured her to keep the baby. That was what the fight had been about. That day I’d picked her up.
It would be a mess to sort out. Why did they do it? For love or for money, my wife had said. I figured that was true.
Let's Get Out of Here 