Every Saturday on the steemit freewrite group we do something a little different. Instead of one prompt there are three. So you write three 5 minute freewrites using the prompts given (at the weekend the first two you use as the first sentence or so of your story). Go and check it out: it is fun.
Anyway, this is the story I came up with (the given prompts are in bold):
The Creeps
She had, what they call a healthy smile. But whenever I looked at her, she gave me the creeps.
“I don’t want them,” I says, handing the tiny struggling bag of little creatures back to her. “You know the rules,” she says, smiling her so called healthy smile. “If you look at me you got to take the bag of creeps.” I look away. I’m not sure who invented this game, or indeed where the horrible creatures, the creeps, come from. But whenever I end up looking after the dirty little blighters things always go wrong.
She (of the healthy smile) makes me keep the creeps for twenty four hours (“punishment for looking at my healthy smile, you dirty little man,” she says).
Usually the first hour or so aren’t too bad. The creeps are – like most creatures with well deserved reputations of badness and madness – nocturnal. They love the night. Usually when I run into healthy smile it’s mid afternoon, and whilst the bag of creatures are lively, they can easily be contained. You just have to make sure they’re not put into a cupboard, or any other dark place.
Today, it’s almost dusk. I only have an hour or so before things go haywire!
…
“Sunday afternoon walks were mandatory. But sometimes, I hid in the kitchen and cooked huge pots of food.” One of the creeps is talking its nonsense, and the woman I pass on the street gives me a strange look.
Shame I have an unhealthy smile, I think, or I could have offloaded my bag of creeps onto her, for looking at me.
The creeps are tiny, about the size of a gobstopper. In fact the first time she gave me the small paper bag that bulged and moved strangely, I thought she was sharing candy with me. But I guess, no one has a smile that healthy if they eat big bags of candy.
The creeps are small but powerful. In the bag there are about twenty of them, sometimes more, sometimes less. I know not to open the bag to check, they are cunning little sods, and will escape easily. They have very loud voices, despite being small, so passers by often think it is me speaking when it is just my bag of creeps.
But luckily there is only one talking now, the others are quiet. Perhaps they are sleeping.
This is not a good sign, they will be conserving their energy for night time.
I have an idea, and I head off to Stoner Steve’s house. I ring the bell and hear him shuffle to answer it.
…
Stoner Steve answers the door, with a grunt and a joint in his hand (he is well named, you see).
“What do you want,” he says.
I don’t answer but push past him. He has a book in his hand and as I brush past if falls to the floor with a crash (it is obviously a heavy book, possibly with a metal cover, or maybe made of glass, to make such a racket).
“You clumsy bastard!” says the wide awake creep.
“What did you say?” Steve says.
“Nothing,” says I. “I need access to your growing room, Steve my man.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” says he.
“You showed it to me the other week. The one in your cellar. With the hydroponics and the lights. It’s the lights I need.”
My idea is simple: get the little creeps in a place with permanent light and try to fool them into thinking it is day time, and thereby reducing the mayhem they may cause me and anyone else who is around me. Also, I think, I can have a big spliff and a catch up with Steve, so everyone is a winner.
Steve is a good friend, albeit a forgetful one, and he lets me use his room for the above described purpose.
The creeps make a bit of a rustling noise and one of the pipes up, “turn the fucking light off, twat face!” but then I hear the bag snoring and Steve passes me a joint and I smile.
…
Drabble.Club by Felt.Buzz 