Sitting half-naked behind the wheel of a 67mustang, handcuffed to a totally naked beautiful blond hadn’t been on Sheriff Raiden’s bucket list.
But, of course, when the opportunity presented, he hadn’t said no.
Probably not the wisest thing he had ever done, in retrospect. But – to be fair – how could he have known her husband would show up?
He struggled again against the dead weight of the woman.
The very dead weight of the very dead woman.
He was trapped: handcuffed to a dead woman and the steering wheel of a classic car.
His gun (used to shoot his lover, and flung back into the car), his badge and his mobile phone were in the passenger footwell, tantalisingly out of reach.
As the lake-water filled the car he reflected that it wasn’t the first time his brain had been overruled by his dick.
But it did very much look like it would be the last.
Flash Fiction
31.10.3110
Captain Alfred “Freddie” Parkway stood in the docking bay staring at the huge hunk of meteor-beaten metal in front of him.
A transporter. Origin unknown. He read the seriel number on the side, for the umpteenth time: AL1 HAL10W5 EVE
The maintenance androids had completed their inspection, it had been scanned, checked for viruses, explosive devices (there were still boobytrapped vessels floating about left over from the Spectre War, over 2 centuries ago), and life. All negative. Not surprising. Aside from Tabitha, the ship’s cat (she would be currently curled up asleep on the bridge), it had been years since he had come into contact with another living being.
It was time to open it up. Freddie watched the two droids as they forced the large doors open.
As he stepped inside, a metallic smell filled his nostrils. The floor under his boots was sticky. Thé droids filled the space with light, and Freddie saw that all the surfaces were painted red. No not painted. Splattered. Even before the droids identified it, Freddie knew it was blood.
In the centre of the room stood a barrel. Freddie had never seen a real one, not made of wood, like this. It looked exactly like the ones he had seen on bottles of brandy. Although it had been years since he had tasted real brandy. Probably, the last time he had been in the company of another human.
It was also the only thing in the room NOT to be covered in blood.
Knowing he should be making a swift exit, leaving the droids to investigate, Freddie found himself walking over the tacky floor towards the barrel.
The barrel was large, chest-hieght and lid-less. He peered inside.
Curled up inside the barrel was a human figure, pale and shrivelled as if all the blood had been removed from it. Clutched in the corpse’s arms was the body of a dead cat. A piece of paper lay beside the cat.
Freddie reached into the barrel and took hold of the paper. He stared at the three words.
GET OUT NOW!
From the other side of the room he heard a noise. A clunk.
Something brushed against his leg and he jumped, nudging the barrel. The body shifted and Freddie found himself staring at his own face, dry, wrinkled. Dead.
Something touched his leg again. Looking down he saw Tabitha.
He turned towards the door.
Shut.
Locked.
Trapped.
Just before the lights went out, he saw them crawling towards him
The 4th Apocalypse
Hugh shuffled to the door, crunching broken plates, and tea cups still further into the carpet beneath his boots. He sighed as he stared out into the wasteland.
Just a few short weeks ago he would have been admiring his neatly manicured lawn, hedges, and flower beds. Or looking past them, with a scowl on his face, watching Jack at number 22 polish the penis-extention he called his car.
Now, there was mud, burnt out cars and garbage everywhere.
Not to mention the half-eaten human corpses.
The neighbourhood had definitely gone downhill.
The end of the world as he knew it had started, not with the much predicted zombie apocalypse, but with vampires. The rushed and untested vaccine had caused the werewolf plague, and the inoculation against THAT had caused the zombie apocalypse.
The first two apocalypses hadn’t bothered him, much.
The vampires were polite, had knocked at the door, and asked if they could come in. Hugh’s approach to Jehovah’s Witnesses had paid dividends: a quick “fuck off!” and a slam of the door in their face, and that was that.
The werewolves seemed mostly to be high school students interested only in taking revenge on their classmates, or having sex with them. So they left Hugh well alone.
Anyway, in the end, the lack of fresh blood had caused the vampires to die out, and the werewolves were only really a problem once a month.
The zombies were more persistent. They were thugs, vandals, and they hung around like a bad smell.
And boy, did they smell.
“You’ll be OK,” Jack had said. “They are only interested in people with brains”. Two days later Hugh had found putting a bullet slap-bang in the middle of Zombie Jack’s forehead somewhat satisfying.
In the end it was the fourth apocalypse that Hugh had found the most irritating.
The Ghost Apocalypse.
All the moaning, wailing was annoying but it was the throwing things across the room that really got his goat. Hugh had lost count of the number of plates, mugs and ornaments that had been broken.
Jack had been an irritating bastard when he was alive.
Dead, he was simply hell to live with.
The path
Jonty stared at the forest floor. As he watched mushrooms appeared from beneath the green foilage. Making a popping sound as they appeared they swelled, within seconds, into what looked like large grey flagstones. Moments later a path of fungi snaked in front of him, disappearing into the forest.
“Where does it lead?” he asked Klay.
The little man shrugged, his green hair, bobbing on his shoulders, like so many apples in a barrel of water. He looked tired, worn out. This bit of magic had taken its toll.
“Who can say?” he said, his high voice barely a whisper. “The magic trails have no signposts. They are not of this world, they exist here for a short time.”
From behind them; Jonty could hear the baying of the Horde. He fancied he could hear the clashing of blades and the gnashing of teeth too, but he knew that was in his head.
A mental scar to go with all the physical ones.
“But wherever it goes,” Klay continued. “You will have a chance. A chance to survive. A chance to change things. If you stay here…”
Jonty took a deep breath. He felt the familiar feeling of fear. Fear of the unknown path that stretched before him. Fear of the Horde that tracked them.
“Fear is a powerful weapon” his mother had told him once. “You can let it be used againt you, or you can use it to make yourself stronger”.
He hadn’t understood what she had meant at the time.
His mind made up, Jonty took a deep breath and took a step onto the first mushroom. He took another one and then another one. He could feel the pull of the magic, reality seemed to bend and twist around him.
“Wish me luck!” he called out into the maelstrom.
The best laid plans…
Father led the way, his long stride carrying him easily over the rocks.
“It’s this way, everyone” he called out behind him, his tone as confident as his steps.
I glanced at Mother. She had THAT look on her face, her lips pressed so tightly together they bearly existed.
There was trouble brewing.
Tears before bedtime, as Granny used to say.
The younger ones skipped and slipped over the rocks, in front of us, following in Father’s wake. At the moment they were happy, but with the little ones happiness was only a short slip away from a full on tantrum at this time of the day.
The sun was setting, darkness was beginning to gather around us like a pack of wild dogs. We would be lucky to make it before we were swallowed up by it.
Father called over his shoulder again, but his words were dragged away trom us, dashed upon the rocks, lost in the sea below.
Father was taking us on one of his shortcuts.
I had come to realise that when Father used the phrases “I’ve got a plan!” or “this shortcut will save us time!” things would usually end up more interesting, but not necessarily in a good way.
The “plan” was to cut across the bay on foot (“we don’t want to get back in the car again after such a long journey, do we kids?”, “Noooooo!”), eat at the restaurant and get a taxi back (“This way way will save time and we get to see the sea”, “yaaaaaaaaay!”). Mother had argued, of course, but had lost the battle. Even the request to “at least phone ahead and book a table” was laughed off.
I didn’t pick one side or another, even though I knew Mother was right. I couldn’t bear to see the look of betrayal on Father’s face.
I just gave the best shrug my adolescent shoulders could muster: whatever.
At least, this time, Father had brought a torch. As the last red rays left us we had a white beam of light to guide us up the beach.
The restaurant car park was suspiciously empty, the windows depressingly dark.
Father walked up to the door and studied the sign for longer than it could possibly take to read the word “Closed”
Mother put her hands on her hips, her lips twitching as the words “I told you so” struggled to stay behind them.
Father turned towards us, a smile on his face.
“I’ve got a plan!” he said.
Keep your eye on the sky
The drug has taken effect now and I think I see in your face that you suspect what is happening.
But it’s too late.
I help you off your stall and lead you out of the bar. The barman raises his eyebrows.
“Drank too much, too quickly”, I say. He offers to help but I say it’s OK, and he doesn’t push it. If it was the other way round, if you had succeeded in drugging me, would he have insisted on intervening?
I hope so, but can’t be sure.
After all, you’ve done it before.
“Keep your eye on the sky” i whisper in your ear as we stagger together into the parking lot. You do not know the significance.
You do not know that my sister had a poster on her bedroom wall of a wary duckling watching the sky as a bird of prey circled high above. “Be like her, Lisa,” my sister whispered to me, before she died. “Watch for predators”.
And I do.
I watch.
I watched you.
I watched you drug my drink.
I distracted you.
I switched our drinks.
You did not keep your eye on the sky.
You did not see the predator, circling above you.
There are no CCTV cameras in the parking lot. I knew you would have selected the bar carefully. I let you fall to the floor and search your pockets. Your phone is not password protected. I take the permanent marker pen out of my hand bag, and I tear your shirt open. I write “I drug women and rape them” on your chest, and using your phone I take photos and upload them to your profile on Facebook and all your other social media accounts.
I make sure I tag your wife, and your boss.
And then I leave.
The End of the Road Cafe
“We’re stopping, here,” Gemma said, pulling into the parking space, shutting off the engine.
Without looking at her passenger she knew Ian was pulling that face: the one he always made when confronted with something that didn’t fit into the narrow little box of his world. She knew he was staring up at the rustic handpainted cafe sign and the sculpture of a triumpant woman on the roof. To Gemma, there was something free about the sculpture. Something powerful in her stance.
She knew what Ian would say before he spoke.
“It’s… a bit artsy, isn’t it?” Ian drooled the world “Artsy”, and Gemma felt the irritation build inside her.
The road trip had not gone as planned. Far from pulling them together as a couple, it had exposed (at least to Gemma) the faults in their relationship.
Gemma realised she didn’t want to look at Ian, that if she looked one more time at his smug, self-righteous face she would have to admit that far from loving him, she did not even like him.
Gemma took a deep breath and turned to Ian.
“Stop complaining,” she said. “And get out of the car.”
He stared at her for a second before unclicking his seat belt and opening the door.
“Don’t forget your wallet,” Gemma said.
“But, it’s your turn to p-”
“Just take your wallet,” Gemma said.
Ian reached into the glove compartment and took his wallet out, stuffing it into his jeans pocket with a sniff.
As he slammed the door, Gemma wound down the passanger window, and started the car.
“I’ll send your stuff to your mother’s,” she said, before pressing down on the pedal and pulling off at speed.
In the rear view mirror she could see Ian emerging from a cloud of dust, looking as lost and hopeless as she knew him to be.
This story was inspired by a photo I saw on Tsu. You can see the photo, and my original post here
Drabble.Club by Felt.Buzz 