Flash Fiction Daily - Feature Story

My Story 'Mr Dark's Designs' was one of the featured cover stories in Flash Fiction Daily. 

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Hand of Gory

This story was the Winner in the 'Zombie Run' Flash Fiction Competition.

Hand of Gory

The parcel contained a hand.

Sam’s hand.

The ragged edges at the wrist suggested it had been ripped from the arm. A grubby beer stained note, read ‘STOP SERCHING – OR YORE NEXT’.

My partner had been working a case. I needed to find him - or at least the rest of him - before parts of me started needing to be signed for.

I trapped a folded card in the frame to close the door. A poor substitute for our broken door lock, but it did mean I never worried about forgetting my key.

Knowing I faced an illiterate enemy didn’t actually narrow the field much. Sam and me didn’t deal with high end clients. In our twilight business, we were more likely to visit a doss-house than a penthouse.

But spelling or not, the box did give me a lead so I headed off to run it down.

***

The morning bar smelled of watered drinks, counterfeit cigarettes and broken promises. The clink of bottles told me where I needed to head. I stood to one side of the stockroom door and called “Delivery!”

I slipped the scarf over the emerging figure’s throat and braced myself. My arms almost jerked out of their sockets as the monstrous figure heaved and grabbed for the knotted cloth. I held on like a rodeo finalist and twisted the ends together until he fell unconscious to the ground.

Tied to the biggest chair in the place, he didn’t look any less dangerous, just less conscious. Even that changed soon.

He groaned and tried to move. I watched him strain the large plastic cable ties that held him like Gulliver, ready to run if the manufacturer’s claims proved false. But they held and he eventually peered at me from under a brow that made me wonder if Neanderthal man had crossbred.

“Untie me you bastard or I’ll...”

“...Kill me? No. Tear me limb from limb? On that subject, where’s Sam’s body, I mean, less the hand you ripped off and sent me?”

Confronted by a question, his eyes rolled in their sockets like fruit machine reels - before coming up double stupid.

“Hand? Ripped off?”

“Lennie, you’re the only type in this town strong enough to do that.”

“Ain’t seen him.”

“OK. Fine. Bye.”

At the door I slipped the blind, letting morning sunlight elbow its way through the nicotine stains. It spotlighted the floor a yard from his feet. His eyes rolled again – double frightened now.

“Wait! If I tell you will you...?”

“...Shut the blind? Sure. Where’s Sam’s body?”

“In the stockroom. In a sack.”

I crossed the bar to check. Sure enough, there it was.

“But no harm done eh?” he called.

“No harm done? Lennie, we like our bodies intact.... stitching frightens clients.”

I opened the sack.

Sam groaned and stretched as we left the bar, shaking his flapping sleeve.

“Cheer up Sam, it’s the upside of being dead. Broken zombies can be fixed... whereas sunlit Trolls... Goodbye Lennie!”

499 Words

@nickjohns999 

The 'Zombie Run' contest was run by and hosted at Jezri's Nightmares

A Little Night Flying

A Little Night Flying

Ignoring the splinters in his knees, Timmy peered into the rafters.

They were here! He had risen at dawn for days, following them a little further each time.

In the gathering twilight, he could hear faint eager squeaks, welcoming him.

They would fly soon. He edged onto the parapet; his dream about to be realised.

 This was written for 55 Word Challenge 30

Mr Dark's Designs

Photobucket

Mr Dark’s Designs

Blood dripped from her broken nails as she scrabbled at the shutters, compounding the constant agony below. 

She gagged on the sewer sweat reek of an approaching vagrant.

“He’s gone. Left last night. Won’t be back I reckon. You’re the third today”

“What?”

“The third. Big guy with the painted face, the stripper from the club with the arms. You’ll be the legs by the looks.”

“Gone?”

“And different. Calm. Serene almost. Skin like a baby, not a mark on him.”

“No, he has these... and more.”

“Not any more. Said he’d paltered away his curse marks. And his pain."

100 Words

@nickjohns999

This was written for Stevie McCoy's Tuesday Tales 61

'Ode to Billie Joe' wins Burrst.com Untold Tales Competition!

My story 'Ode to Billie Joe' has won the Burrst Untold Tales Competition! 

So thanks to Anthony at Burrst, and to judge and voiceover artist, blues singer and writer Rob Brown. 

Check out the story here 

...and for those of you not old enough to remember it, listen to the classic song that inspired the tale here

Thomas the Rhymer

Thomas the Rhymer

Looking back from the ridge at the inexplicably rusting, ruined remains of yesterday’s life, I think of her.

***

She had interrupted last evening’s chores; fey, flashing eyes, tantalising with fiery dares and forbidden promise.

 “Dance with me.” She whirled away; I chased her across fields by treacherous moonlight.

I caught her. She laughed as we fell together, a tumbling, breathless embrace.

“Stay with me. What’s one night from your whole life?” gripping my hand like a drowning sailor.

***

Gossamer images of her fly away, blown on the morning breeze.

I face the dusty road ahead and start walking.

100 Words

@nickjohns999

This was written for Angela Goff's Visual Dare 25 'Forgotten'