The Tick-Tock Man

Image Sandra Crook

The Tick-Tock Man

“Tick-tock.”

The appointed time had arrived, he’d come for me.

The children’s tales were true.

His huge hands, liver spotted, thinly covered with greying parchment skin, long sharp nails with an unnatural sheen, approached slowly, awfully, precisely like a slow grinding mill-wheel.

“Tick-tock.”

He moved closer; a waft of the slick, sharp scent of machine oil slipped over me.

One glittering raptor eye regarded me.

As I counted my final imperfect minute, seconds stretched like taffy, I knew I’d never mark another faulty hour.

He threaded his finest instrument deep inside me and twisted.

“There, all fixed little clock. Tick-tock”

100 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields' Friday Fictioneers challenge

Purgatorius Ignis

Purgatorius Ignis

“Hello, your Ladyship.”

She scrabbles like a cat startled blackbird, but I’m holding tight to her hand.

“Let go you… beastly urchin!” Her eyes is sad and weepy like my puppy that had the distemper. She don’t know yet. I can tell.

“Urchin Milady? What brings you to the rookeries?”

“A man… snatched me… chloroformed me, brought me here…”

“Bloody nonces. Don’t fret Sweetheart, We’ll sort the bastard.”

“How?  He’s big… he’s been drinking.”

“Where’s he at Missy?”

“Don’t take me back...!”

Panic sets her struggling again but I hang on.

“He can’t hurt you. No one can. Shhh.” She calmed some. “Big drunks is easiest, see?”

“Why?”

“Look at your hand.”

“I can hardly... Oh My God...! Am I...?”

“Yeah... Anyway, drunks don’t see nothing, especially us. He could fall down stairs, out a window, smother in bed. Well?”

“Can we find matches?” She smiles for the first time.

150 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Angela Goff's Visual Dare

Thicker Than Water

My story 'Thicker Than Water' has been accepted by Free Flash Fiction 'a new online magazine featuring excellent flash fiction stories in all genres, monthly writing contests, and weekly writing prompts -- all completely free!'.

So, now I can say

Click HERE for their home page

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Be Careful What you Wish For...

“...a good duck!”

“Granted.”

“I said ‘What the devil is this?’ He said ‘That is what you commanded, Mistress.’, and looked at me with a twinkle in his ancient eyes. Later he blamed it on the fact that he had been in a bottle for a thousand years and that I had a bit of a cold, but that’s by the by. He knew what he had done. But I thought very carefully thereafter, I can tell you. So, after some deliberation I said, ‘For my second wish, Make the duck a goose that lays golden eggs’.“

“Granted.”

“... and for my third, you will ensure that it never leaves me, by transforming yourself into a harness so that it will go wherever I go.’ And with that, the genie gave a rather sick grin and disappeared. That will teach him to try to trick me, eh Genie?”

“Yes Mistress.”

150 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Angela Goff's Visual Dare

Royal Oak

Image by Indira

Royal Oak

I viewed the man along the smooth ash shaft. My arm muscles twitched as I held tension in the string.

“Come down, face the people’s justice.” Ordered the Captain.

“Would you harm me and face God’s justice?”

“Enough talk, Tyrant. Take him – Now!”

The arrow flew true. He staggered as it buried to the fletching in his chest, pitching forward, like a string cut marionette, before snagging on a broken branch and swinging, showering grass with vermilion raindrops.

“Inform the Lord Protector the prince has been executed; and fell this for firewood – there’ll be no Royal Oaks in this Commonwealth.”

This story was written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers  Challenge

Smoke on the Water

Smoke on the Water

Forty three people jumped the opening week. We were in trouble, but didn’t know how much until after the mist rolled in. Impervious to the freshening spring gales, a dank milky reeking haze shrouded the rocks beneath the bridge.

When six fire-fighters did not return from their grisly task of recovering that night’s smashed bodies, nor the two cops sent to search for them, the Chief stopped anybody entering the mist, closing the bridge completely.

Their black helicopter did not disturb the morning mist, nonetheless the Government men strutted confidently onto the bridge, brushing aside warnings. The watery light now revealed fifty one black posts, poking like rotten teeth from the pale gums of the mist.

The lead agent calmly vaulted the rail. His partner ran screaming for the land, and shot himself. Down below, slowly, silently, another post slithered from the newly roiling fog, now faintly redolent of brimstone.

150 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Angela Goff's Visual Dare Challenge