Welcome back to the Weird, the Wild, & the Wicked. Is it fall yet? It's Thursday again, so what should you be doing? Writing #FlashFiction, that's what! Welcome to Week 87 of #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Need the rules? Read on!
Here's how it works:
- The prompt is a line from the previous week's winning tale.
- The prompt can appear ANYWHERE in your story and is included in your word count.
Rules to the Game:
- This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
- Incorporate the prompt anywhere into your story (included in your word count).
- Post your story in the comments section of this post
- Include your word count (or be excluded from judging)
- Include your Twitter handle or email (so we know how to find you)
- The challenge is open 7 AM to 7 PM Pacific Time
- The winner will be announced on Friday, depending on how early the judge gets up.
How it benefits you:
- You get a nifty cool badge to display on your blog or site (because we're all about promotion - you know you are!)
- You get instant recognition of your writing prowess on this blog!
- Your writing colleagues shall announce and proclaim your greatness on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus
Our Judge for Week 87:
Tattoo fan, fitness expert, and male model, Bobby Creighton.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
“There’s blood everywhere.”
All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck!
I listened as the dispatcher gave us information about a wreck on the interstate.
ReplyDelete“Let’s go!”
I followed Mark, Adam, and Hollister out the door, piling into the front. I wondered what I would see when I got up there. I mean, it won’t be pretty but this is the part where I get to do something good.
“Excited, Jim?” Mark asked, steering the ambulance around a curve and merging into northbound traffic.
“Yes! I can’t wait to get out there and save someone’s life!”
Mark smiled. “Interstate accidents sometimes sound worse than they are. Just remember to follow my lead since I’m training you, okay?”
I nodded, as we finally came on scene. It looked bad to me: four cars in a chain reaction crash, end to end. I hopped out of the ambulance, grabbed a bag from Hollister and followed Mark to the first car.
“Jimmy, your job is to assess the driver in this car. Get a collar on him, get his vitals and I’ll come help you start the IV.”
I nodded, tossing my bag on the ground and grabbing the collar. I yanked the dented door open and my stomach turned. There was blood everywhere. My training fled me as I hit the ground on my knees, heaving.
“It’s okay. It’s your first time. Get your bearings and then you can start working again.”
I nodded, crawling to the side of the road. My EMT career is off to a fantastic start.
@Aightball
250 WOrds
First time nerves that follow initial confidence ...
Deletewe can all relate to this. :-)
“I don’t know what to do, there’s blood everywhere,” I heard Sally say over the phone.
ReplyDelete“What has happened Sally?” No answer. “I’m on my way.” I cried as I pointed my car to Sally’s.
Entering Sally’s house I found it pitch black inside. My eyes squinted to see Sally.
“Sally?” I called.
“Anthony?” Sally responded from across the room.
“Can you turn on a light?” I asked.
“No, they won’t work.”
My shoes made a squishy, sucking sound, as I walked across the room to Sally. Sally held out her arms to me and I went in them. It was then that I realized though this looked Sally, this wasn’t. Dropping it’s pretense it now held me with claws. It’s big mouth opening wide as if to eat me.
“What are you?”
“A fetch. My master sent me to eat Sally, but I felt sorry for her. She begged to be with you.”
“You ate Sally?”
“Yes, and she told me that she loved you and wanted to be with you forever.”
“So?”
“Say your prayers Anthony, while you go to join Sally.”
With that the fetch’s awning mouth opened big enough to swallow the room. Then where had the blood come from? I wondered.
It was then I found out as it’s teeth bit into my leg bone and blood spew everywhere. Through the pain, my last thought was I don’t think this is what Sally meant when she said she wanted to be with me forever.
@SweetSheil
249 words
Smooth Criminal
ReplyDeleteDean closed the door behind him as he strolled toward Gino’s desk.
“Sit down.” Gino hissed from his throat, through a slow, cool breath. “I understand we have a problem that you can’t seem to take care of. I got one bullet in my gun. It’s for you - or her, and I don’t care which.” then he slid a loaded .38 across the polished wood until it tinked into his porcelain cherub with its wings spread wide.
Dean slowly blinked his eyes and twitched his head to one side. “Look, G. She’s got the goods on you, me, and hell, even your fluffy cat, Jinx, for that matter. We got blood on our hands and she knows it!”
Gino chuckled, “Knowing and proving are two different things.“
Dean bolted upright and snatched the gun from in front of Gino.
“You gonna shoot me with my own gun, Dean?”
Dean switched his grip and bashed the angel with the butt of the gun that sent shards of alabaster tumbling in all directions away from a small electronic set that lay in the middle of the mess as he dropped the gun. “There’s her proof. She’s recording every word you say. There’s blood everywhere, G. Your hands - and mine. Some lawyer is gonna finger us if something happens to her.”
“Change of plans.” Gino slid another bullet into the revolver. “Bring me back twenty fingernails, two empty casings and those tapes.”
A wicked smile lit up Dean's face. “Yes, Boss.”
Greg Nance - @acenance - 250 Words
Vincent loomed over Aster’s prone body. Long strawberry blonde curls hung over the edge of the bed. He stepped over the cascading mass and shook her.
ReplyDeleteRubbing her eyes, she asked, “What time is it?”
“It is the witching hour, ma ami.”
Stretching her arms above her head with a yawn, she flipped the covers back and gave a sinful smile.
“We must be on our way.”
Vincent slipped her dress over her head and let it slide down the length of her body as she put on a pair of shoes. A black velvet cloak draped over a chair came next. Vincent fastened it under her chin and gave her a brief kiss on the forehead.
“Ready?”
She rolled her neck and met his eyes. Her lips parted, showing glistening fangs, which were startlingly white.
Opening the door, he grasped her icy hand and led her into the dark night. Recent rain formed puddles on the sidewalks, and the air had a musty quality. Weaving their way through the shadows, they came to their destination.
Vincent’s senses hummed as he picked the lock on the back door of a red brick building nestled between two towering office buildings.
Once inside, he found the vault. Pressing his ear to the hatch, his fingers worked the combination lock until a faint click indicated his success.
When the door swung open, Aster smiled.
“There’s blood everywhere.”
With a syringe poised, he said, “Time to donate. This is the Red Cross after all.”
Chilling!
Delete@Toni1777
Delete250 Words
Sorry about that!
(From a WIP)
ReplyDeleteThe chase has come to an end and she can taste her demise. Even if she could unseat her captor, she has no energy left to flee. There’s blood everywhere. Her blood. Jyslin struggles to turn over, determined to face death head on.
Pain slices her side, ripping a strangled whimper from her. In an instant, the weight on her torso eases and the paws pinning her down disappear. She rolls over to find herself alone in the forest, staring up at a maze of snowy branches, the darkened winter sky disturbed only by the puffs of white created by her panting breaths.
The branches above blur and twist, until they are nothing but swirls of white and gray. Her head throbs. She clenches her eyes tight against the pain, while nausea rolls through her stomach, and exhaustion pulls at her muscles. All she wants to do rest. She no longer cares about the frostbite nibbling at her fingertips, the numbness in her toes, or even the intense pain eating her side. Sleep. Just a few minutes and she’ll get up.
A voice floats to her on the biting wind. Masculine. Insistent. He calls her name from the other side of the black abyss. She tries to answer, but only manages a raspy squeak to quiet to be heard so very far away. Shivers wrack her frame. An attempt to lift her head fails. She isn’t sure if she even moved.
“Help me,” she manages to whisper.
@bexbrennan
250 Words
Ghouls. They were kidding, right? “There hasn’t been a ghoul infestation since 1915.”
ReplyDelete“There’s blood everywhere.” The cop dug his toe into the wet mulch of leaves.
Sade swept the cemetery with a practiced eye. Something had rampaged through the grounds, toppling gravestones and digging up coffins.“Ghouls.” Saying it aloud didn’t ease the nausea offering up the chilidog she’d wolfed down in sacrifice to the Gods of Gross. “Hell.”
The cop glanced toward the storm clouds on the western horizon. Sundown wasn’t far away. “It will be if we don’t get outta here.”
Sade trudged to her government-issued sedan and yanked out a state-of-art flamethrower. “Yeah, you’d better hit the road. Me? It’s time to barbeque.”
Moans swirled around her riding a cold, autumn wind strong enough to kick up the wet leaves underfoot. The cop took off like he’d been shot from a carnival cannon. Flamethrower ready, she waited. Sade heard them first. Shuffling, growls, high-pitched screams. Then the stench hit. And that chilidog made a bid for freedom.
She swallowed bile, squeezed the trigger and the night lit up. “Where the hell is that freaking dragon when I need him?” she groused.
Flames erupted from the sky. Ghouls blazed like marshmallows over a campfire. A silver blur the size of a Ryder truck landed beside her and morphed into a handsome man.
“Took you long enough.”
Nikos Constantine, Drakon of the Kholkikos dragons, watched the burning husks then offered a charming smile. “I brought chocolate and graham crackers.”
****
250 words just for the fun of it
@SilverJames_
The alarm rings bright and cheery, wonderfully grating.
ReplyDelete“Shut that off.” The command’s muffled beneath a cocoon of downy sheets piled princess high.
He obeys.
“Sorry, was that bothering you?” He wonders, briefly, if she can taste the sarcasm heavy on his tongue. It’s bittersweet.
Waits. Tense muscles relax, she sinks back into the mattress.
So he turns it on again.
Petty? Yes. Childish? Sure. Heartwarming? Better believe it.
“Jesus Christ! Aedan! I was up all night with Ava, the least you could do is let me sleep.” The lump peels away bed-coverings and out is spat his wife.
Suddenly he’s so exhausted and over this shit.
And yet there’s a script.
“You said you wanted to make it an early morning. I fail to see how following your wishes becomes my fault.”
He sees the precise moment when she decides not to respond, cutting words tucked carefully between blunt teeth. In her eyes - the subtle darkening of brown, flecks of hazel bright there’s a disappointing void. Moving on again. That’s what Priya does.
Aedan shuts his own eyes – they aren’t saying anything anyone in this room hears. What’s the point.
He turns off the clock. The chirp ceases and in its place a new alarm moves in.
Ava’s cry is viciously shrill and someone is screaming. Himself?
And none of that petty shit like his marriage falling apart around his ears matters because all that’s left is sound. And the blood. There’s blood everywhere.
@simone millien 246 words
(reposting because it accidentally got deleted)
ReplyDelete230 words
@charley_001
The Image of freedom
Sinking to her knees almost gracefully Susie kept herself as focussed as she could to ensure she never lost a second. There was just no way she could continue this stomach renching chore. It was hard work but that wasn't what nauseated Susie for she'd always been a grafter.
The bell rang and Susie stood stretching as she wiped her hands on her apron before padding softly to the front door. Pausing for a nano second she sighed as the distorted features of her neighbour waited, only a little patiently, through the spyhole. She held her breath and counted while squeezing into a space behind the coatstand and waited until Janet had given up and gone back home.
Susie breathed out audibly. It was alright for Tim, he'd gone out to work this morning without a care or backward glance. Susie surveyed the dimly lit dining room and sighed. The was blood everywhere.
All over the floor and up the walls and the one that spilled it was laying in the middle of the floor drained.
That was how the police would find the house after she'd made her detour. She'd shared Tim's last hobby, violent arguements were where she drew the line. The house would be devoid of any sign that she had a part in life there and she would be free. At least until she fell asleep.
A Busy Man
ReplyDelete“Mr. Sanders?” his secretary's disembodied head and left shoulder peeked around the door frame.
His humor at addressing only the top half of her was buried deep beneath a grimace. Jesus Christ, he thought, I've got a three thirty deadline on this article and she's determined to interrupt me every five seconds. “What is it Susan?”
“Kylie just called,” Susan said as she stepped into the room. She fidgeted by the door. “She won't be coming back from lunch today.”
Sanders barked reply startled her, “Who?”
Susan flinched as if she'd been slapped. “Kylie, the receptionist.”
“Okay.” A blank stare from Sanders. “So what's the problem?”
Susan took a deep breath, “I don't know exactly. When she called, she just kept saying, 'Oh my God, there's blood everywhere.' When she left for lunch, she said she was going to meet her fiancee and the realtor at the old Avery place. I guess she's still there.”
Sanders takes a deep breath of his own, expelling every foul word he couldn't say aloud on a sigh. “Susan, I mean what's your problem? Do whatever you normally do when the receptionist calls in. Don't bother me again today. I've got two hours to get this article written. You think you can keep the world from falling off its axis until then?”
“Yes sir, of course.”
“Close the door behind you, Susan.”
Funny, Sanders thought, I could have sworn the old Avery place was abandoned. I guess I'll have to find a new workshop.
250 words
@West1Jess
Tightening his arms around Lindsey, John bent his head to her ear and inhaled her lovely scent. “Which way is out from here?” He had a tough time focusing on anything in the undulating crowd splashed with strobe lighting.
ReplyDelete“To your left.” He swung them around and eyed her direction. “Under the red light. They try to make it look like there’s blood everywhere to keep people from leaving when they’re drunk. It’s a visceral reaction from what I’ve seen.”
“Hell, that’s diabolical.” John swallowed against his stomach trying to heave up bile. The tile patterns on the floor seemed to shift like moving entrails in the crimson light. Just keep your eyes on the prize, Chief. “Let’s move out.”
“Roger that.”
John blinked and shot her a look, but Lindsey pasted a false smile over her lips and beckoned him with a curling finger as she pulled him toward the doors. Bodies jostled them and made their progress torturous under the shifting lights. John tried to keep moving in a straight line, but his eyes refused to focus and he staggered to his knees, dragging Lindsey down with him.
Aw shit.
Lindsey giggled as if completely drunk and bent at the waist, laughing helplessly. “Oh my God, you’re so drunk.” She giggled as she tugged on him. “I gotta get you home, lover.”
When John looked up no smile graced her lips and she tensed when a bouncer down looked over her shoulder.
“Everything all right here, miss?”
249 ineligible #WIP500 words
@SiobhanMuir
From my PNR WIP (248 words)
ReplyDeleteColin had never been to a murder scene before. He’d braced himself to not blurt out "there’s blood everywhere" like a baby, but he didn’t see any blood. The place was immaculate. He never thought someone with full-color sleeve tattoos and a phoenix holding zombies in its talons covering his back would be so neat. Especially since his arms were covered with ravens and wizards, and some Lovecraftian-looking beasts. But Jordan had been a meticulous housekeeper.
“Let me know if you see anything odd.”
Al's whisper startled a squeak from Colin, and he jumped straight up.
“Are you okay? You don't have to stay if you—”
“I'm okay.”
Al started a methodical search of the apartment, the kind a police officer would conduct. Colin meandered around looking at things and feeling useless.
“Who's this?” Colin held up a picture frame, decorated with violets cast in pewter.
“That's Gabe, his boyfriend.”
Colin studied the picture while Al went on searching. The two sat on a log at the beach, Gabe had bright purple tips on his hair. Somewhere in his family tree was an African American, but that was all he could tell about anything from the picture.
“Do you think it could've been random?” Colin replaced the picture on the bedside table.
“Not likely. If someone stabs another person multiple times, it's usually personal. Thirty times is very personal. That's a lot of anger to carry around.”
“Unless it's just a lot of crazy to carry around.”
@CharleyDescote
PREPARATIONS
ReplyDelete“There’s blood everywhere.”
The blue haired girl in pink stood rigid, unable to conjure the slightest emotion to her voice. Her raven haired goth-like companion tilted her head and brought two fingers to her chin.
“And what about the pine boughs? I went with my first hunch, but now I’m not so sure about the woodsy theme…”
The first girl managed a stupefied sweeping gesture at the desecrated dining room. Bones stuck out of the walls, and artfully placed tree limbs suggested a dark forest. The fresh pine scent cut through any attempt to block out the intense killing ground reek wafting from the splattered blood gathering in ankle deep pools.
“Mirro, where did you even get this much blood?”
Mirro’s dark eyes lit up and she smiled excitedly.
“Kerri, you really want to know?”
Kerri dropped her face into her palms.
“No… I guess I don’t.”
“Oh…”
The black pigtailed girl absently kicked a mouse skull under the table.
“When you said you’d decorate, I hoped you meant with balloons and stuff. Oliver doesn’t want to see gore.”
Mirro hopped back to sit daintily on the edge of the dining room bar.
“No? I thought maybe as a werewolf…”
Kerri clenched her teeth.
“He doesn’t want to be a werewolf, Mirro! He wants to be normal!”
Kicking her feet, Kerri’s best friend sighed.
“He’ll never be happy like that, you know.”
“Well, it’s his birthday. So can we at least try not to do anything that’ll scar him?”
249 words
@DavidALudwig
When Ruby staggered into her Nana Zehra’s bungalow, she realized that the spectre she’d encountered back at the devastated laboratory was still with her.
ReplyDelete“Are you an angel?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Yust a ghost,” he said with an accent which marked him as Scandinavian.
“Why are you with me?”
“I am here to help you through this.”
The bungalow was dark, the windows broken, all of Nana Zehra’s fragile knick knacks fallen to the floor and broken.
“Nana, are you here?” Ruby called.
Ruby found a flashlight in the kitchen. She searched the bungalow. When she came to the bathroom, she screamed.
“There’s blood everywhere,” she said to the spirit in a hollow voice. “It’s like she vomited up her insides. There’s blood all over the toilet, the sink, and the floor.”
Ruby sat down on her grandmother’s bed and wept. She felt the spirit’s hand on her shoulder.
“I lost my dad to leukemia seventeen years ago,” she said. “Mom committed suicide less than a year later. My big sister died from pancreatic cancer last year. Nana Zehra was mom’s mother. We’ve taken care of each other since Mom died. I’ve got no one left. What will happen to me now?”
“You shall die soon, Ruby,” the spirit said gently. “The radiation sickness from the bomb will kill you. This is why I give you the light, to help guide you. Before you depart the realm of the living, you must tell the world the truth.”
I'm Tempest from @UndeadNether. My story is 250 words.
It was always the look of disappointment that made Harley feel like shit. It wasn’t something so obvious as a harsh word. It was the corners of the lips turning down, furrowing of the brow and the broad shoulders shifting as he sighed.
ReplyDelete“Clean it up and we’ll try again another night.” Theodore turned away to head into his office. Probably to say how bad and hopeless she was yet again.
Her shoulders tightened up before she gave a brisk nod to his back and turned, muttering under her breath.
“What was that?”
Damned super hearing. Harley shook her head, heading towards the kitchen. She knew where the mop and bucket was. Thanks to her he must have bought stock in tarps and cleaning supplies.
Fingers dug into her arm as he spun her around. “I asked you a question, I expect it to be answered.”
Oh look, pissed off too. Lips in the tight line and nostrils flaring.
She stared down at his polished shoes. Perfectly poised Theodore. NEVER Theo. Stuck with a newb like her. She’d rather go back to her video games. Talking to people online was so much easier.
“Sorry to waste your time.” It was an octave above the mutter.
He gave another sigh again.
“You’re not but you need to learn. There’s blood everywhere. You can’t do it like that. There is a finesse to feeding.”
Harley’s lips twisted. “Right.” She had so much finesse. Not. She was a joke to everyone.
248 words
@solimond
"There's blood everywhere, Connie."
ReplyDeleteHe was right, there was blood everywhere but the man was nowhere to be seen.
"I think we should go."
"But what if he needs help?"
I looked at the amount of blood in the road and splattered on the car and I guessed the man was probably beyond our help.
"We can't go wandering around out here, Dan. Let's at least get to where we can call the police. They can find him." I doubted that but it seemed like the right thing to say.
Dan wanted to help but understood the truth of it. He knew the legends and if the man was still alive, he probably wouldn’t be for long.
“Can we at least get into the car?”
Dan followed me without arguing but slumped into the passenger seat. I turned the car sideways so that the headlights shown into the woods in the direction that the man had disappeared.
I saw him standing just on the edge of the woods, for a second I had hope. Then the ground shook.
The man turned towards us, a look of disbelief on his face.
A moment later he was a hundred feet in the air and he was still looking at us when his head disappeared into what appeared to be several rows of sharp teeth.
I drove away without looking back, putting some distance between us and Jack’s Place.
“I guess date night is over?”
I smacked him and headed home.
248 words
@AuthorCAKeane
#ThursThreads is now CLOSED. Thank you to everyone who wrote this week, and I hope to see you next week. :)
ReplyDelete