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Two New Micro Fiction Stories

29/9/2014

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What is better than one new flash fiction story? How about two new stories - although these are probably better described as micro fiction. Although by two separate authors, writing independently, they share the common theme of men having unfortunate - and terminal - relationships with women.

Our first story is by Jessica McHugh, who describes herself as an author of speculative fiction spanning the genre from horror and alternate history to young adult. A 2013 Pulp Ark nominee, she has devoted herself to novels, short stories, poetry and playwriting. Jessica has had sixteen books published in six years, including her bestselling thriller Rabbits in the Garden and the first book in her YA series The Darla Decker Diaries. More info on her speculations and publications can be found at A Barbaric Yawp.

Nailed
by Jessica McHugh

Clack. Clack. Clack.

She’s dead, but he can’t escape her damn fingernails. He found one stuck to his back this morning, splintered where it snapped off her right pinkie. He peeled it away, but it left a crescent indentation in his flesh that still feels sore. The bloody tuft of hair glued to the underside matches the patch she’d scraped from his scalp.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

It’s louder now. Closer. More desperate.

He shivers. The sound isn’t in his mind. Someone drums their nails on the front door—three clacks and one stubby thump. 

He didn’t bury her deep enough.

# # # # #

Our second contributor is Jack Hillman. In addition to the YA fantasy trilogy The Giants War, published by MUSA Books, Jack's published short fiction has appeared in Sorcerous Signals, Amazon Shorts, GateWay SF magazine, Jackhammer, Aberrations, Eternity Online, Gateways, Once Upon A World, Nuketown, the Kings of The Night III anthology, the Magistria: World of the Sorcerer anthology, and the Ruins Extraterrestrial anthology.

jackhillman.com
 
Don’t Say It!
by Jack Hillman

A blinding flash and a deafening report filled the room and his senses.

He reached over to take her hand as she lay next to him after the event that changed his life.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she answered, with a languid smile.  She stretched her nude form slowly crossing her legs with his.

He hesitated not wanting to spoil the moment but feeling a need.  “I love you,” he said.

“I know,” she answered, and dissolved into a puddle of nanites, flowing off the bed and into her container.

The label on the container read: No Commitment.

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New Flash Fiction: The Fairies Were Dying

20/9/2014

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As we head towards the Equinox and start of the season of falling leaves, today's flash fiction story The Fairies Were Dying has an appropriate autumnal/end of the summer feel to it. Our author is Lisamarie Lamb who says of herself
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The Fairies Were Dying
by Lisamarie Lamb

The fairies were dying. Delicate little bodies littered the streets, their wings fluttering in the slight breeze before turning to dust. The ones who had died first were skeletons now, and soon they would crumble to nothing, and, for all it mattered, never would have been. 

Only the children could see them. The children and those called special by the adults who didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t understand. The young ones and the chosen ones picked up the once beautiful corpses, held them gently, gave them burials whenever they could, but there were too many of them, and the number was growing by the hour. There were so many of them that on some days those who could see were afraid to go outside for fear of getting caught in a downpour of death. 

But the adults saw only what they wanted to see, saw only what was obvious. At first, they believed it was simply a make believe game, but as it went on they grew curious. They asked the children why they were burying stones and pebbles that they had found along the path or in the garden. They wondered why their sons and daughters were afraid to go out amongst the swirling, twirling leaves that tumbled from autumn caught trees. They questioned the tenderness with which each child would kneel and hold fallen feathers, weeping over them with such grief-filled, heart broken cries that it scared their parents. 

Over time the tiny bodies began to rot and began to stink. As they decayed, as muscle melted from miniscule bones and the worms came to feast, the air was choked with the mouldy sweet smell of decomposing flesh. The children and the special ones gagged when they stepped outside, and held gloved hands across their noses and mouths to dilute the stench. It had a way of seeping through, through, a way of trickling down their young throats and filling them with the scent of eternity.

It gave them an early taste of what death was like.

The adults said it was the change of the season. Bonfire remnants and composting leaves. The threat of rain or snow. Winter on its way. It was normal, it was quite all right.  

But the children knew what it was. They could see what it was. 

Walks that once might have been exhilarating, fun in an outdoors sort of way, were now terrifying, each step forward another body broken, bones crunching underfoot. Parents and teachers and all the rest of them said it was the leaves on the ground, brittle and fragile. It was nature’s way of starting again. 

It was, they explained, always like this. Every year the same. Things died. And in the spring they would come back again, resurrected, living once more. 

This scared the children even more. What about the buried ones? The shattered ones? The ones eaten by foxes or left to turn to dust on their own in a ditch?

What about them? They wouldn’t come back. They couldn’t. They were lost forever now. Or, worse, they could come back, and they would, screaming, reaching up through the earth, bones rattling as they shook toward one another trying to gain purchase, to knit together again. And some others would rip themselves out of the stomachs of the creatures that had devoured their corpses so readily, spewing forth amongst blood and guts, wings unfolding even as their skin sloughed away.   

The adults saw the concern scarred across the little faces that looked up at them, beseeching, asking for a different answer to the one given to their silent question, asking for the earth to stop turning and the winter to remain here always.  

Those clever grown ups who new best, who always did, told the children not to worry. 

But the children had to worry. 

The fairies were dying.  
"I'm a horror writer mostly, but I can turn my hand to anything; I've written blog posts on education and marketing, stories about romance and high adventure, books about ghosts and drug lords, descriptions for Christmas hampers and Harrods' gift boxes... Writing is my escape from the 'real world' with its corporate greyness and dull news.

"Regarding my writing experience, I have had over thirty short stories published in recent (2011 onwards) anthologies (including books from Angelic Knight Press, Cruentus Libri Press, and Sirens Call Publications), with more to be published throughout the rest of 2014 and into 2015. 

"In November 2012, my short story collection, Over The Bridge, was published by Dark Hall Press. My second collection of short stories (Fairy Lights) was published by J. Ellington Ashton Press. I have two children's novels scheduled to be published this year (one from J. Ellington Ashton, and one from Visionary Press). I have a blog at www.themoonlitdoor.blogspot.co.uk
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New Verse: Two Poems

11/9/2014

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Time for more poetry with contributions by two poets today. First up is Doug Draine and then it is over James S. Dorr with an interesting take on modern-day werewolves.

People of The Lie
by Doug Draime

Something happens
in the man created
reality.  A strong
pull to the static,
pulverized atmosphere
of fable and doom,
chariot races
and planets exploding
in unknown
galaxies.

* Doug Draime says he is a fan of the Grievous Angel zine, which is great because we are a fan of his poetry. We have a soft spot for exploding planets in unknown galaxies. Doug's most recnt book is More Than The Alley, released in 2012 by Interior Noise Press. He lives in the foothills of the Cascade mountain range in Oregon.


Beware of the Dog
by James S. Dorr

Sure, we've all heard it before, 
how every full moon he gets out of control, 
but any Saturday night in this burg 
gets a little bit heavy.  
Besides most of the bars 
don't even let pets in, 
no matter whether they're dogs or wolves -
not even seeing-eye pooches for blind folks - 
and by Monday morning we're all so hung 
that who even remembers? 
So the thing is, sure, exercise some caution 
when something growls at you, 
maybe even stay in your car 
until it lopes past, 
but come the next work week 
it's "How's it going, Charlie," 
when you pass his station at the plant 
down the row from your own, 
never mind what's the moon phase. 

* This is the third occasion on which I've had the pleasure of publishing work by James S. Dorr. Based in Indiana, his The Tears of Isis is a 2013 Bram Stoker Award fiction collection finalist. His other books includeStrange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder & Romance, Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery & Regret and his all-poetry collection Vamps (A Retrospective). You can find him blogging at http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com

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New Flash Fiction: Mussolini's Catfish

6/9/2014

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Today's flash fiction author is Gary Every who offers up a surreal combination of aviation history and urban fantasy that reads like it could almost be true... Gary says the story "is based on some of my favorite modern myths and historical quirks in Arizona," and adds that his work has been previously published in Tales of the Talisman, Dreams and Nightmares, Mythic Deliriumand many others including four nominations for the Rhysling Award for Year's Best Science Fiction Poetry.

Mussolini's Catfish
by Gary Every

In the middle of an Arizona lake two giant catfish swim back and forth, guarding the home they call a castle. The catfish are humongous, long slender whiskers twitching as they sense the vibrating waters, trying to catch a scent of food. These giant catfish are large enough to swallow a human being whole. Yet, a scuba diver who dared to approach would quickly realize that the catfish’s underwater abode is the sunken ruin of an old seaplane. What is an antique Italian seaplane doing on the bottom of an Arizona Lake?

Charles Lindbergh was not the first aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. The first pilot to navigate the skies above the Sea of Darkness was an Italian general named Francesco de Pinedo. He crossed the vast Atlantic in his giant seaplane, skimming just above the surface of the water all the way from Africa to Brazil like some sort of gargantuan mechanical sea gull. For some reason his direction and destination denied him credit for being the first aviator to fly non stop across the Atlantic.  

To drum up public support, the Italian general flew a barnstorming tour, climbing the Americas northward, spreading goodwill on behalf of his Italian dictator wherever he went. The general barely cleared the steep mountains of New Mexico, sputtering above the cactus before landing with a splash in the placid waters of Lake Roosevelt, Arizona. The Italian aviator posed for pictures with the press, gave a long winded speech, and sat down for a delicious feast.

A local lad was hired by the presiding rural redneck representatives to fill the gas tanks of Benito Mussolini’s giant seaplane all the way to the brim. The Italian general was horrified. The amount of gasoline needed to cross the Atlantic made the large and lumbering seaplane too heavy to fly above the rugged mountains of the southwest. The general demanded that the gas tanks be emptied, making the seaplane light enough to fly above the spiked peaks of the Superstition Mountains. The local lad, all freckles and tan, was hired once again, this time to siphon gasoline out from the tanks, hoses drooling liquid petrol atop the watery surface of Lake Roosevelt.  

It was easy work but it was boring and the local lad began smoking a cigarette to pass the time when a young lady came walking by. She was a pretty little schoolgirl, pigtails and daisy dukes. When she dropped a hint that she sure would like an ice cream cone that handsome young man grabbed her by the arm and they marched off to the ice cream parlor hand in hand. The last thing he did the local lad flicked his cigarette behind him. The siphon hoses had covered the water with an oily layer of gasoline and soon Lake Roosevelt burned and burned until Benito Mussolini’s seaplane was consumed in flames and sank to the bottom of this inland desert sea.  

It is not easy when you fall head over heels in love by creating a terrible tragedy, especially in a small town. How do you live down the shame?  Do your children become the town laughing stocks for their entire lives? The local lad and the pretty young schoolgirl, so deeply in love it hurt, one night hand in hand, walked to edge of the dock and leapt, drowning themselves and their sorrows in the dark murky waters of Lake Roosevelt. 

Still holding hands, the tragic lovers sank to the bottom of the giant pond and sat there until the meat began to rot on their bones. Then the foul and fetid smell attracted catfish. Two catfish fed on the lovers and they grew and grew, becoming giant catfish as majestic as underwater dragons, long tails slicing through the water, whiskers and catfish beards trailing as they swim. When the catfish roar, shock waves race underwater, vibrations flowing beneath the lake from shore to shore causing fish to hide in the closest rock crevice. The catfish roar causes herons and ducks to leap away on the wing.  

So there they are on the bottom of the biggest lake in the middle of the Arizona desert, the bones of two star crossed lovers whose spirits have transformed and now reside inside two giant catfish who swim back and forth in front of the sunken ruins of Benito Mussolini’s seaplane, on the bottom of Lake Roosevelt like sea dragons guarding an underwater castle.

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New Flash Fiction: Mafia Flowers

1/9/2014

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Today's contributor is Mark Mills who reports on an interesting botanical phenomenon that can be observed in Arizona. When not collecting plants, Mark is an English Instructor at Northern Kentucky University and has been published in Tor.com, Short Story America, Pill Hill Press, RuneWright, Aurora Wolf Press, Bards and Sages Quarterly and other publications.

Mafia Flowers
by Mark Mills

Scientific name: Utricularia puzo
Water: Once every two weeks
Soil: Extremely dry
Flowers/Fruit: See below
Range: Western Arizona with occasional sprinklings in southern Nevada and eastern California

The Sunda plant is similar to the Utricularia sandersonii, a bladderwort native of South Africa, but each spring it sprouts the source of its popular name: Mafia flowers. 

In late February to mid March, the buds  appear as pinkish blobs framed by jet-black fibers but within a few weeks are identifiable as human faces. As soon as their tongues develop they bellow, cajole, and snort in Italian, English, or a combination of the two, usually demanding upmost respect and thin slices of proscuttio. Instead of a larynx, the buds speak by an internal mechanism that rubs rough fiber against a thorn-like growth, amplified by opening of the leaf rosette. As of this writing, it’s recognized as a unique characteristic within the plant kingdom.

It’s entirely possible to name individual buds and they will respond to “Vito,” “Tony,” or “Michael” but this can be heartbreaking the latter days of August when the buds begin to droop. Although they show no sign of mental deterioration (if such a pulpy mass can be described as “mental), no amount of splicing or fertilizer can maintain the flowers beyond early autumn.

Although the folklore of the Hohokam Indians contains multiple references to talking plants, it seems clear the Sundra plant is a joke of mad scientists or God. To quote one of my more articulate buds: “You want I should rub you out? Enough with the pruning!” 

Are these the words of random evolution? I have my suspicions.

As a young man, on the way to Yuma, I once stopped at a roadside florist and observed a Sunda  variation that developed yellowish buds and faces of the Japanese Yukuza. Like a fool, I left it, intending to purchase it on the way home but I was delayed in my visit and on the return trip, I could find no trace of the shop. Yukuza flowers seem extinct after my briefest of sightings.

Almost certainly it was a separate species and, as the first to scientifically describe it, I would have had the honor of giving it a name. Alas, after nearly forty years of searching, I have never had another such opportunity and my chances of immortality dwindle until, like a wondrous species of plant, it too fades into the darkness.

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