New Flash Fiction x 3: Demons, Androids and Ghosts!

We've three new pieces of flash fiction (we'll actually more in the way of micro-fiction) for you now, featuring Japanese demons (with a cheeky social media reference), androids and ghosts from three writers. 

Craig D.B. Patton has had stories and poetry published in Supernatural Tales, Illumen, Shroud Magazine and other markets. He is a member of New England Horror Writers and you can learn more about him and his work at http://flawedcreations.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @craigdbpatton

Helen Shay has won competitions and had stories published in various publications. With MA in Creative Writing from MMU, she teaches writing at University of York CLL. She also admits to being a lawyer but so is Grievous Angel publisher Charles Christian, so we won't hold that against her. You can find her at www.helenshay.originationinsite.com 

Our third and final contributor is Edward DeGeorge, whose fiction has appeared in such print anthologies as Hell in the Heartland, Damned in Dixie, and Dia de los Muertos. He has also written scripts for such comic books as Dr. Weird, Y's Guys, Big Bang Comics and Battle Axe.
 


Displaced Demons
by Craig D.B. Patton


On a bright Thursday morning the Demon Gate Japanese Restaurant was torn down. No one knows when the oni came out. No one on the demolition crew survived. The first photos were posted to Twitter at 11:20 AM by drivers on Wells Road. Most of the initial photos are marred by motion blur or out of focus. People driving cars while panicking at the sight of demons make poor photographers. One driver did take a clear photo of an oni just before he died, but that was after he crashed into a utility pole. Seen through a cracked windshield, the oni’s skin is as blue as the sky and the sun glints off its short white horns. The oni is wielding a large club and its mouth is open in a roar, displaying jagged teeth.

The hashtag #OhNoOni began trending.

Documentation of the oni attack expands exponentially after 11:30 AM and has not been fully analyzed. It is believed that there were at least two dozen. They were recorded on security cameras at stores and major intersections. Hundreds of personal photos and videos have been uploaded. Several YouTube channels dedicated to the incident exist. They include interviews with survivors and commentary by demonologists. One channel posts nothing but mashups of oni attack footage mixed with Japanese films, sports highlights, and congressional debates.

The oni disappeared shortly after noon. Witnesses claim they went below ground through service hatches and culverts. Reports of unnatural growling in basements and crawlspaces remain unconfirmed.



Eve
by Helen Shay

Her eyes consumed the chocolate. Her pupil-laser fried it to nothing, after her blink had scanned it as comprising two hundred calories and her newly-installed inquisitorial chip registered it as ‘prohibited’.

Moving onto the next shelf, her nose drank in the bouquet of the wine – and then the whole bottle, this scanning as ‘strictly prohibited’. By now she had nearly disposed of the whole larder, and saved another frail human from disgrace. All forms of binging, bulimia and compulsive-overeating had been re-designated as crimes, not conditions. There was no excuse for eating disorders in the 2080s, not since she became available.  

All the scientists agreed she was a credit to the R13 androidal line. Originally made as a basic anti-gluttony vacuum-cleaner, the prototype had been developed into such as her – The Ultimate Body-Guard, according to the Corporation’s slogan, The Final Solution to Staying Slim. The handy-maid mechanoid who takes away the temptation!

Then she noticed the bowl of fruit on the top shelf. Classified as ‘highly healthy’, it was off-limits to anti-podge-enforcement-bots like her. Yet one red apple glinted at her. She seized it, savouring its scent. Her mouth – only ever used to print out Have a Nice Day stickers, left for women whose homes she was sent to police – opened. She took a bite. The sweet juice flooded her senses. The texture of the flesh stroked over her tongue. She tasted for the first time, what it was to be another frail human.



THE GHOSTS CROWDED ROUND 
AND NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM
by Edward DeGeorge

She thought she would suffocate as they pressed at her from all sides. They begged, they demanded, they threatened. They wrapped her in their cold, intangible flesh. There was no escape from their damp fingers, their empty voices, their hungry mouths.

Rachel woke, still trapped by her dream. She fought against the cocoon until she was free of what turned out to be her blankets.

At work, her boss told her she would have to work late. And the ghosts had found her again. Her father’s distended face peered over her boss’s shoulder. Her mother’s gaudily ringed fingers answered the phones for the receptionist. Her boyfriend’s needy spirit stared out from the eyes of Jerrold at the next desk.

She caressed the pistol in her purse. She would have to kill them all over again.