Urban Fantasist
Menu
Picture
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Poetry & Fiction

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

12/4/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.


0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Welcome to the Grievous Angel – fresh free-to-read science fiction and fantasy flash fiction and poetry, including scifaiku and haiga.

    ISSN 2059-6057

    Quote, Unquote

    "We need more excellent markets like Grievous Angel" ...award winning Canadian author

    "Thank goodness for guys like you, who devote so much time to these things" ...Elizabeth Crocket

    "Thank you for giving us such a cool and unique e-mag" ...Mandy Nicol

    "Thank you for your kind words and making my weekend uplifting and bright. I'm excited to be published alongside other wonderful visual and textual works in Grievous Angel" ...D.A. Xiaolin Spires

    "Love your magazine. Keep up the good work! I've read bits and pieces of so many magazines that are so boring, I'm donating to yours because everything you publish is fascinating" ...Laura Beasley

    "I want to be a part of any project named after Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris" ...poet, writer & journalist Andrew Darlington

    "I really love your site and the wonderful eerie fiction you publish. Unlike a lot of work, most of what I read on your site stays with me - like a flavor or a scent, slightly tinting the world" ...performer, writer, biologist and painter E.E. King

    Categories

    All
    Flash Fiction
    Haiga
    Haiku
    Poetry
    Scifaiku
    Tanka

    Archives

    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    RSS Feed

Picture
Copyright © Charles Christian 
& Urbanfantasist Limited 2022


urbanfantasist@icloud.com

Fuelled by Green Tea & Rosé Wine

  • Home
  • * Latest book *
  • Weird Tales Videos
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Manifestations
  • Books & Reviews
  • Weird Tales Radio
  • Donations
  • Writing: Nonfiction
  • Writing: Fiction
  • Writing: Poetry
  • Old Americana
  • Old Grievous Angel
  • WoldsCover
  • Home
  • * Latest book *
  • Weird Tales Videos
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Manifestations
  • Books & Reviews
  • Weird Tales Radio
  • Donations
  • Writing: Nonfiction
  • Writing: Fiction
  • Writing: Poetry
  • Old Americana
  • Old Grievous Angel
  • WoldsCover