Welcome back to the home of Weird, Wild, & Wicked Tales. Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing. We’re at the beginning of our ninth year of weekly prompts. It’s amazing we’ve gone this long! This is Week 434 of #ThursThreads, the challenge that ties tales together. Want to keep up each week? Check out the #ThursThreads #flashfiction group on Facebook and the Group on MeWe.
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.
- The prompt must be used as is. It can be split, but no intervening words can be inserted or tenses changed.
Rules to the Game:
- This is a Flash Fiction challenge, which means your story must be a minimum of 100 words, maximum of 250.
- The story must be new writing, not a snippet from something published elsewhere with the prompt added.
- 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 in the post (or be excluded from judging)
- Include your Twitter handle or email in the post (so we don’t have to look for you)
- The challenge is open 7 AM to 8 PM Mountain 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, MeWe, and Google Plus, etc.
Our Judge for Week 434:
Chicana Yorkie Lover, and Paranormal Romance Author, Lizzie Bella.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“Someone has to do it.”
All stories written herein are the property (both intellectual and physical) of the authors. Comments do not represent the views of the host and the host reserves the right to remove any content. Now, away with you, Flash Fiction Fanatics, and show us your #ThursThreads. Good luck!
Beau and Luc slouched out of the sheriff’s office, their boss’s voice calling after them. “Someone has to do it, boys.”
“Well, yeah. But why us?” Beau whined. “Why not someone else?”
“Because we had the bad luck of walkin’ by as he was talkin’ to the principal.”
“Dude, I hated school when I was trapped there. Why would the sheriff think it a good idea to send me back?”
“You can always shift. I’ll tell the kids you’re my K-9 partner and your name’s Officer Friendly.”
Sputtering, it took Beau a few moments to form words. “Bro, that’s just cold.”
“Then suck it up, buttercup. Let’s get this done then we can get back to real police work.”
Still banned from driving, Beau sulked while Luc drove to Lafitte Academy, a charter school for gifted high school students. They pulled up in front of a historical building that once housed an orphanage. Beau was still grumbling as they exited the SUV and pushed through the massive doors of the front entrance. A woman, her dark suit cut in severe and boxy lines, awaited them.
Luc surveyed the entry hall and the woman. The planes of her face weren’t softened by makeup and her hair was slicked back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Yeah, this was not going to be a fun assignment. Beau stood beside him, frozen. Luc took one look and knew. His partner was moonstruck.
Talk about beauty and the beast.
****
250 Cajun Wolf words
@SilverJames_
My friend Adrianna lives a couple miles north of me. In high school we were inseparable; then we got busy with life and don’t see each other much. Telling her she’s been chosen to succeed The One True Death is not how I intended to conduct the reunion.
{No! You must not interfere!}
I land in a hard, wooden chair, the seat of which is ice cold. I shiver, as Horace fixes me with a red-flamed glare.
“We must proceed with caution.”
“Oh, to hell with caution! The Council is inching their way toward her! Get your fucking training started before I fucking do it my fucking self! Because someone has to do it!”
A cup of chamomile tea tips into my mouth without my help. Horace probably ordered that to calm me down, God damn him.
[Not touching this one!]
While I’m involuntarily drinking tea, Horace starts talking.
“The Council are making moves. Therefore, we will form a plan and tomorrow night both of you are going to execute it.”
The teacup tips into my mouth again. Horace loves making grandiose plans; I’m taking matters into my own hands, because he’s dragged his bony ass too long
“Carla and I will bring her over. Then you train her. Boom. Done,” my brother says.
“Please be aware that the Council may try to impersonate her. You will be able to see a slightly blue aura around her if she is not real. And be careful, please. The war is coming.”
@Aightball
250 words (excerpt from current WIP)
Rochelle bit her lip, vulnerability in her gaze. “So you really love me? As in, “I will live for you, my lady” sort of love?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t the line usually, “I will die for you”?”
She rolled her eyes. “Heh, anyone can die. That’s easy. Living for someone, especially if they’re gone, now that’s a trick.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon you don’t die so I don’t have to put that to the test. But yeah, I would live for you.” I tugged her close and rested my forehead against hers. “I love you, Rochelle, and I want you to be my Old Lady, patch or no patch.”
She laughed and her arms wrapped around my neck as she leaned into me. “If I’m completely honest, I want your patch. I just want you to acknowledge the problems with the system and help me work on changing it.”
That made my heart flutter in ways I’d only heard about in movies and love songs. It was a giddy, bubbly feeling that seemed at odds with anything associated with gargoyles, but I liked it and wanted more.
“So you will stay with me, here, and in the club wearing my patch, forever?” I’d never sounded so needy, but with her, I was.
She nodded with a smirk. “Someone has to do it, and I won’t let another woman take the job. I don’t share.”
I growled. “Neither do I.”
247 ineligible #ConcreteAngelsMC words
@SiobhanMuir
“Oh God,” Nat whispered as she heard the tapping on the window. “Not tonight, please, not tonight–”
The tapping again, slow and deliberate, but insistent. She opened her eyes as she lay in bed and looked to the window, keeping her body still. Winter cold frosted the glass, rendering the outside world invisible, save for the tiny half-moons of recent fingerprints — and the vaguely humanoid shape lingering outside.
Nat wanted to believe it was someone else. Anyone else. But it couldn’t be. The bedroom lay on the second floor.
It was her husband.
Shivering as she slipped from bed into the chill air, she approached the window slowly, putting her head against the wall next to the glass. She didn’t try to open the window. Even if it wasn’t frozen shut, she didn’t want to see. Not again.
A splayed hand, dark with decay, thumped against the window. Slowly, she placed her own hand next to it. Only glass prevented their touch.
“Nats,” a gravelly voice rasped from the far side. Something like eyes gleamed pale blue in the dark.
“Clint, please. If you love me, leave me alone. Please.”
“Help me… find him, Nats. The one who… killed me. Help me find… him.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, clenching her teeth to keep the tears back.
“Someone has to do it. I’m… far gone now, Nats. Almost out of… time.”
Nat closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
After a long moment, the hand slipped away.
“Nats. I’ll ask… again… tomorrow.”
250 words / @daniel_swensen
“Someone has to do it.”
Her voice rang in Zarya’s ears. She was gone. Esen. Her first friend in the Elemental world. She had grabbed Zarya, pushed her away, and ran towards the Elemental core. One last look over her shoulder and she was gone. They said they needed a Storm, a controller of lightning and thunder.
“It should have been me.”
That thought repeated over and over in Zarya’s mind. She should have been the one to balance the core. She stood up and walked over to the window. The underground city shone in the darkness, a symbol of light in the dark. Stonelight was its name, the city of the Stones, controllers of Earth.
As an Elemental, she could control all elements. She should not have let Esen go. But it was over now. Nothing could be done to change the past. Zarya sighed and turned to grab her bow. She walked out the door to meet the Council Of Elements to discuss the future of all the element-controllers, now that the core was balanced and the Storms had regained their power.
She called a Stone carriage over, the stone horse trotting loudly down the street.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Okuta Hall,” Zarya replied. The driver moved his arms and the horse began to move, pulling the carriage. As she watched the scenery go by, she made a promise to herself. She would honor Esen’s sacrifice and make sure that next time, no one would get hurt.
250 words
super.ly08@gmail.com
“What the hell were you doing in Peterson’s penthouse? With a gun!”
I rolled my eyes. This phone conversation was going nowhere. Except leading to another argument with my ex. “Take it easy, Jake. You hired me to find out if your squeaky clean Senate candidate had something to hide.”
“He’s not my candidate. We’re vetting him for the party. And you’re evading my question, Dani.”
I was evading. I was trying to figure out how to tell Jake what I’d discovered about Kyle Peterson. Time to come clean. “He went to the penthouse to kill his wife, Jake. When she found out, we pulled a kinda bait and switch. Instead of him finding her there, it was me waiting for him to show up.”
“And you shot him?”
“No. It was Mia.”
“Mia? What the hell was Mia doing there?
Mia was a paid operative for several shady PACs. “She came in after Peterson got there. She was standing in the doorway behind him and shot him when he discovered me there.
“Is he dead?” Jake was clearly pissed.
“I have no idea, Jake. I called 911 and got the hell out of there.”
I ended the call after a series of expletives from Jake told me he wasn’t pleased. Now he’d have to let the party know they would need to support somebody else. Well, someone has to do it.
“Everything okay, Mom?”
Oh great. Now I have to lie to my own daughter.
Catherine Ducourau
@cathducourau
246 Words
Pie-eyed, Deadeye Dick
Phyllis, our waitress, and, interestingly, Irv Fine Castles first wife, left us our coffee and pie and returned to her cafe sanctuary.
“When were you and Phyllis…hitched?” I asked, curious, but needing to get Irv spilling his guts.
He shovelled in a forkful of lemon meringue pie, wiped away crumbs, glistened with carb satisfaction, said, “Right outta high school.”
“Shotgun?”
“You could say.”
“Would you?”
“Yeah, she was knocked up.”
Not, ‘I knocked her up.’
Very Trumpian.
“So, there was a child?”
“Yeah. You met her.”
“Really? Where?”
“My secretary, Gladys.”
Irv Finecastle’s code of behaviour seemed to be, ‘keep friends and family close. Likely they’re your enemies anyways.”
But I was just guessing. Someone has to do it. Guessing I mean. Irv seemed relatively ready to share his private information, but that could be a ruse. Murderers usually don’t confess over pie. Lemon meringue or otherwise. And certainly not apple pie.
I was wandering and needed to get back on my investigative track.
“Irv,” I posited, the cops may be in touch with you. I’m working for your wife. If you’re innocent of murder, if all you are is…”
“What exactly am I?” he angrily demanded.
Whether he was boffing Mona Monterey, the twenty-something daughter of Helen Monterey, the murdered friend of the family AND amateur weaver, or not, it wouldn’t help me to raise his ire.
“A good dad who hired his love-child,” I opined.”
“I’m done,” he declared.
Clearly, I was digging a deeper hole.
250 WIP
@billmelaterplea
Bartal Boros’ animated corpse crossed one red velvet pant leg over the other and sat back in his upholstered wooden chair. Much improvement was needed, though the accommodations his host had cobbled together thus far were impressive. Besides the chair and mostly matching foot stool; throw rugs, golden candelabras, and a tasteful figure painting brought the space together respectably. It was still clearly a crypt, its austere stone structure rimmed with recesses for coffins. Bartal’s own elegant gilded coffin rested on the display slab.
Finding himself unexpectedly one of the walking dead was a lot to adapt to. His first frantic night taught Bartal he could only rest back inside his coffin. Although he had no interest in being reburied, he did discover a layer of dirt from his grave inside his coffin soothed his nerves considerably.
“Good evening, sir,” Bartal’s pale patron announced himself. “Would you care for some refreshment?”
Deacon Butler presented his left wrist and jugular like a fine dessert cart. The half elf grave tender had cleaned up his appearance and manners with the same shocking rapidity with which he furnished the crypt. Bartal could never forget his first awkward encounter with the peasant, or their joint discovery he now hungered for the blood of the living.
“Why are you helping me?” Bartal selected the wrist. He liked looking into Deacon’s eyes while he fed.
“Someone has to do it,” Deacon knelt at Bartal’s side, presenting his wrist. “And you’re my first friend who talks back.”
250 Cat’s The Pajamas words
@DavidALudwig
“You don’t know what you’re walking into.” Valmong’s thinly veiled irritation colors his words. He steps in front of me, startling me out of my preparations.
“I’ll be fine.” Up close, he towers over me. If he really wanted to, he could stop me. “We don’t have a choice – someone has to do it, and it can’t be you.” With his horns and tail, even in this world, he sticks out.
The more we talk about it, the more exhausting the topic becomes. I try to focus on packing my supplies, on stilling the shaking of my hands.
“Camilla,” He places his hands over mine, stopping my progress completely. “You don’t need to do this.”
“Yes I do. I’m the least threatening option. They’ll see you coming a mile away.” And I can’t bring myself to let him risk his life, again. Not if I can risk mine instead. But I don’t say that out loud. “It’s the smarter play.”
“The riskier one.” His fingers take my chin, tilting my face to look at him. Valmong’s eyes hold mine, and for a moment I can’t breathe. He’s scared. My mind fogs at his proximity as we lean closer, until his lips brush mine. The kiss is slow, hesitant. Heart stuttering against my chest, I let him pull me into his arms. When we break apart, his voice is soft. “You’re walking into a monster den.”
“They won’t even notice me.” My voice is breathless, but clear.
“I hope you’re right.”
250 #TeamRPG words
@katheryn_avila
#ThursThreads Week 434 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.