Welcome back to the home of Paranormal & Dauntless Romance. Wow. Year 10. A whole decade. I’m astounded.
Today is Thursday and that means it’s time to start flashing, like we have for 10 whole years. It’s amazing we’ve gone this long! This is Week 521 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 539:
Jersey Girl who pumps her own gas; romantic fantasy author with a Jungian soul, Stacy Bennett.
And now your #ThursThreads Challenge, tying tales together.
The Prompt:
“I made it easier for you.”
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!
The kids had bedded down. The truck ride had been a godsend for everyone but their trek had taken its toll. Even the men were wearing down. Except for Kin and Lock. Dalton tried not to snipe at the two Wolves. It just wasn’t fair. He was, after all, a genetically-enhanced Navy SEAL. Or had been. Just because those two could shift into wolves shouldn’t give them all the freaking stamina in the world. Then again, there were drawbacks. He glanced at Kin, who was staring toward the puppy-pile of kids and one very attractive woman.
Dalton knew what bothered the Wolf. He’d overheard Lock lecturing Kin about doing the right thing and telling Meg what he was before taking the actions his libido and inner wolf demanded, ie. claiming her as their mate. And being an inveterate romantic—who knew?—he’d taken steps.
“I made it easier for you,” he told Kin. When the other man only arched a brow, Dalton continued. “We’re taking a break tomorrow, according to Duke so I’ve arranged to keep the kids occupied.”
When Kin still didn’t respond, Dalton added, “So you can have some alone time with Meg and…you know…tell her.”
“You?” Kin finally said. “With all the kids, off somewhere?”
“Won’t that be a chaotic free-for-all?” the normally reticent Uri asked.
Tank piped up. “Is that like herding cats?” When everyone eyed him, he explained. “Asking for a friend.”
Kin simply growled. And walked away.
“Chicken,” Dalton called after him.
****
250 Hard Target: Crossfire WIP words
@SilverJames_
After I had fixed the blue screen of death on her computer, I told her, “Hand me your smartphone.”
It was an iPhone. I brought up the Messages application, and tapped away at the touch screen. When I was done, I handed the phone back to her, “There. I made it easier for you to call me when you need me.”
“What even is Messages?”
“Don’t even ask. Just click on Messages, and in Messages, click on “Blink, and type out what you want to say, and hit the blue arrow to send the message to me.
“You aren’t named Blink.”
Sometimes, I wondered why she said such things. “Just use Blink when you have problems with the computer. OK?”
“OK.”
I got up, and started to leave her desk.
“Thank you, Blink.”
“You’re welcome.”
Well, she was welcome. She was the kindest person in the building. She took all the computer training courses, and asked questions all the time. I’d sent pages and pages of instructions for how to do things in Word, and Excel to her.
She’d even asked how to back up her work so she didn’t lose it.
Beside that, she had the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. The kind that made you want to get lost in them forever.
I wasn’t supposed to give her a direct link to reach me, but I had, and I had to wonder why.
“Your mind’s wandering,” I mumbled, as I walked. “Get back to work.”
248 Words
@mysoulstears
The carton in the corner dominated the freezer, its walls pushed out as though someone had jabbed at its sides with knees and elbows. Its upper flaps were folded together and reinforced with carpet tape. Whoever had sealed it wanted to be sure it wouldn’t be opened again without a fight.
“And you’re saying it just appeared there?” Inspector Rico seemed hesitant to move in any closer, standing in front of the doorway with his arms crossed across his chest. His breath plumed in the air before him, the temperature within the storage area still twenty below zero, the racks to either side rimed with thick frost. Anybody going inside would need to wear gloves, their hands otherwise fusing instantly to anything they touched.
“It’s hard to know for sure, but the evidence supports that as a theory. There’s no camera inside – no one ever thought one would be needed. The one outside shows nobody unauthorised has accessed the vault since it was secured at the end of the day. Besides, they’d have needed to know the combination to open the door. This place is as impregnable as Fort Knox – you may think it’s only joints of meat, but there are thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in there.”
Rico looked up at the camera, running his informant’s phoned-in statement through his head. He’d said ‘I made it easier for you this time, but there’s a trick to what I’ve done. Something cool – something you’ll never guess.’
250 words – twothirdzrasta.blogspot.com
The Road Back Part 5
We were garnering quite a lot of new regulars at Dick’s Joint. As a place of dual businesses, Private Eyeing and Sumptuous Slapdash Cookery, it was working well. What concerned me was that it was also turning into a warming station for the lost and lonely. Typically, a certain segment of society has less coin to rub together than more traditional clientele, voracious eaters, folks with trouble and tragedy irritating them.
Charlie Angel had proved to be a great people person, a short-order cook, and a productive sleuth. He’d only had two assignments, but he knew his stuff…and he knew what he didn’t know.
Except for the charity cases who occasionally draped themselves all over our booths I was thinking that we were doing pretty well.
I should have known better.
I was getting too comfortable.
And when she walked Wednesday morning, lugging her suitcase, red hair that seemed almost ready to commit arson, somewhere between twenty and forty, I guessed, though fifty wasn’t out of the question as her eyes looked like they had seen the best and the worst of humanity, well, when she entered the joint, Charlie Angel took one look, and the frying pan was in the bloody fire.
“Lorna,” he hissed, “Been a while. You found me.”
Lorna of the flaming red hair smiled, said, “It wasn’t hard…”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, “I made it easier for you, didn’t I?”
“Yup. The bread crumbs helped.”.
Dames and in-jokes.
Always a problem.
250 WIP
http://www.engleson.ca
I made it easier for you to cut me out of your life. I stopped using TikTok. I don’t go to that bar anymore, the one we used to go to every Friday night, the one where you first told me that you love me.
I don’t go there anymore.
I found this place across town. It’s nicer and almost no one pukes in the toilets around closing time. They don’t know me here as half of something. To them, I’m just Paul, the kinda sad guy at the bar who they’d ask to be on their trivia team if I’d ever look up from my phone.
I don’t go to the Whole Foods on 10th street, or the delicatessen on 8th – you know, the one that puts pickles on the table to snack on and where I decided I’d ask you to marry me.
I’m guessing you don’t go there anymore either, not after that fight we had that led to the waitress dropping a tray of food on the owner. But just in case you do, I don’t.
I mapped out the city, indicating the likelihood of you going to various parks or restaurants or stores and when you might go. I removed all of my social media accounts and told our mutual friends to never mention my name again.
You’d have been better off if you’d never met me. If I hadn’t hurt you so badly. If I hadn’t existed.
What’s past is prologue, they say.
Goodbye.
250 words
@drmag00
“You could rest against me, much like you did last night.”
Roxanne shot him a sharp look, trying to gauge his feelings either for or against the idea. “Is that okay? I don’t want to impose if it’s too uncomfortable with Corlith around?”
“No, no, not at all. I just thought I made it easier for you to get some rest.” Ambrose waved his hand as they headed back to the space they’d chosen for camp. “I don’t mind at all.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. That works for me. I definitely stayed warmer than if I’d been just on the ground.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“And it will help me stay awake for my turn to take watch.”
Ambrose frowned. “That’s not necessary. Corlith and I can take watch.”
She snorted. “Don’t go all sexist on me, Corporal Swift. I was military SpecOps. I’m just as capable.”
He opened his mouth to retort before closing it and taking a breath. “I wasn’t maligning your abilities, Roxanne. I know the stamina and endurance of Goblins and Centaurs – we can stay awake for almost a week at a time before we need to sleep. I’m not as familiar with human stamina.”
She wanted to make a remark about stamina of humans in general, but Ambrose already had problems with her idioms. She wasn’t sure he’d get the sexual innuendos either.
“Okay, I’ll give you that. Humans can go up to seventy-two hours awake when they’re trained for it, but not a week.”
250 ineligible #Sirens words
@SiobhanMuir
I opened my door closed it and kicked off my black pumps. I was about to strip off my black funeral dress when I felt and envelope under my foot. I picked it up and opened it.
Dearest Desirée
I tried everything to avoid this but you can’t escape fate; if you are reading this then the something bad I ‘ve been dreaming about has happened to me. All my life I’ve had these premonitions that come true. I’ve been able to cheat death a few times over the years but apparently there is a price to pay sooner, or later. You were always my best friend the one I could turn to at any time I know you must be hurting and I’m sorry that I can’t be there to comfort you. But I can make it up to you. I had a premonition of your future demise and perhaps I made it easier for you so that you can cheat death as I haven’t. I hope so.
On Thursday December 8, 2022, you will cross the street and a car will hit you. You will die.
Take care and make it not happen.
Love Cécile
Poor Cécile, I thought, but then I remembered walking with her as she crossed the street, and pushing her out of the way of the oncoming car. At the realization a light appeared. I followed along a tunnel to join many lights. Reborn, becoming the kindness that enters and warms the heart.
249 words
@SweetSheil
“I made it easier for you to find us,” the haughty voice echoed through the derelict church.
Lupita Lopez used to think vampires were pretty cool. In a scary story context. Then she met Avery Scarlett Alexander. Well, technically, she became a werewolf and then met Avery.
Lupita’s hackles rose, and she snarled through her silver muzzle, “If you’ve hurt any of those children, I’ll rip your throat out!”
“Oh, WE haven’t hurt the children…”
The missing school group shuffled out of the shadows in a circle around the werewolf, each blank-faced and armed with a silver fixed blade.
“Mierda…”
Lupita curled her claws hard into her palms. After smelling the kids all night and too many false leads, she hadn’t imagined they were really here. The courageous canine quickly reconsidered her circumstances.
“Before you get any ideas, you should know I’ve programmed them to kill each other if you leave.”
The children advanced on the leather-clad loba. Those knives could seriously damage Lupita, let alone the kids. Avery’s high laugh echoed through the once-holy space. The vampire probably wasn’t even present.
“Do let me know how this turns out if we see each other again.”
“Abuela,” Lupita growled in her mind.
“I’m on my way,” the old bruja responded telepathically. “I can break Avery’s spell, but you’ll need to use the binding ritual to hold them until I get there.”
Lupita winced at her bleeding palms.
“That’s the one that uses silver powder, isn’t it?”
246 PRUDENT words
@DavidALudwig
I’d gotten used to her working late. Like clockwork, every Thursday night she had to get the weekly report ready so it was in London first thing Friday.
She wasn’t going to change so I’d…adapted. It really wasn’t much of an adaptation, though. It’d been a long time coming and were I half the man I liked to think I was I would’ve ended it months earlier. She was still, though, very, I guess, comfortable to be with.
Her “Blah, blah, blah,” though nearly killed me
You know what didn’t bore me? Michelle. She lived two floors below our place. She was single and—I really don’t remember how this happened—we became a regular Thursday item.
As I say, my girlfriend was like clockwork. Never home before ten. I was always back from Michelle’s at 9:45.
Then Michelle surprised me. “We’ve been ‘rendezvousing’ for three months. Let’s celebrate,” she said. Dinner and drinks, she said.
“A nice change of pace, no?”
Michelle always looked good but when I stopped to pick her up at her place, she was beyond good. I almost regretted not going straight to bed with her, but it supposed to be a special night. Maybe there’d be time for that later.
Uber to the restaurant. It was somewhat dark. As the maître d’ led us to our table, there she was. My girlfriend. Not alone.
She didn’t miss a beat. “I made it easier for you,” she said. “I’ll get my stuff over the weekend.”
250 words, @JPGarland, who didn’t know Jersey girls were allowed to pump gas.
We aren’t, but I’m bad that way 😉
#ThursThreads Week 539 is now CLOSED. Thanks to everyone who wrote this week and I hope to catch you next week.