"Bad Rap" #Fridayflash

Trying something a little bit different this Friday. Thanks for all your support. It's nice.

They said that once I pulled off this one I'd be done. There'd be no takebacks. No insane demands or stacks of attacks. They said that once I held my end, it'd be done. Turn in my gun. Leaves more time for family and fun. I got a little one.

So I thought. It'd only begun.

How was I to know how it'd all go? The blood on my hands. Shovel in the sand. Body bag and a can. Running on the lam. Is that what they called it, or was it manhunt? I'm thinking maybe the latter. Dogs on a leash, looking to put my head on a platter. Bounty set at six thousand. Is that all I'm worth for real?

I don't just steal. I kill. Killed, let me get that straight. Had to put food on my dinner plate. I got hooked on the kickbacks, and the tricks and the other assorted bits that came with it.

The car's done stopped. Hoping it might be the cops. Laying on my side. They said we gonna take a little ride.

I killed that man, just like they wanted. Now I'm fucked. Just some sort of shit luck that I'd be caught. Strapped with tape. Put in a trunk, probably on the way to some distant deep lake. Concrete shoes to sleep with the fish tonight. Ain't that some shit? All because I let myself keep getting away with it. Or maybe it was they, Them. We. It doesn't matter now. All that matters is exactly how they plan to put me out of it forever. Take and drown me, shoot me or whatever.

Still waiting for them to open the trunk, I gotta pee. Hoping that they'll not see anything wrong with a last stand of dignity. I doubt those fuckers would allow that little bit. I think they just want to see me choke on it. Smell like shit. Get on with it.

Already?

Every damn minute I'm in here it's freaking me the hell out. I was hoping that one of those roughnecks would give my kicks the benefit of the doubt. But no luck. This trunk is tight and locked, and oh wait it's moving again, but the engine isn't even on. Something's just a little wrong.

I hear it coming through. Gonna be bad I bet. A whole lot of wet. It feels a little cold too, since they wouldn't let me keep my damn coat.

Holy shit. Cars don't float.

postnote: Received a tweet afterwards from @DanFaust:

danfaust @shadowsinstone Thanks. I liked your post, too. Reminded me a little of this book.

Please take the time to check out the book he is referring to if you enjoyed my work. I support good writers. I'll also do the same.

"Red" #Fridayflash

I know I toyed with the idea of zombies again. Next week. My head is so very sore and tired, but I cannot let Friday sneak up on me. Please accept this as an appeasement until the pain goes away...

I cleared away the debris so that you could breathe here in my space. I know you like to be able to stretch your legs from time to time. Are the bindings too tight?

Would you like some water?

What if I held you close to me? Would that stop you from shaking?

You sing so pretty. So trilling. Will you sing for me?

The sun is out. Birds fly overhead. I tried to show you, but you wouldn’t look. I won't be able to take the jar outside later. The blue is fading, but I can’t make it stay. Clouds are forming. It made me sad.

You wouldn’t talk to me. I held you and you squirmed and screamed. It was really loud. I just wanted to hold you. You’re so nice and quiet now.

I like it when you aren’t sweating so much better. So cool now. I washed the rest of your makeup away, and the red.

So much red.

Can you hear me? I tried to play piano for you, but you wouldn’t dance. Even after I took away the scratchy rope. Does it still bother you?

Will you just talk to me?

It didn’t hurt as much as you made it out to be. Just the wet is pain, just a little. Just the red.

It’s getting dark now. I’m going to hold you like I said I would. I’m going to sing as long as I can.

Until I fall asleep like you.

So now that you've read this...did you catch the subtle clues? What exactly did the narrator do to this person?

"Sandstorm" #Fridayflash

The sand shivered under the pin-pricked night sky just outside of the city. Beside a hulking transport, a thief dozed lightly, his snores drifting over his mustache and music like off-key music. His son Fadre whispered in dreams and turned in his dusty bedroll.

Again a slight tremor—a trickle—of earth's backbone and in its midst, an instant sinkhole. A spiny ridge appeared, dull and black; stark against the mediocre bland of the sand rushing to meet it. Somewhere, a pillar in the process of toppling over on the weeded and cracked temple floor gave its Swan Song.

Fadre awoke, his dark pupils obsidian discs in the growing white as he slowly rose, showing his teeth. The dimple in the desert was growing wider and discernible even at this distance. Red thundered behind his vision as his heart dumped spiked-lightning adrenalin into his blood as the ground quaked.

The low vibration echoed through the ground to brush the soles of his feet as he stood peering out into that moonless darkness, where sense rather than sight told him that the sand was going down. More stones met their final fate to fall from the heights where hands placed them so many eras ago. The black center of the sandy dahlia lifted higher, curved like an angry whip mid-lash. Black horns encrusted with glittering jewels followed this spine, and the boy staggered backwards, his small mouth wide open in an “o”, but soon dissolved into resolve and he took off running towards the desert, his arms pistoning at his sides, his lungs compressing and filling with hot, disturbed air.

The jeweled crown opened a cat's eye to peer out onto the world and the boy stumbled in shock, falling to one knee scraping against the jagged grit of the desert floor.

A black, segmented tongue, and the ridge beyond crawled and slithered with shimmers, inky and iridescent, bedecked in scales, each as large as a soldier's shield and the rest of the body was working free of the sand from which it seemed to have been born. A sinuous tail thrust up through the desertscape, primeval and strange.

A gigantic sail broke free, shooting out to block out the stars and Fadre looked up, mouth still open as sand rained down from it: deep, dark and veined, with hints of visceral red pulsating in raised veins branched out across the under surface.

With a sonic scream, which felt like noise, amidst the blast of superheated air, the beast rose from its sandy grave: wings unfurled, then folded, then lifted head overhead. A mere claw on this creature was the size of a transport for ten of his father's men. Its proud, arched neck undulated as it surveyed its surroundings and drove its wings down in one powerful swing, stirring up the desert winds and sands, first driving Fadre back as he clung to the ground, then tossing him like a rag-doll past where his father was just now stirring, just in time to witness the approaching sandstorm.