Seeping Massacre

 Back in September I saw a Flash Fiction Challenge.  The rules were that you would be assigned a genre, location and an item, and you would have 48 hours to write a story of no more than 1000 words.  I signed up!

This is the second story that I wrote for that challenge.

Genre:  Horror

Location: An Outdoor Music Concert

Item: Animal Crackers

Please note:  This is a horror story.  It has some things in it that people may find disturbing, so please use your judgement about who it is suitable for.  (I'd probably rate it at about a 15 if it was a movie.)

 Seeping Massacre

“Jesus!  Put them away before somebody sees!” Chris frantically shoves your outstretched hand away.  You shrug and drop the earplugs back into your pocket.  Yours are already in your ears, filtering the sound, much to Chris’s despair.

Everyone around you is dressed in black, some have painted faces.  Even Chris is wearing the band hoody (black, of course), with the scarlet blood-dripping logo emblazoned across the back.

No one told you there would be a dress code. 

“Come on, let’s try and get a good spot.”  Chris turns across the field to where the crowd is already thick watching the support act.  You follow, trying not to lose sight of him among the heave.

 

Finally he stops and shouts something at you, but you can’t make it out over the rumble of the speakers, so you just nod.  He shoves a box of Animal Crackers into your hands.  Festival food?  Well, better than the greasy hotdogs you expected.

The night air is thick with the smell of sweat and mud.

The support finishes and takes a bow.  You clap, as best you can while holding a box of crackers.  The stage lights dim.  Shadows move across it rearranging props and instruments.

A single flame appears. 

The screaming of the crowd goes up by at least an octave.  Chris jumps up and down waving and hollering.  You wait politely, munching on the sweet Animal Crackers.  Crunch.

Suddenly the lights blast on and four mildly-overweight men run onto the stage wearing grotesque masks of face paint and fake blood.

“HAIL SATAN!” the lead singer bellows into the mic, to thunderous approval from the crowd.  You chuckle, wondering how much the fans buy into this stuff.

“We are THE SEEPING MASSACRE!”

The drummer blasts the bass pedals, the guitarist slams a discordant note, the ground trembles as they growl out their first song of the evening.

There is barely a break before they move onto the second – or at least, you think it’s the second song.  It could be the first one again.

You glance at Chris; he seems to be enjoying it... but wait.  Blood; oozing from Chris’s ears.  He doesn’t seem to notice.  You try to point it out to him but he just frowns at you.

“WHAT?  I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

You look around for help; but a wet splash draws your attention.  A man nearby, headbanging, blood flicking in droplets as he thrashes to the song.

Everywhere you look the dark trickles are running down their jaws, dripping from their chins…

You reach to your own ears.  The soft foam of the earplugs is reassuring, there is no blood seeping through them.  But what if you are bleeding, too, and the plugs are just holding it in?

You scrabble in your pocket for the spare earplugs, and try to push them into Chris’s ears, but he pushes you away, annoyed.  Your fingers come away slick and sticky with his blood.  The smell of iron is getting stronger…

You know you have to stop the music.

You start to push your way through the crowd towards the stage.  Chris grabs at your shirt to pull you back, but you break away.  You reach the mosh pit; the ground churned so badly you slip and slide through mud and blood trying to reach the front.

The stage is awash with flames: sickly green, purple-red.  The music begins to hurt your ears, despite the earplugs.  You try to get over the barriers; a security guard forces you back.  Apparently the crowd think that’s a good idea though, as others start to push forward, and suddenly the fence is down and you’re propelled through.

You push and kick your way out; the security guards are getting the throng under control, but you don’t want to get onto the stage.  You want to get behind it.

Crew sit in a mess of cables, blood dripping from their eyes and ears and noses.  They don’t pay much attention to you; you’re not dressed in black like the fans, and you’re wearing earplugs.  They may not know who you are, but clearly you belong backstage.  The main breaker is within reach.  It’s stiff and locks down with a clunk.

The stage lights shut off, and the speakers power down; but the band plays on and the music continues, as loud as ever, rumbling through the ground.

How?

You run up the stage stairs to be confronted by flames – flames you thought were just pyrotechnics- still leaping around as if driven on by some cursed magic.  Shadows in the shape of horned and winged creatures surge beyond the ground, pushing upwards, warping the wooden boards of the stage - trying to break through.

You run up to the singer, and shout, as loud as you can, to stop the concert.  He looks at you, a cruel smile forming on his lips, as he continues to intone harsh syllables.

You realise that the band knows exactly what they’re doing.  They will kill everyone, everyone, unless you stop them.  You make a grab for the microphone.  The singer pushes you away.  You try to wrestle for control.  Security guards, their faces almost obscured by blood are rushing towards you.  You are pushed away again, and as you stumble your hand closes around a stage prop; a gargoyle.  It’s heavy. 

You have to stop them.

The singer’s head cracks open with a crunch that you feel rather than hear.  Blood pours across the floor, drips through it, softens it.  The barrier breaks.

Demons of every size and shape clamber out of the hole, fly into the night, leap down into the crowd.  One of them gives you a mock bow before laughing and flying away.

The flames vanish.  The stage lights come back on.  Strong hands grab your arms.

“Murderer!”  The cry comes from below, and the crowd takes it up, and you realise.

They couldn’t see the demons.

They can only see you.  The killer that let them in.

Walking With Witches

Back in September I saw a Flash Fiction Challenge.  The rules were that you would be assigned a genre, location and an item, and you would have 48 hours to write a story of no more than 1000 words.  I signed up!

This is the first story that I wrote for that challenge.

Genre:  Action/Adventure

Location: A Castle

Item: A bucket

Walking With Witches

The Castle loomed above him; a jagged shadow of spires and turrets thrusting into the midnight sky.  The night was warm, and the smell of moss and stagnant water lingered in the air.  His body glistened with sweat, shining over green whorls and stripes, and a bandolier chaffed against his bare chest.  He hadn’t wanted to come out here.  He thought he had left all this behind him.  But he’d had to do it - for John.

“We need you, Walker,” he’d said, pacing the living room.  The sun had been bright that day, but his eyes had been in a faraway place:  A dark place.  This place.

“You know I’m retired,” Walker had replied.  “I want a normal life.  I built this house to raise a family-”

“We both know you miss it,” John had interrupted.  “I’d go myself, but since I took that bullet...” he shook his head, a pained expression flashing across his serious grey eyes.

“I know,” Walker grimaced.  That had been part of the reason he had got out of the game.  But maybe he did miss it.  Just a little.  “So what’s the mission?”

“You’re in, then?”

“Maybe.  If you tell me what’s so important that one of your regular teams can’t go in.”

“Dammit, Walker, you know that’s classified.  I can’t tell you unless you’re on board.”

“I know how to keep a secret, John.”

His old friend sighed and then nodded.

“The enemy has a new weapon.  A staff which belonged to a... witch.  They’ve got an agent learning to use its power.  If we don’t stop her, she’ll become the next witch.”

“You came all the way up here to tell me a joke?  Jesus, John, why don’t you just send Dorothy?”

“I’m serious, Walker.  The Nazis experimented with the occult in the forties; they had some breakthroughs, too.  It was covered up, of course – we couldn’t let that go public.  Trust me; we don’t want her to reach full power.  We need her taken out, and the staff recovered.”

It had taken another three hours to convince him.  Even now he wasn’t sure he believed it, but Walker forced the doubts from his mind and focused on the mission.

“Time to say hello.”

The castle was almost impregnable.  Almost.  A cleverly-concealed grate allowed water to flow out to the moat; one well placed charge would blow a hole clean through the iron.  He checked his watch.  The timer ticked down, and bang on zero, a distant explosion rocked the walls.  At the same moment, he detonated the charge he had set at the grate.

Walker waded through the swampy water.  The courtyard beyond was clear; as he had hoped, the distraction at the main gate had caught the enemy’s attention.  Now all he had to do was find this so-called witch.

He darted from shadow to shadow, searching for a way in, until he found a carelessly unlocked door and ducked inside.

A dining hall stretched before him, lit by a multitude of candles.  Suits of armour lined the walls, and a long wooden table was set with silver.  He scanned the hall; empty.  Or so he thought.

There was a grinding of metal as every suit of armour turned its head and looked at him.  With stiff robotic movements, they stepped down from their pedestals.

Walker raised his rifle, and the staccato thunder of gunfire ripped through the hall.  Bullets pierced metal, ripping holes through the golems.  Still on they came.

The nearest raised its sword, a brutal two-handed steel blade.  The strike came more swiftly than the juddering movements would have suggested.  The commander dived out of the way, and then rolled to block another cut with his rifle.  Sparks flew as the weapons clashed.  Walker quickly barged his shoulder into another of the ghostly knights, sending it barrelling into two of its companions.  He jumped up onto the table and ran, silver and glass tumbling to the floor in his wake, then leapt through the door at the far end of the hall.

“Let’s see how you like modern warfare!” he grabbed a grenade from his belt and threw it back into the hall, then slammed the heavy wooden door closed behind him.  There was a boom, then the clatter of metal hitting stone.

“As I thought.  They just fell to pieces.”

A spiral stair ascended before him.  He leapt up the steps, ready for whatever challenge he might face next.  By the time he had reached the top of the tower and burst out into the night air, he was barely out of breath. 

“Welcome, Commander Walker.”

A woman, who had been surveying the landscape, turned to face him.  Her lips were red, her hair swept up into a neat bun.  Her clothes were black leather, and her voice was tinged with an exotic accent.  In her hand she held a staff of carved wood, atop which a gem glowed coldly.

“I’m sorry that you didn’t like my Knights,” she smiled.  “Perhaps I could entertain you myself!”  She stabbed the staff forward and fire shot out towards him.  Walker rolled, feeling the heat scorch his skin.  He opened fire, but the bullets bounced away, repelled by some unseen force.  The woman laughed.

“It isn’t polite to shoot at a lady!” 

Another blast of fire...

Walker looked around frantically.  There was a bucket sitting by the door, full of water.  He snatched it up and hurled the contents over the witch.

She screamed.

“I’m all wet!”

The gem began to glow.

Walker threw the bucket.

It struck her in the chest and she stumbled backwards.  Her balance gone, she tumbled over the ramparts with another scream.

“I thought she looked a little pail,” Walker muttered, picking up the fallen staff.

He felt its power fade, and the clouds parted to reveal a bright starry sky.  In the distance, the chatter of approaching helicopters whispered on the wind.

He had saved world for the last time – again.

Can you help me find a story?

This post has “spoilers” for a children’s story.  So if you are bothered about that kind of thing, don’t read ahead!

One of my favourite stories from when I was little went something like this:

There was a ghost who had a real sweet tooth.  The ghost ate a lot of sweets and for reasons which I entirely forget, ended up being chased by a policeman. 

To escape, the ghost climbed a ladder to the sky.  It turned out that the sky was made of lovely blue glass, and because the ghost was light he could run across it.  The policeman was too heavy and so fell through the glass. (I think the fall caused the policeman to swallow his whistle, but I’m not sure on that part.)

The ghost found that the stars were made of sugar and so ran about eating the stars.  As he runs about he leaves muddy footprints on the blue glass that is the sky, and the clouds have to follow him about cleaning them up.  That’s why the clouds are white, but then go grey as they get muddy and have to wring themselves out (causing rain) to clean themselves.

I think it was in a book of bedtime stories, but I no longer have the book, or if I do, I’ve misplaced it.  I wondered if anyone recognises the story and can tell me where it’s from and who wrote it?  I seem to be the only person who remembers this one, but I thought it would be fun to see if I could rediscover it with the help of all you fine people on the world wide web!

Goodnight!

An Easter Story

Once upon a time there was a bunny.  He laid an egg.

Within the egg was a white of dark matter and dark energy.

Within the yolk, atomic matter swirled.

The atomic matter formed clusters.

Within those clusters, fusion reactions sparked to life.

Around those reactions, debris and dust coagulated into balls of rock and gas.

Upon one of those balls of rock water thrashed and churned.

Within the water a small creature struggled and swam.

As the water receded it clambered onto land.

Among the plants and trees it crawled.

Then it ran.

Then it hopped.

Then, it laid an egg.

Happy Easter! 

Image credit: Wikipedia

A Halloween Sci-fi Story!

The ship’s hull loomed up out of the darkness, their spotlights sliding over the pallid metal, momentarily bringing the husk to life before moving away to return it into the cold black.

“No response to any hails.”  Kat peered at the freighter.  “It looks old.  I wonder how long it’s been out here?”  

“Not that long.”  Mike swivelled around in his chair, and tossed a flip chart over.  “It is an old ship, but it’s been on active duty.  I matched the registration to a Mirage company freighter that was returning from the system a few days ago.  The Amazon.  Should be able to get a bounty off them for its return.”

“Okay.  We’d better head over and check out the damage.  See if we can find out what happened to the crew.” 

“We should wait.”  Robert had remained quiet up until now, just starting at the ghostly wreck on the screen. 

“What for?”  

“Do you know what the date is?” 

“Yeah.  Star date four one-“ Mike started, but Robert waved a hand.

“No, no.  I mean the proper date. On Earth.” 

“I guess that depends where you are…”

“It’s the thirty first of October.”  He glared at Kat. 

“So?”

“Halloween.  The night when the barrier between the living and the dead is at its weakest.”

The silence stretched out. 

“You’re joking, right?”  Mike started to laugh.  “Does Halloween even count in space?”

“Of course it does.  You think ghosts care if they are in space or not?”

“Seriously Rob, we’ve got a job to do here.  If we don’t lay claim to this salvage someone else might get it.  And the faster we get it back, the higher a price we can drive.”  Kat got up and went to the door.  “I’m going to engineering to update Linda and Adam on our find.  We’ll go over an in an hour.”

Using Stuff.

Sometimes a blank page of paper can be scary, not because you don’t know what to write, but because you’re afraid of “wasting” the paper.  Perhaps you’ll write something that you then never use, or it won’t come out right, and then that bit of paper is useless.  Write on it anyway.

Here is why:

Once, when I was little, I got some stick on earrings for Christmas.  (Stickers that come in pairs that you can stick on your ears.)  They were great.  Lots of different shapes and they were holographic.  How cool was that?
My favourite shape was the lightning ones.  They were certainly the coolest, and to be saved for the most special of occasions.
Sometimes I would get them out and consider sticking them to my ears, so everyone could be all “Wow, that’s the coolest of ear stickers!”
I never did use them.  Eventually I got to that age where I realised that perhaps holographic lightning stickers weren’t as cool as they may have been in the late 80s.
I probably still have them somewhere.  Perhaps they’ll be back in fashion soon, and if they are, this time, I won’t hesitate to use them.