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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

House Fire by Katt Dunsmore

Tonya "Katt" Dunsmore is an American short story writer and illustrator. Her stories and essays have appeared in Crime and Suspense Magazine, Flashing in the Gutters, Flashshots, Mouth Full of Bullets, Associated Content, Silver Moon Magazine, and Bewildering Stories, and in the anthologies, The EX-Factor: Justified Endings to Bad Exes (Koboca Publishing, 2006) and Daily Bites of Flesh 2011 (Pill Hill Press, 2011). Her illustrations and graphics have appeared in several publications and the internet. For more information about her art work, you can contact Katt at hawkzkatt@aol.com.

Katt is married to her beloved husband, Dinny, and they have three children: Kitra, John, and Thomas. They make their home in northern South Carolina with their Rottweiler/German Shepherd mix, Briscoe, and their feline companion, Sixx.

House Fire

By Katt Dunsmore

Jerry watched from a distance as the black bloom of smoke rose against the overcast sky. He could almost see the firemen in their bright yellow gear rushing around with hoses and axes, trying to put out the fire and save whoever might be within the blazing inferno. He could hear sirens screaming as ambulances came rushing to render aid to those who might need it. He could imagine the police officers holding back the neighbors as they came out to watch the house burn. News crews would be on the way to catch the drama for the 6 o’clock news.

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson would rush home from work to find their home in flames, gutted by fire, all of their belongings ruined by smoke and water. Some lucky photographer from the newspaper would catch Mrs. Thompson sobbing and would have an award winning front page photo. Mr. Thompson would catch her as she collapsed against him in grief. He might even cry himself.

Arson investigators would crawl through the wreckage of the Thompson house while they tried to find out what had caused the fatal fire. Ultimately they would decide that Bobby, the Thompsons’ 12 year old son, had been playing with matches in the garage when the fire got away from him. Sadly, Bobby wouldn’t have been able to get out in time to save himself.

Bobby would never steal his army men again.

© Copyright 2011 Tonya D Dunsmore. All rights reserved.





Distant Fire


Flash Jab #4
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6 comments:

  1. Kaye GeorgeAugust 3, 2011 at 6:39 PM

    Chilling story, Katt!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 3, 2011 at 7:00 PM

    Yahoo! Teach that Bobby to screw with his army men. Started out one way then snapped our heads around. Nicely done twist and last line. Cool. (or, if you're leete, Kewl) Enjoyed this a lot. Thanks AJ

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jenny MilchmanAugust 3, 2011 at 8:00 PM

    Chilling is the right for it--I agree, Kaye. Nice job, Katt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Earl StaggsAugust 4, 2011 at 11:31 AM

    Nice job, Katt. You scare me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nigel BirdAugust 10, 2011 at 4:32 AM

    i've been trying to write a flash piece with more words than this and found it really difficult.
    this one's a model for me to work on, i reckon. so much story in such little space. and we know that the voice is responsible for the fire, but not that it could be anything so seemingly trivial and from one so young. thanks for the lesson.
    nigel

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chris RhatiganAugust 12, 2011 at 3:40 PM

    Nigel's spot on there -- a lot of creepy story in a little space. Very well executed, Katt.

    ReplyDelete

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