Summer Drabbles

I asked. You responded. Sit back, read, and leave some praise!

The Oldest Ent

by Kaye George

The first sign was a slight twinge of pain at the core of his being. Then he noticed hordes of strange insects crawling up his trunk. He was used to the usual bugs, but these ate voraciously and nonstop.

 High winds came, and drenching, life-giving rain. But the insects kept coming.

 One day he realized that his core was gone, eaten away, nothing left of it. He peered down the length of his body through his glasses. The axe men were here.

 First, the yellow painted X. Then the chainsaws. Finally, he became a stump. They left him his glasses.

Kaye George, Guppy president, two-time Agatha Nominee/
Imogene Duckworthy Mystery series/
EINE KLEINE MURDER, now out!/
DEATH IN THE TIME OF ICE, coming in June from Untreed Reads/

FAT CAT cozy series, writing as Janet Cantrell, coming 2014/
http://kayegeorge.com/

Upon Reflection

by  John R. Clark

The jay thought the shiny thing on the fence post was his. Scolding skreaks battered my ears as I picked up the sadly familiar glasses. The last time I'd seen them, they had been perched on Uncle Jake's nose while I read over the biopsy report. When I finished, I knew what would happen, but not when.

After he'd been absent for three days, I headed to the lower pasture, his favorite part of the family farm, gut roiling because of the missing shotgun.

“Changed my mind, I can't go ugly.”

I smiled sadly and took him home to die.

John Clark, YA and mystery author is a Maine librarian who blogs regularly on the Maine Crime Writer's website.

  

S.H.C.

by Darren Sant

The press did their usual lazy job and simply called it S.H.C. The truth is no one knew where Joel disappeared to. Crazy theories spread through the neighborhood like fleas on a cat. Yes, he'd just been jilted at the altar. Yes, the woodland lodge he called home had been abandoned with the door ajar and Kenny Rogers playing.

But the best that Ford County Sheriff's Department could come up with when they found a just a pair of glasses and some smoking hiking boots? Well it had to be Spontaneous Human Combustion, didn't it?

http://www.darrensant-writer.yolasite.com

Street Justice

By Wayne Zurl

Jamal Willie Walker raped and murdered a six-year-old girl.

We traced him to a tenement in Brownsville.

I kicked in the door and my partner covered the room. As it swung open, Walker grabbed an automatic from the dinette table.

“Two against one,” I said. “No matter what you’re dead.”

“Whoa, Man. No trouble here.”

He raised his hands, still holding the pistol. Light reflected from his eyeglasses.

“Paul,” I said, “Go outside. Make sure those uniforms cover the fire escape. The window’s open.”

“What?”

“Close the door.”

Fifteen seconds later. “You burned that girl with a cigarette. Sayonara, sport.”

Wayne Zurl writes the popular Sam Jenkins crime stories for Mind Wings Audio.

Brother’s Keeper

By Katt Dunsmore

Marty leaned on his shovel, shoved his glasses up on his forehead, and wiped his face with a sweat stained bandana. Looking around, he shoved the bandana into his back pocket and started to dig.

Later, Marty stood waist deep in the hole he’d dug.

“I think this is good enough,” he said, and climbed out of the hole. He stepped over to a nearby tree trunk, took off his glasses, and set them down.

A moment later, a shot rang out. There was a thud.

Marty began to fill in the hole. He hated cleaning up after his brother.

© Copyright 2013 Tonya D Dunsmore. All rights reserved.

Katt Dunsmore is a Native American short story author, and an illustrator. You can find her on facebook and twitter.

Vergence

by Scott Dingley

I got old young.

Inheriting the farm after my folks died, I made my first trip back in years. By the edge of the corn field, I found my grandfather's eyeglasses in the dust.

The lenses dull, spidery.

I wrapped the wire arms around my ears.

Lost focus...

Visions: the man who wore these, bitter and violent; dad hiding out in the corn.

I hid too, ‘til dark. In the mirror, even with the eyeglasses discarded again, the old man stares back.

This happened yesterday. I been here ever since, never getting around to selling the place like I planned.

Scott Dingley is a London-based writer with a few novellas under his belt as well as some short fiction published by A Twist of Noir, Near to the Knuckle and 101 Fiction.

Drabble Challenge

"Peering"

Drabble: Telling a story in exactly 100 words.

Can you do it?

It's almost summer! Time for a Flash Jab Drabble Challenge. The drabbles will be based on the picture posted on the web site: Flash Jab Fiction

Here are the rules:

1) This is writing for the sake of writing. No fees or payments will be made or trophies given.

2) Chosen drabbles will be posted here at Flash Jab.

3) Stories must be exactly 100 words (not including title or byline)

4) Email responses to me at jacktheauthor@gmail.com

5) Please submit by June 30, 2013, by 11:59 p.m.

6) Flash Jab reserves the right not to post submissions.

7) No bigotry, pornography, or anything featuring the exploitation of children will be considered.

Drabble: Along the Beach

Drabble: Telling a story in exactly 100 words.

I put the challenge out a month ago. The stories were to be based on this generic shot I took on an east coast beach. I tampered with it in Picasa. Liked what I saw. Posted it and invited you to share your ideas (or in some cases, nightmares). Below are six brave writers who picked up the baton and turned out some solid stories in 100 words.

Dig it.

~JackBates

Along the Beach

The Bitch, the Beach, and the Cub Scout
by Jim Harrington

Karl spotted the woman and boy through the rifle sight. He knew three things about the witch. Her ass was way too big to be wearing a thong, the kid wasn't his, and she and her lawyer shouldn't have stole his money. He'd taken care of the lawyer. Now it was her turn.

He found her easily. She always complained about not going to that famous Daytona Beach.

"Bitch," Karl mumbled.

The boy giggled and ran away from the waves. Karl lowered the rifle, wiped the salty sweat from his eyes, and smiled. Maybe tomorrow would be better, he thought.

Seasick

by John Clark

I pitied everyone in the Bayport Motel. They were, to put it bluntly, screwed and there wasn't a thing I could do to change that. I closed my eyes and fought the nausea threatening to send eggs over easy and maple-flavored bacon onto the granite outcropping that was all that stood between me and 500 feet of nothing. I wasn't afraid of heights. No, my fear was fueled by the images running through my head as I imagined the scene below just a few minutes from now. I turned and began climbing higher, as the giant wave filled the horizon.

SCENE CHANGER

~ By Absolutely*Kate

 “What a crummy room. Can’t even see the sea.”

“Sighting seas ain’t what we came here to do Barney. Boss sent us on a job. Here, we perch over Mango Bay’s comings and goings. Do our business, nail the next one, walk beachfront, jibber-jabber later. Got it?”

“Well sure Fred, ya put it that way. Where d’we get started?”

“Now you’re talkin’. Help me lift this tarp, angle the body right.”

“Ya sure this caper will work? Won’t they stink when they’re dead?”

“Nah. Sprayed this baby. She’s a beaut! Boss said make it look natural.”

“Fish-Décor. Who’da thunk?”

“Yabba-dabba-do!”

Along The Beach

by Darren Sant

Max sat on the roof looking out over the beach. Grey waves kissed the pebble strewn expanse of sand like a long lost lover. He sucked on his cigar and blew smoke upwards. It hung in the air for a moment before the wind took it. 

A lone gull cried a mournful tale causing Max to nod. It shouldn't have been like this, there was no need for the betrayal. Max sighed knowing there was no other way. The business would carry on regardless. 

As the sea carried his partner's body away Max climbed back in through the open skylight.

Ebb Tidings

by Walt Giersbach

Gloria was in that motel when the hurricane hit the Jersey shore.  She was ten miles out to sea or in a shark’s stomach when they finally let people return to town.  The sea mocked my salty tears as I walked the dunes.

“We’ve all lost our past,” a cop said when he saw me crying. 

“Gloria DeLillo was my fiancée,” I choked.

“Miss DeLillo?  Long gone.  We thought it was her body in the motel, but ID in the lady’s pocket said otherwise.  We’ve got an APB out on her.”

“She’s alive!”

“Well, until we charge her with murder.”

 Summer Sunset

By Katt Dunsmore

Sarah stood on the balcony, sipping champagne and watching the tide come in as the sun sank behind the sea. She could see Mark, out by the shore. She raised a hand and waved, unsure if he could see her. She was, naturally, mostly in shadow; he was out in the dying rays of the sun. Soon, she would go to him. As Sarah walked out to the edge of the water, she would get her feet wet in the spray as she made her way to him.

There shouldn’t be much left. Vampires did so poorly in direct sunlight.

© Copyright 2013 Tonya D Dunsmore. All rights reserved.

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, Bewildering Stories, and Flash Jab Fiction, and in the anthologies, The EX-Factor: Justified Endings to Bad Exes (Koboca Publishing, 2006), Daily Bites of Flesh 2011 (Pill Hill Press, 2011), Daily Flash 2012 (Pill Hill Press, 2012), and Daily Frights 2012 (Pill Hill Press, 2012. Her illustrations and graphics have appeared in several publications and on the internet