AUTUMN DRABBLES

photo courtesy of Catherine Bertrand

 https://www.facebook.com/CMBArts

I asked.

You wrote.

Now read.

R U M O U R E D

~ by Absolutely*Kate

Came a time one night light flickered faster than sleet. White light. Easy to tell Good Guys from Bad Guys light. So I thought. So she thought.

We thought wrong. It’s a pisser when illumination screws with shadow-vision. Illusions? They’re more cracked up to be what they flicker to be. But when light beams its pompous prevail? Bloody hell. Get outta there!

Good thing we did. Why I’m tellin’ this tale. Vern Volt was an electrician with a spark to grind. Rumour was he crossed currents in 2-B so roomers were not to be. We pulled the plug on him.

SHOULDA KNOWN

~by John Clark

“Boy I could use some of that polar whatsit crap, but there's no way in hell I'll score any. Not a chance. Serves me right for hanging with a bunch of stoners all day. Knew it was a dumb idea. After the first hit, I kinda lost sight of the time. The gang blew town before this freezing crap hit. Can't blame them. Temperature's gotta be close to freezing and that damn wind is gonna knock me on my ass.”

Sadly not a soul was watching as sleet knocked the dazed Luna Moth from the lamp post and into oblivion.

SEE YOU TONIGHT

~by Lance Zarimba

The light glowed from his apartment window.  She could see it from across the street.

She knew he was home. The night's mist chilled her, and she pulled the trench coat tighter.

He told her she was his only one.

His silhouette filled the window, and then there were two. They embraced and kissed.

“My Mother is coming to visit. I can't see you tonight.”

Your Mother, my ass.

She headed to the front door of his building.

He would see her tonight.

Her hand clenched around the handle of the knife in her pocket.

He would see her now!

 THE ONLY LIGHT

~by Kaye George

He was drawn to the lone streetlamp like a moth to a flame. Most of the street lay in inky darkness. The rain had soaked through his hoodie and his jeans.

He turned his head to the windows overhead, the only ones that were lighted. The small head in the corner of the left one disappeared. Then reappeared.

The whiskey had addled his brain, or maybe it was the crack. He knocked on the door to see if she would let him in. Then he remembered. He had strangled her. How could she be looking out the window at him?

UNDER THE STREET LAMP

~by Carole Sojka

Crossing the square, I kept my head down, the sleet slashing me viciously. When I got near the house, lighted by the street lamp, something attracted my attention.   

A woman, dressed in black, leaned out of the open window on the third floor. If she jumped or fell, I knew she would die.

“Help me,” I heard. Then something dragged her back from the window.  I ran to the door and rang the bell. No response.

“Help,” I heard again, and something hurtled through the air and crashed at my feet. It was the body of the woman in black.

BEST SERVED COLD

– by Lucy Cameron

They said standing under the lamppost was a mistake, I’d be seen.

They missed the point.

I smile at his peeking shadow. The sleet dissolves on my skin. His brain whirls, racks through the past, searches for a younger version of my face.

From his slumber I’ll whisper, ‘Shhhh, don’t make a sound. You know you love it really.’

My nails will scratch his cheek, my breath burn his face. I’ll revel at my reflection in his black eyes as he did to me all those years ago. As he finished. And plunged in the knife. Not quite deep enough.

UNTITLED
- by Al P

Harry, barely five years old, fled from his mum's flat when she fetched the switch yet again. After a  breathless run in a pelting rain, he stopped and saw a blinding street lamp outside an apartment building. Squinting, he saw a huge helmeted English Bobbie standing watch. Harry thought the corner unit looked empty even though a light shone through it's window. But it was the next unit which confused him. That apartment showed a shadow sitting by the window. Harry couldn't decide if the shadow posed a threat or not. He was soaking wet. He stood there shivering, wishing he had brought a jacket and an umbrella.

About the Authors

Absolute Kate is just--- well--- absolute energy. Frantic comes to mind and that’s a bit of okay, okay?

John Clark is a librarian with an extensive mental health background. He lives in the 'other Maine', the one tourists never see, or avoid like the plague. When not writing or running a library, he reads, gardens and sells stuff for way too much money online.

Lance Zarimba lives in a haunted house that the man who invented Old Dutch potato chips built.  He wrote, Vacation Therapy, and three children's books: Oh No, Our Best Friend is a Zombie, Oh No, Our Best Friend is a Vampire, and Oh No, My Brother is Frankenstein’s Monster, and has over 100 short stories in print.

Kaye George, national bestselling and multiple-award-winning mystery writer, writes several series: Imogene Duckworthy, Cressa Carraway (Barking Rain Press), People of the Wind (Untreed Reads), and, as Janet Cantrell, Fat Cat (Berkley Prime Crime cozies). Her short stories appear in anthologies and magazines as well as her own collection, A Patchwork of Stories. Her reviews run in Suspense Magazine. She lives in Knoxville, TN.

http://kayegeorge.com/

Carole Sojka was a law office administrator before she started writing mysteries, the first of which is now available on Amazon.

Lucy Cameron lives in Scotland, enjoys writing, red wine and cheese - in any order.