Short Stories By Duane L. Martin

This is another story I did from a prompt in my writers group.

Prompt: The stars have aligned.  Is it a sign of fortune, or a devilish curse?  A stroke of luck, or terrible misfortune?

The stars have aligned.  So what?  Nothing happened.  Everyone thought the world would be ripped apart when they all came together, but all we ended up with was a bunch of snooty little bearded fucks in longshoreman caps and crusty socks who refuse to use commas.*  I guess that in and of itself is pretty disastrous, but if that’s the worst thing that happens, then I guess we’re doin’ ok.

Oh, there was one other thing that happened, though I wouldn’t really consider it all that bad to be perfectly honest.  There was this cult down in Arizona that thought the stars aligning was going to bring about some sort of a spiritual enlightenment, or take us to the next evolution of man.  Unfortunately for them, when the stars went out of alignment again, all that really happened was that they all stunk to high heaven.  I don’t know what they expected really, but that’s what happens when you sit around in the desert for three days sweating your ass off while you wait for something that was never gonna happen in the first place.

Oh, and then there were the armchair ufologists who thought that some kind of a wormhole would open up, and that we’d finally get the alien contact they’ve been waiting for.  Again…nothing.  There were however a rash of suicides, a rather large number of murders, more than a few bank robberies, and a wide variety of other assorted crimes.

For me it was just another boring day in a lifetime full of boring days, and yet…there was something kind of special about it.  Getting to see so many people so freaked out about a non-event and all the different ways they processed it was not only amusing, but it validated my extreme distaste for humanity as a whole.  There’s no logic…no reason.  It seems as though when people are faced with the unknown, they’d rather make up fantastical stories in their own minds about what it all means than to take it at face value.

When it was all over and I woke up the next morning, I went to work, just like I’ve done every other morning of the week for the past twelve years.  I work in a coroner’s office, so as you can imagine our clients aren’t all that chatty, which suits me just fine.  I came to realize though that corpses are the ultimate evolution of humanity.  They don’t worry about things they can do nothing about.  They don’t make up crazy stories in their heads that lead them to do stupid things, and they don’t exist in a permanent state of complete and utter illogic.  They simply exist, and if there’s one thing we can all look forward to as human beings, it’s that we’ll all eventually reach that point in our evolution.  Until then, some of us will continue to live in a stress filled world full of imagined problems, while I and the others like me will simply wait for the evolution that’s yet to come.

* Note: This comment was me goofing on Javier, the guy that runs the group.  When he wrote the prompts on the white board, he left out all the commas.  I got up and added them in, and then he got up and erased them again just to be a shit.  So that’s what that part of the story is referring to.  It was just a little inside joke that we all had a good laugh about.

This is a story done from another writing prompt in my writers group.

Prompt: There is a prison with no locks, no bars, no outside walls, and no guards, but the prisoners are too scared to escape.  Why?

Three years.  That’s how long it’s been since Wendell died.  He just wouldn’t believe us when we told him what happened to all the others who’d tried to leave.  I’d like to be able to say he learned his lesson, but he’d have to be alive for that.

We’re all here for different reasons.  Joe killed his wife when he caught her cheating on him.  Billy…he robbed a liquor store.  Not for the money, but because he was a raging alcoholic.  Danny was a serial child molester, and Lou was a leg breaker for a loan shark.  There’s a whole lot of other guys in here as well, but as for me, I was drivin’ around texting one day and ran over a little kid on his bike.  Kid was only three years old, but he was out in the middle of the street.  If his parents had only been watching him…  Anyway, when I hit the kid, I got scared.  I mean, really scared.  I knew my life was over the second I heard that bike smack against the front of my car, so I ran.  I drove off as fast as I could, but what I didn’t realize is that both the kid and his bike were caught up underneath my car.  The cops didn’t have a hard time finding me.  They just followed the trail of blood I left behind me for about a half a mile before I finally skidded off the road and hit a tree.

Thing is, we all belong here.  The stuff we did…it was bad.  I mean real bad.  The one thing they told us when they stuck us in this prison was that even though there were no locks, no bars, and no guards…we could never leave this place.  Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?  I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t just walk right the hell outta here?  Every so often someone gets up the nerve to try, but it’s always the same.  We find ‘em all torn apart on our doorstep the next morning.  I don’t mean torn apart like someone beat ‘em up, or anything like that.  I mean there’s somethin’ out there that’s literally ripping ‘em apart and dragging what’s left of their corpses back here, like it’s been trained to do it.

There were a few guys once who figured they’d have a better shot of gettin’ the hell outta here if they worked as a team and split up.  I mean hell, it sounded like a good plan.  They tried to get me in on it, but there’s no way in hell I’m goin’ out there, and it’s a good thing I didn’t.  The next morning we found three bodies on the doorstep, and it looked like whoever or whatever killed ‘em actually rearranged some of the parts, like it was puttin’ together some sort of a gory jigsaw puzzle or somethin’.

I’m not really sure how they get in and outta here, but there’s a food delivery once a week.  They also deliver stuff like toilet paper and other assorted toiletries, but for some reason they seem to be able to come and go as they please.  That’s why every so often some of the guys start gettin’ brave and take a chance on getting’ outta here.  Even had one guy try to kidnap the delivery guys so he could go with ‘em, but that didn’t work out so well…or maybe in its own way it sorta did.  They shot him and sent him back in here with a bullet in his gut.  He didn’t last long after that, but at least it was a better death than all the others ended up with.  No one ever tried it again though after what happened to him.

You might be wondering what we do with the bodies.  Most of ‘em got buried in the courtyard we have here in the middle of this place where we take our recreation periods, but the last couple of corpses we had got stripped down by a few of the guys who came up with some bright idea on how to get outta here.  They’re gonna take the bones and make weapons out of ‘em.  Ain’t gonna work, but who am I to rain on their parade?  I’m just some schmuck who killed a kid with my car.  I belong in here, so I ain’t gonna make no trouble.  When my twenty years is up, I’m gonna walk outta this place all in one piece.  Until then, I do gotta admit…seein’ these other guys tryin’ every trick in the book to get outta here is actually pretty entertaining.  I mean, who knows?  Maybe one of ‘em will actually make it someday.

Another writing prompt story from my writers group.

Prompt: Imagine the most harmless, least frightening thing you can think of, and write about someone who’s deathly afraid of it.

“What the hell Julie???  I thought I told you never to bring these damn things into the house!” I shouted as I ran from the bathroom, my hands trembling as my whole body suddenly felt hollow inside.  “Get those stupid things the hell outta here!”

“What the hell is it with you and your Q-tip phobia?” she asked irritably as she brushed past me roughly and grabbed the box of those horrid, cotton tipped death machines from the sink.  “I need these for my makeup, and to clean my ears and stuff.”

“No!!!  Don’t you ever stick those things in your ears!!!” I shouted, cringing as she walked out and shook the box in my face just to be an annoying bitch.  I hated it when she was in a mood like this.  It was then that I realized that a few of the dreaded things had fallen out of the box, and one of them had landed on my shoe.  I squealed like a little girl and scooted down the hall so fast that I slammed into the wall, and then slid down into a crouching position, cowering in fear as she looked at me and shook her head in disgust.

“Ok seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.  “This just isn’t rational.  There’s gotta be something behind this phobia of yours.  Maybe you should get some therapy.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said, cringing as I glanced down at the floor where I’d been standing.

“Come on, just tell me what it is.  Maybe it’ll help to get it out,” she prodded.

“It’s just…”

“What?” she asked.

“Q-tips killed my father,” I said as I closed my eyes and relived the horror of that day in my head for about the millionth time.

“What do you mean Q-tips killed your father?  How the hell could Q-tips kill anyone?”

“He was playin’ around with me when I was a kid.  I was only about five at the time.  He used to goof around, putting ‘em in his ears and up his nose and stuff, and then he’d chase me around the house.  Well one day he was chasin’ me around, and he tripped on a toy I’d left on the floor.  When he fell, the Q-tips he had up his nose got shoved all the way up, and then his head bounced and one of the ones he had in his ears got jammed in and ruptured his eardrum.  Mom rushed him to the hospital and they pulled ‘em out, but they didn’t get all of ‘em.  There were still pieces broken off inside, and they got infected.  He was in massive pain for like two days before the infection spread into his blood stream and killed him.”

“Oh my god, why didn’t you ever tell me that???” she asked, suddenly quite sympathetic to his condition.

“I try not to think about it.  It’s been living in my head since I was five, and all I can think is, why didn’t I put my toys away?  If I’d have only put my toys away, my father would still be alive.”

“Well you can’t keep living like this, so we’re gonna have to cure you of this thing once and for all,” she said as she pulled out some Q-tips and started shoving them into her ears and up her nose.

“No!!!” I shouted as I got up and ran toward her.  “Stop!  Don’t do that!”

“See, they’re harmless,” she said as my sock-covered feet skidded along the hardwood floor.  Unable to stop, I unintentionally slammed into her, sending her sideways into the wall.  The Q-tip in her ear hit the wall and got shoved deep into her ear canal, and as she screamed out in pain, she spun around, lost her balance, and fell face first onto the floor.  The Q-tips in her nose were driven deep into her sinus cavity, and she was knocked unconscious.

Unable to cope with not only what I’d done to her, but with the flashbacks I was experiencing about my father, I curled up into a little ball and leaned against the wall of the hallway, mumbling to myself incoherently as I watched her choke to death on her own blood.

The police didn’t charge me with anything because they didn’t know what to charge me with.  They knew I didn’t insert the Q-tips into her nose and ears, but they had to do something with me, so they took me into the hospital for a 72-hour psych eval, which ended up turning into a much longer stay.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to believe that it was all just a coincidence, and that Q-tips really aren’t all that dangerous…or maybe, just maybe…that conviction will only get stronger as the body count of the unsuspecting Q-tip users continues to grow exponentially.  Only time will tell I suppose.

Prompt: Scare your audience in one or two sentences.

“Did I do it right?” the child asked after he’d buried the kitchen knife into the back of his mother’s neck.

“She’s my mother now,” a disembodied voice said from behind him.
 

This is another piece I wrote for a writing prompt with my writers group.  We have a limited amount of time to write whatever we can on these prompts, so we just have to get through as much as we can in the time allotted.

Prompt: The prompt was, God is an elected position, and the election is coming.

“So who all am I running against?” Yahweh asked the angel Gabriel, who was currently acting as his campaign manager.  The elections for the position of God only happened every few thousand years, and Yahweh was in the incumbent position.  Unfortunately, he was facing some stiff competition this time around.  He’d been rather lazy and absent when it came to his duties, and numerous other gods had stepped up to challenge him in the current election cycle.

“Well, first off there’s Buddah,” Gabriel said as he looked down at the list he was holding.

“Buddah?  He’s not even a god!  How can he be running?  Isn’t there some rule against that?” Yahweh demanded.

“Apparently he has enough worshipers to qualify.  Besides, if we let him run, at least it’ll keep his followers busy for a while and we won’t have to listen to all that stupid chanting they do that puts me to sleep every time I hear it.”

“Yeah, me too.  Oh well, at least he’s a pretty mellow guy, so we won’t have to worry about any mud slinging from him.  Who else we got?” he asked.  Gabriel looked down at his list once again.

“Lucifer the Lightbringer,” Gabriel said.

“Oh god, him again.  Didn’t I banish him?” Yahweh asked.

“Yeah, but he’s developed quite a following over the past few millennia; mostly among the heavy metal fans and the Goth types.  The latest polls show him closing in on us fast.  He’ already within the margin of error.”

“Can’t we get some dirt on him or somethin’?”

“On Lucifer?  Are you serious?  It’s the dirt that makes him so popular,” Gabriel said.  “Anyway, he’s not the only one we have to worry about.  Thor is rising in the polls as well thanks to some stupid movies he’s been in, and Zeus is right there with him.”

“Zeus?  I didn’t know that old bastard was running for this.  Why would anyone vote for him?  I mean, he killed his own father.  How could anyone find that appealing?”

“Yeah well, to be fair, Cronos was kind of an ass hole, so he totally deserved it.  Besides, you let your son get tortured and killed, so you know…glass houses and all that.  Probably better if we just don’t mention the whole patricide thing with Zeus, otherwise you’re gonna be opening a door you don’t want him walkin’ through,” Gabriel advised.

“All right, anyone else?” Yahweh asked.

“Yeah, there’s a few Egyptian gods running, but they don’t have much support at the moment.  Then there’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster…”

“What???  The Flying Spaghetti Monster?  He’s not even real!  How can he be running???” Yahweh asked incredulously as he cocked his eyebrow at Gabriel.

“Actually sir, he does exist.  Don’t you remember that night we visited Earth and went to that Italian restaurant.  You got all drunk and said Hey, watch this!”

“Oh…shit, that’s right.  Jeez, I forgot all about that.  That was pretty fun though, wasn’t it?  That place had great bread sticks.”

“Come on now, focus!” Gabriel said firmly.  “We’ve got an election to win here!”

“So who do we really need to be concerned about?” Yahweh asked.

“Mostly Lucifer and Thor I think, but like I said, Buddah’s making a fairly good showing as well.”

“All right, let’s get to work then,” Yahweh said with a heavy sigh.  “I hate running for office.  Maybe I should just retire.”

“Up to you,” Gabriel said with a shrug.  “You gotta remember though, if Buddah wins, we’re gonna have to listen to all that stupid chanting for the next few millennia.”

“Ugh…ok.  Let’s get started then,” Yahweh said, rolling his eyes in an exasperated fashion.  “You got the practice debate questions ready?”

“Yep, got ’em right here.  Let’s get to it,” Gabriel said as he flipped through the pages in his notebook.

Author’s Note: This is a short piece I did for a writing prompt at one of my writers group meetings.  Someday when I have enough pieces from the writing prompts, I’ll collect them all into one book and release it.  Until then, I’ll just post some of them here every so often.  We only have like fifteen minutes to write when we do these, though on this one I cheated and wrote for longer just so I could wrap it up the way I wanted to.

Writing Prompt: You wake up with a jolt.  The moonlight is streaming through your open window.  A clown is standing in the center of your room, holding a bloody knife.

Midnight.  He was usually up late, but he’d had a hard day at work and all he wanted to do was get a good night’s sleep.  Unfortunately, what we want and what we get are often two different things.

Moonlight streamed through the window, highlighting the motes of dust that seemed to be perpetually floating through the air.  Perhaps if he’d have ever been married, he’d have made a little more of an effort to keep the house clean, but the dust was a tolerated roommate that he simply just didn’t feel like dealing with.

Twenty-seven minutes past midnight, he opened his eyes and stared at the closet door.  Why was he awake?  Something didn’t feel right, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.  Silence…and then his eyes closed again.

Thirty-four minutes after midnight, his eyes opened again, and once again he stared at the closet wall.  There it was again…that feeling that something wasn’t right.

Thirty-five minutes after midnight…he closed his eyes again, but only for a moment.  Suddenly one of the floorboards creaked somewhere around the end of his bed.  Shooting bolt upright, eyes wide so they could take in what limited light there was, he saw it standing there in the darkness.  Something out of every child’s nightmare that has traumatized many an adult as well.  It was a clown, though not your average happy circus clown.  This one was covered in blood and had a long butcher knife clenched tightly in one hand.

He knew instinctively what was going to happen if he didn’t act quickly, so he spun over on his side, grabbed the pistol he kept under his pillow and then threw his arm out toward the clown.

Six shots exploded into the night…but then the room fell silent.  Five went right into the clown’s chest and one went just to the right, off-center in his forehead…and yet there he stood.  He never even flinched as the bullets penetrated him.  He simply smiled as his brow furrowed evilly.

Not knowing what to do, he tossed the gun aside and rolled out of his bed, quickly getting to his feet as he looked for a means of escape.  The clown had the door blocked, and the window had unfortunately been stuck in place for quite some time.  Sudden regret flowed through him for how lazy he’d become about maintaining his home, because he literally only had two choices…the door or the window, and the window was out.  That meant he had to somehow get past the clown, and hopefully make it through the door before a knife found its way through his back or between his ribs.

He tried to fake to the side, but the clown, who had heretofore been standing rather still, now spread his arms wide as his evil grin grew even wider.

Knowing the clown would be expecting him to dodge around, he feinted to the left and then jerked back to the right in an effort to appear as though he were going to dodge around him.  The feint worked as he’d hoped, but instead of dodging around the clown, he threw his right leg in between the clown’s legs, wrapped it around behind and then slammed his hands in to the clown’s chest, knocking him flat on his back.

The second the clown was on the floor, he leapt off to the side and tried to reach for the door, but suddenly a searing pain radiated through his leg and thigh as the knife sliced deep into his calf muscle.

Hot blood streamed down his leg as his hand clutched the door handle, and as he looked around and saw that the clown was trying to get up off the floor, he knew he had only one option.  Clenching his teeth as hard as he could, he reached down, wrapped his hand around the handle of the knife and ripped it from the flesh.  Then, with a quickness that could only be born from the womb of desperation, he turned and threw his fist with the knife in it straight at the clown’s head and knocked him back to the floor.  Then, before the clown could react, he raised his hand high in the air and slammed it back down with all the force he could muster, driving the blade all the way through his throat and into the hardwood floor beneath.

With the clown pinned down, he made his way through the bedroom door and then crawled raggedly toward the front door, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

The air outside was cool, and the full moon provided enough illumination for him to see the young couple that were taking a late night walk across the street.  In a strained voice he called out to them desperately.

When the police came to investigate the scene, they found lots of blood in the house, and evidence of the shots he’d fired, but no clown.  The ambulance came and took him to the hospital where they tended his wounds, both mental and physical.  The psychiatrists said it was some form of schizophrenia, but he knew what he’d seen…what he’d experienced.  He had to believe it, because if the psychiatrists were right, that would mean he was insane.  He wasn’t insane…he knew he wasn’t.  He just knew it…or did he?