Good jobs,
Government man say.
Even children paid.
Keep house.
Keep new furniture.
Love children.
Love life.
_____________
Momma go out?
No.
Momma go out?
No.
M –
_____________________________________
For a flash challenge at terribleminds
Image by Mark Holloway
One of the great aspects of writing flash fiction is seeing how much story you can pack into a tiny bit of text. This is 100 words to tell a story of revenge. Love, Sex, Betrayal, and Revenge….all in a tiny package.
Image by Steve Snodgrass
The Lost Love of Little Bianca (a tiny tale of big revenge)
The things you hear living in a carnival camp.
Little Bianca, the dwarf whore who could swallow razor blades, and Antoine The Cuke, so named due to his enormous member, were inseparable. Each night, we’d cover our ears as Little Bianca moaned in pleasure. Bianca beamed, even during performances as she ate razor blades.
Then The Cuke broke her heart when she caught him with The Yak Woman.
So one night Little Bianca dragged him behind the Tilt-A-Whirl, got on her knees and gave him the blowjob of his life – fresh from her razor-swallowing performance.
Oh, the screams we heard!
All the Way Around the World was originally published on this blog a few months back; however, Chuck Wendig over at terribleminds.com has issued this week’s Flash Fiction Challenge: An Uncharted Apocalypse. Follow the link to read the variety of submitted tales of the Apocalypse. Happy reading!
Delsante Corporation told me I could take it or leave it. Can you believe that?
My family owned this farm for ninety-two years before I had to go and sell a majority stake to a local distributor. Well, Delsante is way up his ass so you know they’re now up mine.
But I tell you what: if I make it out of this alive, I am sure going to enjoy watching those corporate bastards take a red-hot one in the ass. Same for the USDA.
We had no choice. They told us to plant the G646-DSGMO-666 or we could forget about distribution of any of our corn. Well, if we can’t sell anything, we may as well just give the farm to Delsante and be done with it. They’ll hire some Mexicans to come up here and plant that shit for them and they’ll never even remember my name.
So we planted it, watered it, and did fuck-all that their scientists told us to do. Have to admit, I’ve never in my life seen corn get so big so fast. After a month, I could disappear into those fields. And I’m six-three.
The USDA inspector came out one day along with a fella from Delsante. They were so impressed with how things were coming along. They took some cuttings away in a small plastic bag. Never said a word to me what they were for.
Well, along about eighty days into the growing cycle we started seeing a rust-colored pus oozing out of that corn. I told everyone to stay the fuck out of the fields and not touch anything. We walked the perimeter. That stuff just dripped down the ears. I got on the horn to the local distributor rep and I guess he called Delsante, because they came out to the farm with a huge RV that had a lab right inside of it.
They set up spotlights on the cornfield and kept them going all night long. They said it was just a precaution. Precaution for what? I remember thinking at the time.
There were lots of guys in lab coats and SWAT uniforms. Nobody told us any details about the pus, but I could tell they hadn’t expected it, and they were running around like their heads were on fire and their asses were catchin’.
Each morning, they put on space suits and walked out into that cornfield. Each afternoon they’d emerge with that rusty pus smeared across their suits, carrying laptops and samples.
One day, I was over in the barn replacing a fuel filter on one of the combines when I hear somebody start screaming. I thought one of the lab guys had stepped in horseshit again. I walked out and saw a huge red dust cloud swirling around above the field. All the lab guys and the SWATs were gasping and choking, falling to the ground. They twitched for a second, and then were still.
I know what dead looks like. I was a corpsman in Vietnam. And these people were dead. I know it. But then that red dust started making its way toward me.
Not thinking, I just ran back inside the barn and made for the combine. Closed myself inside the cab. The wind blew that red dust right into the barn and it covered everything. I can’t see anything through the cab windows.
I don’t have any food or water in here. And I have no way of knowing what happened to my family and my staff.
So, I’m hoping Delsante Corporation sends someone out soon to find out what happened to their scientists and soldiers. I saw them die; at least I think I did. But now I hear things shuffling around the barn and grunting. And one time, something tried to open the cab door, while I held it shut with all my strength, too terrified to breathe. I don’t even want to think about what that thing was.
Far as I can tell, anyone coming near this farm will meet the same fate as those things stumbling around my barn. The chemistry folks at Delsante sure did a bang up job. The only thing I know about chemistry is H-2-0 is water and K-9-P comes out the ass end of a dog. But, I’m a farmer and I know pollen when I see it. That red pus dries and blows off. I think Delsante Corporation has a little problem with their fucked up corn.
G646-DSGMO-666 was engineered to survive. I think of all that pollen on the wind.
You can’t stop the wind. It goes all the way round the world.
Author’s note: if you’re new to this blog, you may want to read the previous installments of Margo’s story:
UPDATE: Chuck Wendig over at the great blog, terribleminds has issued a flash fiction challenge regarding “The Lady and The Swordsman”. Now, although this story was written before Chuck announced the challenge, AND, although this story is above the 1,000 word limit, I felt it should be entered into the challenge for two compelling reasons:
1. “The Lady and Swordsman” seems to apply, thematically
and
2. Margo is a child of the terribleminds flash fiction challenge – you could say it’s her birthplace, her home (see above for earlier Margo stories).
__________________________________________________
Margo Heats It Up
He looked like Omar Sharif. Abrams was right.
His name was Ephraim Zanzibar, and he was a very bad man.
Margo’s knowledge was founded on personal experience, not just talk on the wire.
She’d met Zanzibar in a hotel in Hermosa Beach several months before. Abrams had blackmailed her into seducing the guy for information. Of course, he’d failed to tell her about Zanzibar’s kink: raping women after knocking them out with roofie-laced drinks.
Margo had started out the assignment refusing to kill Zanzibar, wanting something different for herself. And, of course, for the baby and Dan. But after two hours with the man, she’d known the world would turn more safely with Ephraim Zanzibar unceremoniously turned to crab shit off the Hermosa Beach pier.
Margo had entered his room at the Del Ray hotel and asked him for a vodka rocks. She taken her drink to the bathroom and poured it into the sink, replacing it with water. Her baby was going to have enough trauma that evening without bringing alcohol into the picture, she’d figured.
What had ensued still sickened Margo. But now, she had Mr. Ephraim Zanzibar in her sights. And things were going to get hot.
Margo edged around the riot of bougainvillea and jasmine that surrounded the compound. The sound of Egyptian pop music poured out of the open French doors. The cloying scent of jasmine turned her stomach slightly, but the sheer mass of it hid her from Zanzibar’s view.
Thank God, the morning sickness was all in the past, Margo thought.
Zanzibar was dressed in a white silk bathrobe. He had drinks in either hand and, with closed eyes, swayed to the music. He was completely unaware of Margo’s presence, in the dark, not four feet in front of him.
A young woman entered the room wearing a nothing but a black bra and thong. Zanzibar passed her a drink and pretended to engage her in a dance. The young woman finished the drink in three gulps. Margo of course knew what was coming.
Once the woman was staggering slightly, Zanzibar reached back and punched her squarely in the face. She went down and didn’t move. He moved in like a hyena at the kill.
That’s enough, Margo said to herself.
She drew her Luger and stepped out of the darkness into the soft, yellow light of the open French doors. Zanzibar’s eyes widened when he saw her: black jumpsuit and ski mask.
He turned and started to shout but she reached him in two long strides and pushed the gun’s muzzle firmly against his temple. Margo whispered, “Hello Omar.” She traced the gun along the ridge of his deformed left ear.
“What the fuck are you supposed to be? Some kind of half-assed Ninja?” His cologne was as bad as the jasmine and Margo pushed him away, keeping the gun leveled directly at his face.
She pulled the mask off. “How’s your ear?”
“You!”
“Looks like you were planning on having some fun here tonight, Zanzibar. Sorry to break up your lovely party. I’ll be taking her when I leave.”
He shrugged and smiled. “More, many more, where she came from. Maybe you’d like to take her place? We never got to finish back in Hermosa Beach.”
Margo remembered the first wave of unreality that had alerted her to the fact she’d been drugged back at the Del Ray. She’d taken a long, deep gulp of her water, but he’d somehow slipped a roofie in there. He was good, no doubt. It seemed only seconds before she was reeling.
She had staggered toward the door but he’d grabbed her wrist and yanked her back into a bear hug. Margo had bit down and ripped off a large chunk of his left ear, which she’d spat into Zanzibar’s face. His punch brought stars and then a deep, velvet blackness.
When she’d come around, she was naked, lying on the bed on her stomach. He was on her back, trying to push his cock into her ass. Her first thought had been, at least this will be easier on the baby.
At one point, he’d pushed off of her and gone to the bathroom.
This is it, move Margo! she’d told herself through her stupor.
Lying there, she’d had a vision of the baby, of Dan, and of the new life she wanted. She’d bit down, hard, hard, hard, on her tongue. Blood had spattered the sheet as she’d swung her head back and forth, trying desperately to wake up. She’d been able to scramble to the door, get on her knees, open it, and fall forward into the hallway. Then she’d crawled like a crab to the fire alarm, reached up, and pulled for all she was worth, flooding the hotel with its wail. Zanzibar appeared in his doorway just as the other Del Ray guests were emerging to gawk and scream at the bloody, naked woman with the dazed but crazy eyes.
“Oh, I’ll be finishing all right. I need to go image your hard drive. You, in the meantime, can sit down right here while I tie your ass up.”
Zanzibar started a low, guttural laugh. A troll’s laugh. “You’ve put on some weight since we last met. You can’t blame me…I used the other hole.”
Margo shot off his left kneecap.
“Aarrgghhhh! You miserable bitch!”
“Shut up or the other one goes, too.”
Margo tied his hands behind his back. He was going nowhere, with no hands and one leg.
After making a copy of Zanzibar’s hard drive, she came lightly down the stairs. This should get Abrams off her back, finally.
She went into the bathroom. She had to piss like no one’s business. She looked at herself in the mirror. Baby bump clearly showing now.
Back in the living room, Zanzibar was looking pale and pissed off.
She took a small envelope out of her back pocket. It was filled with something lumpy.
“Omar, there was a time when I would have made you cut off your own dick and eat it.”
Waving the envelope in front of Zanzibar, she continued, “But, I’m trying to have a new life. Something that makes me happy instead of satisfied. There’s a difference, you know. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”
She opened the envelope. It was filled with fiery, red peppers.
“These are my roofies, Omar,” Margo said. “I wouldn’t want to leave you with the impression that my desire to turn over a new leaf has somehow dulled my sense of justice.”
She pushed Zanzibar’s bathrobe up and crammed the first red pepper up into his ass.
He moaned loudly.
“This may get nasty. Hold on a minute,” she said.
Margo returned with a dishrag that she pushed deep into Zanzibar’s mouth.
“That’s better.” And she shoved another pepper deep into him.
And then another.
And another.
“Hmmmpphhh. HMMMPPPHHH!” It was all the sound he could make. Tears filled his eyes.
“Did you know you have digestive juices in your rectum? It’s true. Wait until they get a load of these, Omar. This should help you remember what you did to me and all the others.”
Zanzibar’s face was purple with pain and rage. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead.
“I’m going to leave the rest of these for you. As a memento,” Margo said, and threw the envelope onto the table, spilling some of the peppers.
Then she went into the other room and picked up the comatose girl. “C’mon, baby doll. This is no place for nice girls like us.”
On the way out, Margo leaned down and kissed the envelope, on a whim.
Then she kicked Ephraim Zanzibar in the balls, as hard as she could.
“Don’t come looking for me, Zanzibar, you fucking loser. You’re the last bit of shit I need to wipe off my shoes so I can start a real life.”
After dropping the girl off at an emergency room door, Margo went in search of Abrams.
To give him the disk.
And to claim her future.
____________________________________________________
Once again, Margo image by Nathan Eckinrode
Hot pepper image by Nina Matthews
Do you remember the two gangsters in the closet trying to rob Mimi Del Sarte of her precious jewels? If you recall, they ran into a problem with Mimi’s pet, Bijou. It was a fun story to write and I like to re-read it every now and then. Well, the folks over at Flashes in the Dark will be posting “Bijou” on their website on July 1st. While you’re there, you might check out some of the other great stories they post from other authors.
I’ll be back with a new story tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.
An Unexpected Guest
A person lacking Margo’s training would surely have slept through – or completely disregarded – the muffled thump from the first floor.
The digital clock on the bed table read 3:13 AM.
She widened her eyes and quickly did the math: in bed for six hours and twenty-three minutes, plenty of time to have entered N3 sleep and therefore she could be 60-80% sure that the thump she’d heard was the initial stimulus.
Her two-year-old daughter, Ursula, was warm and still at her side. Margo put a hand on the child’s shoulder, which rose and fell with comforting regularity.
No one else was in the bed.
Margo snapped her head around.
There it was again: a soft impact tremor emanating from below, but closer this time.
Someone was definitely coming up the stairs.
Margo emerged from under the blanket and swung her feet soundlessly down to the carpet, being careful not to awaken the child.
Adrenaline tingled up and down her torso, front and back. She closed her eyes, tried to remember her training: shallow, silent breaths; a posture she could hold without lactic acid accumulation; and most importantly, a vantage point that kept her concealed while allowing the maximum flexibility for aggressive response.
Margo’s mind flashed through questions and answers:
Q: Does Abrams have another job to push on me?
A: I haven’t heard from him since entering the program.
Q: Someone I crossed while I was active?
A: I left most of them dead or maimed. Can’t recall anyone with this kind of stealth ability or the contacts to track me down here in the program.
Q: Did Abrams finally decide I know too much to be running free in suburbia?
A: Unlikely, given the fact that he’s aware my attorney is in possession of a detailed affidavit in a sealed envelope with instructions it be made public in the event of my ‘accidental death.’
Q: A random B-and-E? Maybe a rapist?
A: I can only hope it’s that straightforward.
A breeze blew in the open window. Margo heard the rustling of the linden tree’s leaves and wished the window were closed so she could focus more clearly on the approaching danger.
She stepped quickly to the walk in closet and removed all the hanging clothes from one of the wooden rods. She eased the rod out of its brackets, and moved to the side of the master bedroom door. Margo assumed a batter’s stance and, like a slugger with three balls and no strikes, prepared to swing away.
Creak.
Directly outside the door now.
Suddenly Ursula started to whimper.
Margo raced back to the bed like a panther. She lifted the little girl with one arm and cradled her against her chest.
She bounced by slightly flexing her knees, trying her best to keep the child asleep and quiet.
Night terrors. At times, the girl would begin screaming for no apparent reason. As a single parent, it fell to Margo to manage each of these incidents, cooing, cradling the child until the terror passed, and she was able to drift off again.
Of course, Margo blamed herself for these episodes. Felt they were in some way related to the incident with her first daughter, also named Ursula. Many years ago.
She often wondered if it could be possible that the horror of her first daughter’s death could have been passed on to this Ursula. Could the horror held deep in a mother’s heart be passed to a child during pregnancy? Margo’s guilt compelled her to think it could be so.
The doorknob turned.
Margo placed Ursula in a laundry basket in the closet and, as quietly as possible, slid the door closed.
She then resumed her position next to the bedroom door.
The door fell ajar, letting ambient light from the hallway spill into the bedroom.
A large man entered. A hulking but silent shadow.
Although just a silhouette, Margo could tell he walked with a slight left-sided limp. She immediately decided to pulverize that leg once she’d incapacitated him with a head shot.
Margo took no chances.
The man was holding something in his right hand, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
He was completely in the room now.
Margo swung hard, hitting him directly at the base of the skull. She didn’t swing to kill. She needed information.
The man fell forward onto the carpet.
Margo strode forward to attack the left leg as she’d planned, but the man whirled around and clutched her ankle, pulling her down on top of him.
“You are so dead,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“Margo, stop,” the man said.
She stood and drilled his left knee with the end of the rod.
The man held his leg with both hands and moaned. The thing from his right hand lay on the floor next to him.
Margo ran to the light switch by the bedroom door. “Now, let’s have a look at your sorry ass before I take another pot shot at your leg.”
When the overhead light came on, Margo nearly passed out.
How could he be here?
“Dan?”
“I’m sure that knee will need replacing.” He dragged himself up to a sitting position.
“Dan?”
On the floor next to him were a doll and a toy pistol.
He noticed what she was looking at. “I didn’t know what to bring. Did we have a boy or a girl?”
Tears filled her eyes. “Dan?”
And Margo slammed him again with the rod.
___________________________________________________________
Chuck Wendig is at again with another flash fiction challenge. This time out, the story needed to center on the concept of ‘an unexpected guest’. Well, I simply couldn’t resist another Margo story. If you’re new to this blog, you should read earlier Margo installments (“Margo in Rome” and “Hermosa Beach Heartache”) just for some context. As I’ve noted previously, I’m serializing Margo’s bizarre story in this blog. It’s great fun (and a great challenge) to approach each installment as a stand-alone flash piece as well as another addition to an ongoing story. Hope everyone enjoys the story!
Image by Nathan Eckinrode
Black Kedo – A Nagasaki Memory
When the black rain hit us, we thought we would die.
But we were wrong.
My wife looked up at me as we struggled to breathe.
“Where is Kedo?” she said.
I shrugged, not feeling myself at all.
After the brightness, all the air was sucked out of us.
A piece of cedar from the doorframe was sticking out of my wife’s neck.
I tugged at it, absentmindedly, but she slapped my hand away.
Kedo.
We looked all around the house but couldn’t find our daughter.
Then, finally, we noticed it: a perfect charcoal outline on the south wall of her room.
A shadow burnt into the wood.
We called her Black Kedo.
That was many years ago.
She would be fifty-seven today.
With bent back, I shuffle to the south wall and light some incense.
Happy Birthday, Black Kedo.
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Image by kedoink kedondeng
Comfort Me with Apples
Tonight, she was sure of it: she’d been entered.
The stillborns and miscarriages of her recent past mocked her.
In the still of each evening, she heard them cackling and cooing as they romped through the deserted and darkened nursery. Vases occasionally tumbled and shattered.
She saw darting movements out of the corner of her eyes. Sometimes an entire child-image. Other times, just the quick shadow of a tiny foot as it whisked around a corner.
Of course, he didn’t believe her. Not that he was cold or indifferent. Another man might have deserted her by now, leaving her yoked to barren solitude.
But he tried to make her laugh. To forget.
But they would never let her forget.
Each night in her dreams, she was assailed by tiny, blue faces. Shriveled. Accusing. Milky eyes staring up at her. Small monkey hands that reached up out of her bloodied bedclothes until she sat up screaming and he would comfort her, easing her back down until her bird’s heart returned to normal.
Tonight, another being had warmed itself beside her. Waiting to be invited in.
She put down the potato she was peeling and inhaled deeply. A sweet aroma of ripening apples entered her and she had wept. Another had chosen her.
In the hallway, she heard a picture frame slide down the wall and smash on the hardwood floor.
When he returned from work, she’d told him what had happened and what she wanted to do. He’d listened and agreed, as she knew he would.
She entered his study. He was sitting at his blood red writing table, staring out the window as the sun descended behind the Parliament building.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
He turned to her and held out a red rose and a tightly wound bundle of sage. “Yes.”
They went to the fireplace and she thrust the sage bundle into the glowing embers. Its musty scent immediately filled the apartment.
“Come,” she said.
They unlocked the nursery door and entered, the smoking sage held out before her in a shaking hand. The end of the sage bundle glowed an unearthly orange in the semi-darkness. The smoke scent mingled with another, more ancient stench of corruption.
She grabbed his hand and strode to the very center of the room, sage held high, and screamed. She ran to each corner and thrust the smoking bundle upward. She demanded to be left alone, to be free of unnamed children.
The walls shook, the floor buckled. And outside, an unnatural orange glow filled the sky.
The woman and the man held each other tightly until the room stopped convulsing.
They walked back to the blood red writing desk in his study.
She draped herself onto his lap and lay back.
She took his hand and pulled it to her waist.
“Here,” she said. “Put your hand here. I smelled apples and then he was living right here.”
The man cradled her stomach and kissed her.
A delicious silence settled on the house as the orange glow faded to purple in the west.
She looked up at him with shining, wet eyes.
“Just like apples,” she said.
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Today I was at the home of a close friend. We were discussing books and life etc. Conversation turned to whether or not there were such ‘things’ as individual human souls. I was of the opinion that the notion of eternal souls is a delusion (not that I am in any way qualified to make such a statement.) My friend told me of her experiences with failed and successful pregnancies and I was fascinated. Moved, I wrote this story.
Image of incredible Chagall painting by Shawn Rossi
Summer of Love
When I got your letter about the divorce, I’d already lost my legs.
Now, sitting on this hill looking down at The Cliff House, I’m wondering if coming here to see you is a good idea.
I see you stand up tall, out of your station wagon.
The kids scatter all around your legs and you point at the big rocks completely covered in birdshit.
You have on your big Sharon Tate sunglasses that I love so much. Your yellow sundress billows in that the San Francisco breeze.
You look happy, really happy, with your new family.
It’s so ironic that you’ve come all this way, all the way to California, to get away from me. And I was just up the street at the VA Hospital on Clement Street, not five minutes from where you stand right now.
He puts his arm around your waist. You settle against him. It’s like I’m seeing all this from another dimension – somewhere far away.
I’ve actually been to The Cliff House a couple of times. They wheel us down there from the VA and carry us in. You know, just to get away for a few hours.
We get a few stares. Some of the guys just look down, or over at the birdshit rocks. Me, I just stare right back at them. Until they look away. Boo-fucking-rah.
I see you look around, almost as if you can sense me up here, but of course, that’s impossible. Even in this wheel chair, I can still make myself invisible to a target.
The counselor at the VA thinks I’m dinky dau, but she don’t know shit about shit.
It was really no problem to locate you. Why did you run away? I wouldn’t have hurt you or the kids. You have to know that.
If you don’t want me any more, that’s ok. I’m not going to make a Mongolian clusterfuck out of the situation.
But I have to draw the line at another man taking you on. Not to mention the kids.
It was obvious to me during my last R and R that you’d already checked out and poisoned the kids against me.
But to file papers while they were hacking my legs off in a hot LZ in the Central Highlands? That’s just cold, baby.
This midday heat has me sweating. Snakes of sweat crawl down my stomach and wrap around my scrotum.
You said it would be forever.
It seems, wherever I turn now, there’s no fidelity to promise.
With Nixon and Kissinger, it’s all about peace with honor, and fuck winning the war.
With you, it’s all about understanding how we’ve grown apart. What the fuck does that mean?
The hippies at Golden Gate Park spit on me. I can’t chase ‘em ‘cause I got no legs.
But I do have this sweet little .222 with a scope.
I won’t hurt you or the kids.
Just that guy you seem so hot on.
From up here on the hill, it’s an easy kill.
Once he stands up from behind the station wagon, I should have a wide-open head shot.
C’mon, man. Binky’s back in the world and ready to play.
Just a little higher and I’ll have you.
C’mon, let me light your fire, man.
I can’t walk or fuck. But this? This is second nature.
Just a little higher.
Right there.
That is just….
Perfect.
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Image by Ed Bierman
Margo in Rome (prequel to Hermosa Beach Heartache) 
Margo winced as a mosquito stung her in the neck, but she made no sound. She peered out into the blackness.
“Who is it, do you think?” she asked.
Dan squinted, trying to make out any detail that would help them identify their attackers.
“Dunno. Wait here. I’m going to try and outflank them over there by the entrance to the palazzo.”
She grabbed his arm. “Be careful.”
He looked at her with a bemused expression. “Wow. Pregancy’s doing quite a number on you.”
“Maybe if you could keep it in your pants, we wouldn’t be in this position. I used to be so professional. Now, I’m eight weeks pregnant, crouched behind a dumpster in Rome, my wedding gown is ruined, and someone’s trying to kill me.” She smiled, pulled him close, and kissed him. “We’re going to have a baby. Don’t be stupid out there. You take the gun.”
Dan looked like he was searching for words, but she pushed him off. “Move!” she whispered.
Dan crouched and scurried off into the darkness.
She wouldn’t see him again until the baby was two years old.
Margo sat with her back against the dumpster, her gown smeared with garbage.
No gun, she thought. Stupid.
Then it really hit: Jesus Christ, Margo.
She sighed, rose to a crouch, and prepared to run.
A baby?
She smiled.
Yeah, a baby.
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Margo just wants to have her story told. I’m thinking of serializing it in this blog. I realize the piece above doesn’t really qualify as a full-blown story. It’s more of a prologue (if that, even). If your new to the blog, please read “Hermosa Beach Heartache” also. You can read them in any order (I guess). I’m not entirely sure where this story is going yet, so please keep checking in for further installments as occasionally I put them up.
Again, the image is courtesy of Nathan Eckenrode
Sitting in Darkness 
