Mark Ethridge Week 185: I See Angry People (Part 10)

Picture 1


Picture 2


Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 10)

With the sunrise, I headed north. It was time to try something different. I started west, but the longer I walked west, the more I became certain I was not meant to head west. I wasn’t meant to head east, back the way I’d come. South and I didn’t like each other. So, I stopped, and headed north.

I found nothing the first day, other than the feeling I was closing in on something important. An answer to a question. I suppose it would have been best if I knew the question. I didn’t. I wondered if I would recognize the answer, if the answer would tell me the question.

The second day I came to another town, like the one I’d found, the one with Christopher’s journal. Like the first town, it was empty, except for one house. Inside I found the skeleton of a long dead person. Next to the remains I found a digital camera, the battery had drained long ago. I wondered what I might find if I could turn the camera on, but I knew I had no way to do that. I pulled the battery from the camera, it was a small, thin rectangle, rechargeable. I had no way to charge it. I looked around, found a charger, the kind you plug into the wall.

I put the battery in the charger, plugged the charger into a wall outlet, and was surprised when the red light came on, saying it was charging. Somehow, there was power, electricity, in the house. I stared at the charger for a while, wondering how it was working.

The only answer was solar power. I dashed outside, looked at the roof of the house, found an array of solar panels. There was power, electric power, still flowing into the house. As long as there was sunlight, as long as the panels worked, as long as the rechargeable batteries inside the the house somewhere kept working, the power would continue, filling in the batteries, flowing through the house.

After the camera battery charged a while, I decided to see if the camera turned on. It did, and I checked the pictures on its memory card. There were not that many of them. A picture of an old woman. A picture of a dog, one of a litter of puppies, one of a puppy in a pink toy car, another of a puppy in a blue toy truck’s bed.

The pictures changed. A dead, naked girl, bruised and broken. A second one, then a third one, followed by pictures of old men, with guns. Then pictures of women and girls in the house. I couldn’t really tell how many. Pictures of dead men in the streets of the town, blood pooled everywhere, stains on the walls.

There’s been a war in that little town, between the old men, and the men who went crazy. I wondered how many on both sides had died. Fathers had protected their daughters, and died doing so.

There were more pictures, of women and girls, leaving the town, a few men with them. They headed north, I could tell by the shadows, and the buildings I could see in the pictures. It was the north edge of the town.

They’d headed north.

I had something to look for. A reason to go north.

I spent the night in that house. The next day I explored the roof, studied the solar panels, found the batteries, studied how they were hooked to the panels, where the power inverters and regulators were placed in the wiring. I didn’t know how it all worked, but I drew some sketches, and figured I’d have to play with solar power eventually. There would be much to learn. How to build an inverter, how to build a battery, how to make wire. Maybe it was something we could use. Maybe we could use a simpler form of solar power.

When I was ready, I headed north, along the same path I’d seen the women walk in the pictures. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I knew it was north.

So that’s where I went.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

#DailyPicspiration

Kinberly Gould Week 185: Dreams

Picture 1


Picture 2


Kimberly Gould’s Picture Choice:

Title: Dreams

Saline mist filled her nose. Her breath echoed the waves, inhale, exhale.

It wasn’t the first time she’d dreamed of the sea. It wasn’t even the tenth.

Cold water tickled her toes, white foam feeling almost like fur. Everything was crisp, tangible. Something cold buzzed her ear. She swatted at the insect.

“Oh, Misty,” she murmured, when her fingers connected with real fur, with her cotton pillow case. She’d been dreaming, again.

Now Misty dreamed and she couldn’t help but wonder what the kitten dreamed about. Scooping the tiny furry body in her paired hands, she set the kitten atop the piano and made breakfast before returning to the piece she was composing. Although she only had a piano, she could hear the timpani, the horns, mimicking the waves crashing. The strings played to the foam and salt. The woodwind a cold breeze.

No one would guess she’d never actually been there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Kimberly Gould is the author of Cargon: Honour and Privilege, and it's sequel Duty and Sacrifice. She can be found most places as Kimmydonn, including Kimmydonn.com

#DailyPicspiration

Jen DeSantis Week 185: Prey

Picture 1


Picture 2


Jen DeSantis’ Picture Choice: 1

Title: Prey

“That one,” she says, nuzzling against his shoulder.

Her catlike eyes flit across the room and settle on a young thing, no more than twenty.

“Too easy,” he huffs.

“I want it,” she croons.

He sighs. Petulant as always, Kerrigan would not be thwarted tonight. She’s eager for a hunt, but Aldo suspects she wants to play with their quarry more than actually finish the deed. No worry. He is more than happy to seal the deal at the end of the night. He feels a moment of pity for the young niblet they are about to pursue, but then smiles coldly. Her night, he muses, will not be nearly as entertaining as his and Kerrigan’s.

The couple rises in unison, Kerrigan slipping her hand into Aldo’s as they move fluidly out onto the open air dance floor. All around them, bodies pulsate to the electronic beat, but they walk without any sense of rush or urgency.

Together, Aldo and Kerrigan make an impressive pair. Couples stop gyrating to turn and look at them. Kerrigan’s eyes are half-closed and a small smile plays on her lips. Her anticipation glows on her face. Though they do not dance, they seem to move as one across the dance floor.

Their prey hasn’t noticed them moving toward her. The crowd parts for them naturally, wanting to watch them move but unconsciously pulling away from them. They are ethereal and hypnotic, but they are dangerous in a way the human mind cannot fathom. There is a natural need to stare, and an equally undeniable urge to back away.

When they reach her, the girl with the long orange hair and delicate freckles strewn like a dusting of snow on her arms, they surround her silently. As if part of the dance, they sway and encircle her with their arms, holding tight to each other’s hands. Their bodies form a net around her, but she is too stunned to even move. She stands, frozen, ensnared though she has not yet understood her situation.

Aldo and Kerrigan move to the beat, stepping in closer to the girl. She is cut off from those she came with, but she doesn’t make a move. She stares, wide-eyed, at the beautiful couple who have chosen her to dance with. She doesn’t know whether to move with them or simply let them have their dance. To move might disrupt their careful rhythm, and so she stays still as they press ever closer to her.

Kerrigan puts her hands on the girl’s hips. She gasps at the sensation. The hands are ice cold, almost burning her skin beneath the silk of her dress. But there’s more than the cold. She feels a vibration of energy flowing through the woman’s hands. Kerrigan gently pulls the girl back against her body and she begins to move in sync with them. Aldo snakes his arms in and around both women and they are all moving together as one.

Kerrigan and Aldo smile serenely, but the girl is clearly in ecstasy. Her eyes are closed and her face it tilted up toward the sky. She moves with them, feeling their strange bodies move with hers. In the back of her mind, she feels a flurry of panic: that natural urge to run from the strange creatures surrounding her. But the feel of their bodies and the energy flowing through their touch send those weak thoughts scurrying from her mind.

Over her shoulder, Kerrigan smiles at Aldo. It is time.

“Come with us,” Kerrigan whispers, her lips inches from the girl’s ear.

She nods wordlessly, and the three move as one toward the exit. The crowd parts for them again. Some even stop and stare at the young girl walking between the couple, so out of place and plain compared to the two strange creatures. A moment of worry for her may even cross some of their minds, but it is fleeting and the energy of the music sweep them up again.

Out of the club, the quiet of the night envelops them quickly. They are moving faster now than they should be, but the girl is still completely docile. A few quick turns and they are in a dark, wooded corner of a parking lot. No lights shine on them and they turn in unison toward the helpless girl.

As their eyes shine unnaturally in the dark, the panic returns tenfold. She looks around, dazed, and realizes she is far away from the club and her friends.

“How? Why?”

She struggles to form words and the pair cock their heads in unison, smiling wider at their confused prey.

“You came with us,” Kerrigan croons. “Always. They always come with us, don’t they, Aldo?”

“Well, you are very convincing, my love,” he replies.

“Who are you?”

“Wrong question,” Aldo says, his smile growing wider and his eyes glowing unnaturally.

“W-what?” the girl asks.

“He said wrong question. You don’t care who we are. Not really. You want to know what we are.”

The girl looks from Kerrigan to Aldo and then back again. She opens her mouth to scream, but Aldo puts a finger on her lips. Suddenly, she knows that no sound can escape her throat. She backs up, but there are too many trees behind her.

As Aldo and Kerrigan move in for their feast, the girl lets out a strangled cry that barely cuts through the night air. It is over before it starts, but the pair linger with their prey for most of the night. In the morning, she will be found and they will be long gone, off to find another happy hunting ground for their strange, macabre dance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Jennifer DeSantis is a Horror and Paranormal Author. She lives near Philly with her family. Tweet her at @JenD_Author

#DailyPicspiration

Laura James Week 184: The Retreat (part 2)

Picture 1


Picture 2


Laura James’s Picture Choice: 1

Title: The Retreat (part 2)

They made it to the first marker with no trouble but then walking across a flat surface was never going to be challenging. Mary snatched the next instructions from their red coloured post. "We have to walk north west through the woods until we find railway line." She turned and surveyed the group, noting with disgust that Frank had taken the opportunity to have a cigarette and Joan was trying to hide the fact she had managed to fit a large bar of chocolate in her mouth. Todd was hovering near her like an annoying wasp that needed to be swatted, how she hated his smug young face.

When Mary had been informed that he was to be joining her department her heart had sank. There was no need for fresh blood, the department was running smoothly, everyone knew their place and that she was at the top. Her fear that he would come in and change things was proved correct. The staff were mumbling behind her back and some had even dared question her authority. This trip was her chance to show all of them that she was still the one making the decisions.

"Todd I need the compass, unless of course you're so smart you know how to tell direction from the trees." She watched with some satisfaction as Todd struggled with the catches on the backpack, snapping her fingers at him she held out her hand for the compass. Once it was in her hand she turned back to the woods holding it out in front of her watching at the small arrow flickering back and forth. She had been so impatient to stamp her authority that she had forgotten she had no clue how to read a compass.

Tapping the side of the compass with a manicured nail she made a decision. "This exercise is supposed to bring us together as a team and that will never happen if I do all the work." Sighing dramatically she held the compass out to Frank, "You were Boy Scout once upon a time weren't you?"

"Yes well, I was. Em let's see if I can remember how this all works." Frank held the compass and turned till he was facing north, "What direction should we head?"

"No.." Mary started to say.

"North west." Todd replied cutting her off, looking at her with a slight smile. In that moment Mary realised that he knew she couldn't read the compass, in fact he knew everything about her. That behind all the blustering and shouting she was a failure at her work and her life. The day ahead was going to be a living hell but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of breaking. She would stay in control and by the end of the weekend he would be the one broken and running away with his tail between his legs.

Frank interrupted her thoughts, "I've got it. We head this way."

"Right, let's go." Mary started walking in the direction Frank had pointed, setting a strong pace she knew the others would struggle with. This weekend was her chance to cement her standing as boss and no one would prevent her achieving her goals. As they moved through the trees the beginnings of an idea formed in Mary's mind, a way to ensure that she would be the hero of the weekend. One of her group would have to have an accident and she would save the day.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Based in Dunfermline, Scotland, Laura is obsessed with all things horror and spends her time writing flash fiction which she hopes, on occasion, really scares her readers. Feel free to stalk her on twitter, @lejamez

#DailyPicspiration

Mark Ethridge Week 184: I See Angry People (Part 9)

Picture 1


Picture 2


Mark Ethridge’s Picture Choice: One

Title: I See Angry People (Part 9)

Always, I walked west, parallel to the fence. I wondered how big the fence was, how long. I walked for hours, and never reached its end, or a corner. I knew from the size of the fence, there were a lot of people inside it. People who believed they were safe.

As the sun set, I found a place to camp for the night. Water, some carefully selected mushrooms, tree leaves, and weeds, and I was ready to sleep. The night was peaceful, quiet. I felt safe. I hadn’t seen anyone inside the fence when I checked, and I was several miles north of it. So, I went to sleep when the sun set, and didn’t wake until the sun was up.

I walked west all day again, before I reached the corner of the fence. East to West, the fence was over a two day walk in length. There could be several small towns inside it, hidden where I couldn’t see them. I figured I’d study it some more, on my way back. And I’d figured out I would head back. Something inside me said my journey west was nearing its end.

The next day was another day of endless walking to the west. Until the sun was low to the horizon. That’s when I came to a small place. A ghost town. Most were anymore. This one felt different, though, as if it were hiding something. Something I was supposed to find.

I skirted it’s edge, peered down the streets, between the buildings. Most were one or two stories, though a couple reached three. The streets were old. The place felt old, like it had seen a lot of lifetimes, and had a lot of stories to tell.

I moved away from it, to the north, and settled for the night. I hadn’t seen anyone since I’d demonstrated to the fence people their guns did not make them invincible. As I rested for the night, I considered what to do the next day.

I rose before the sun and returned to the old place. I finished my circuit around its exterior. Several of the streets were brick. Old brick that had separated as the ground moved, as people walked on them, so weeds and grass had taken hold between them. I saw no one, no sign anyone had been there recently.

I was always nervous heading into a town of any kind, there was no way to tell what was inside, who was inside, who might be waiting, ready to attack me. I drew my bow, set an arrow, and cautiously headed in. I picked one of the old brick streets, figured if I couldn’t see any disturbances in the grass and weeds, no one had been there.

“Could this be a place where people once worked?” I’d heard old stories about companies setting up places for people who worked for them. Boom towns that grew, then went bust when the work ran out. Usually some kind of mining. Maybe oil, or gas. When that ran out, the work would have gone away.

I inched along, checking each doorway, each window. I wasn’t being watched, I could tell that. I headed toward the closest three story building. Its doors were open, like someone, in a rush to leave, forgot to close them, or didn’t bother to close them.

The inside of the building was empty. All the chairs, tables, any kind of furniture, was gone. Nothing but bare walls, and some paintings and pictures hanging on them. I figured out the building wasn’t a place where people lived. There were no bathrooms, no laundry rooms. Everything was like an office. I found public restrooms. The kind with lots of stalls.

There was nothing inside.

I checked several of the two story structures. Apartments. Small places, with separate baths, separate kitchens. All of them were stripped, like the three story place was.

All of them, except one. That one was on a corner, where two brick streets crossed. It’s door was still shut. I tested it, and it opened with no problem. The first floor had a kitchen, and a room that reminded me of my family’s living room. A sofa, a couple of chairs. A useless TV on one wall. I followed the stairs to the second floor. A bathroom, and two rooms. One a bedroom, with a bed, still made. Dusty, but otherwise, well cared for.

The second room was a study. There were pictures piled in boxes, several books on cartography, several on photography, and something I hadn’t seen in years. A Holy Bible. Those were rare since the world went nuts. Used to find them everywhere. In book stores, churches, hotel rooms, people’s houses. They’d all vanished.

This was a small one, well worn, well read. I checked inside, found a bookplate, said the book belonged to someone named Christopher, as if that mattered.

Beneath the Bible were maps. Hand drawn maps. They showed the fence, and the area outside the fence. There were several empty towns on the maps. One map was different. It had a black hole in its center, and a label next to the black that said, “The Cave”.

I found a journal, a diary. I didn’t care for them, I’d seen plenty of them. Someone’s ramblings about life. But something made me pick the journal up, and turn to the last couple of pages. I read the crisp hand printed letters, the same letters from the maps. Christopher, it seemed, was the last. Everyone else had gone to the cave, or to the fence. He’d lost count of the bodies at the fence where not everyone was accepted. He didn’t know what was in the cave. His last words were how he was tired. He was alone. And he was going west. To see what he could see. He was out of food. Out of everything. He had no choice but to leave.

Christopher, it seemed, decided to head west, to see if he could find help, a place to live, with others. The last two pages of the journal showed a sketch of an old highway, headed west, into the Rocky Mountains. Christopher’s notes said that’s where he would head. To see if there was anywhere he could live. If there was anything left.

I checked the photographs. Pictures of women, victims of the insanity that destroyed everything. Pictures of children, nothing but skin and bones, their stomachs bloated, they’d died of hunger. Pictures of people, carrying nothing but what was on their backs, heading anywhere. Pictures of men, lots of men, with guns, raiding all the buildings, taking everything. Pictures of the end of the town Christopher lived in.

Christopher’s last words in his journal, “Time to start over.”

I spent the night outside the town. When the sun set, so did I. But I knew, I was close to finding something. If I only knew what.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Mark woke up in 2010, and has been exploring life since then. All his doctors agree. He needs to write.

#DailyPicspiration

Kimberly Gould Week 184: Survivor

Picture 1


Picture 2


Kimberly Gould’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: Survivor

Her grandmother had walked on land. She had worked to excavate the surface and open more ocean. Lily swam easily through the light blue water near the surface with long gliding strokes. She didn’t surface for air, but breathed normally. She had chosen to follow her grandmother, Pita, into the water, as had a third of the human population on Weedo. That wasn’t really what the planet was called. It was a whistle followed by a low click, but the humans on the surface called it that.

Lily’s thick throat included an installation, a small plankton engineered to separate dissolved oxygen from the water. She didn’t have to surface, ever, and had only walked on two legs a handful of times. She liked to sit near the beach, watching her remaining human relatives dig at the shore. They were earning their way off Weedo, but Lily couldn’t imagine leaving.

“Lily! Lily!”

She turned from her perch on a rope of algae to her foster-sister, Jean. It was a play on jaune, or yellow. Pita had taken to naming her piscan friends after their colour. The amorphous creature was preceded by a flood of whistles and clicks.

“Mother is looking for you. We need your hands.”

Lily looked at her digits, so less agile than Jean’s many tentacles. Their thick ones were as strong as her arms. Why would they need her hand?

“Coming,” she said, pushing off and gliding toward her sister, toward home.



Author Note: I’m working on a novel, Pita’s story, and the picture made me think of it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

Kimberly Gould is the author of Cargon: Honour and Privilege, and it's sequel Duty and Sacrifice. She can be found most places as Kimmydonn, including Kimmydonn.com

#DailyPicspiration

Lizzie Koch Week 184: This Life

Picture 1


Picture 2


Lizzie Koch’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: This Life

“Mum, can we get a dog?” asked Aidan

“No.” It was the usual short sharp response after giving up on explaining why not the first thousand times.

“Is that a dating agency?”

Jess slammed shut the laptop. “No! Go and tidy your room!” She turned back to her friend, Lisa. “It’s pointless. What was I thinking? I can’t possibly go on dates or meet anyone. I’m too cranky and tired.”

“You need to start thinking about you. When was the last time you dated anyone?”

“I don’t know. Six months after Ian left and that was a complete disaster.”

“And how long since Ian left?”

“Two years.”

Lisa opened the laptop.

Jess received a flurry of interest but nothing clicked. Except one guy. Gavin. He was everything Jess wanted which made her sceptical as why would anyone like that be on a dating website? Tall, handsome, intelligent, chatty, good sense of humour. Single, But there had to be baggage. Approaching forty and on a dating website? Something had to lurk in his past. Everyone had a past. She closed the laptop.

Forgetting her dalliance with dating websites, Jess continued as usual; school run, work, no to a dog. Days became weeks and nothing changed other than the odd night out with Lisa. But Jess resigned herself to this life. If she was meant to meet someone, she would. She worked in a coffee shop where she met people all the time so it wasn’t impossible. Other than people barely had time to make eye contact with their order let alone chat.

It was a dreary afternoon. Having to stand in the cold and wet, watching Aidan play football wasn’t the ideal Saturday afternoon. Infact this life sucked. But it was Jess’ life. However, she watched with amusement as a small black and white dog ran onto the field, chasing the ball. It wasn’t funny when the dog caught the ball and ran from the field. Aidan ran after with one or two others, thinking it was the best thing to happen in their goalless game.

Jess could do nothing else but follow especially as the dog wasn’t giving up and running further from the pitch, towards the edge of the park. Traffic noise filtered into her head and Jess ran faster.

A screeching of tires punctured the air. She ran, passing two boys who had given up on the chase, seeing a crowd gathered.

“I’m so sorry. They just ran out in front of me,” sobbed a middle aged woman on the side of the road. “Are they OK?”

Pushing through the crowd, Jess choked back tears when she saw Aidan standing, looking unharmed. She raced to him and hugged him hard. The dog barked, sitting next to him as a man appeared to be examining him.

“You need to take care of your dog!” Jess shouted as the crowd dispersed.

“He’s not mine,” the man said, standing, meeting Jess’s angry stare. “Jess?”

She looked at him, knowing she’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t think. It couldn’t have been the coffee shop as she’d have remembered those piercing blue eyes especially as no one even gave her a glance.

“The dating site?” Gavin said.

“Oh,” Jess blushed a deep crimson.

They moved to the pavement, the dog running back into the park. Aidan followed.

“I’d better get going,” Jess said.

“Sure.” He watched her walk away. “Hey,” he said, running after her. “I know this is quick, silly even but do you fancy going for a drink sometime?”

“As long as it’s not coffee, or in a park or where there’s dogs, that would be lovely.”

Jess walked back through the park, a date secured, Gavin’s number in her phone, Aidan running around with a dog. She smiled. This life wasn’t so bad after all.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like what you just read? Have a question or concern? Leave a note for the author! We appreciate your feedback!

I dream of sharing my work with the big wide world one day as a published author. Right now, I share flash fiction with a wonderful community of writers and friends. If you liked this story, then why not visit my blog at http://40somethingundomesticateddevil.blogspot.co.uk/ for more. Thank you. Love Lizzie x

#DailyPicspiration