Plot Medics 

Little Red Hoodie (706 words)

"Now don't forget the bag for your Nan." The woman looks into the shopping bag, shudders, and closes it again.  “Sometimes I wonder what I married into.”

Red sighs and does an exaggerated, adolescent shrug.  She’s heard that before. 

"And don't go by the Whitman Estate.  And stay away from that old tramp by the off-licence."

"Mu-um."

"I don't want to be phoning the hospitals.  Or the police."

"I'll be late."

The woman looks out the window.  "Oh, blast.  Yes.  Hurry.  Wait, have you got your mobile?"

"Yes, Mum.  And yes, it's got credit, and yes, it's switched on."

"Don't you give me that voice, young lady.  If that plumber had turned up when he was supposed to..." she rolls her eyes towards the upstairs, where there is an ominous, constant dripping sound.  “But I have to keep emptying the bucket.”

Beyond the kitchen window, the moon is rising over the rooftops, fat as a cheese, smoky autumn yellow.

"Can I just go?"

"You ring me the second you get there.  Tell your Nan I said you're to stay overnight.  And if she gets out of hand..."

"I know.  Anyway she can't help it."

"Sometimes I wonder.  Just make sure her chain's on.  I know what she's like." 

She grasps the girl’s wrist as she’s about to leave.  “Red, be careful,” she says.  “You’re old enough…”

With one final, eye-rolling, “Mu-uum,” Red escapes, swinging the bag with Nan's supplies in one hand, tugging at the neck of her jacket with the other.  It's too small, really, but she likes it.  She pulls the hood up and pretends she's one of the lads from the estate, all droopy trousers and bravado, and giggles to herself as she walks. 

She’s still, mostly, a child.  She doesn’t hurry.  She wanders and looks in windows and makes up stories about the people behind them; but her musings are interrupted by the crash of glass, a straggle of drunken laughter.  She looks up; the moon’s lost its yellow.  Suddenly it’s a bone-white eye.  

She starts to walk faster. 

Red isn't very interested in cars, and doesn't notice the sleek black late-model Jag cruising like a shark; even when it comes past her the second time.  Slower.   

The streets are almost empty.  The car stops.  The window slides down, electrically silent.  

"Excuse me?" The voice is smooth.  "I'm looking for Laburnum Drive."

If she'd been watching, she would know the car has already been down Laburnum Drive; it turned out of it, just now. 

She pulls her hood further down, her voice comes out gruff.  "I don't know."

"I've got a map here...perhaps you could show me?  Come on, you can't see it from over there."  A pause.  "I'll give you some money, if you like...for your trouble." 

She shouldn't get too close.  But by the time she realises she shouldn't, it's already too late.

***

Nan's bungalow sits with three others at the far end of the estate; a last decrepit clutch at suburban respectability before the motorway.  Her garden is overgrown.  In the morning light, the girl's mother pushes frantically through the nettles, ignoring the stings.  "Nan!"  She hammers on the door.  "Nan!"

Eventually, slowly, it opens.  The old woman looks out, blinking.  "Oh, hello, dear."

"Where is she?"

"Inside.  She’s…” 

But the woman shoves past her, into the house, and sees Red curled in the old chair, tugging idly at the buckle of a studded dog-collar attached to a thick, heavy chain.

"What happened?  I phoned and phoned..."

"I'm sorry, Mum."

There is a streak of darkness on Red’s jacket; her face has changed, suddenly older, as though years happened to her last night.   Or centuries.  She is remarkably calm. 

"Honestly," the old woman says.  "Sending her out on full moon, and her all of twelve!  You should have known."  

"Who was it?"  Red’s mother says.

"Some perv.  Don't worry.”

“Don’t worry?  What do you mean don’t worry?”

“We disposed of it.  I’ve been dealing with this sort of thing a long time, dear.”

Nan grins.  Her teeth are long, and white, and sharp.  “If you’d been one of us, we’d have saved you a leg.” 

Warning: This story contains rude words.

It was hand-written at the Friday Flash Fictioneers' workshop at Eastercon. I then promptly lost it. I've rewritten it from memory and polished it up a bit.

I find with flash that I'm more willing to dive in and see where the story takes me, and trust that my brain knows it's got 1000 words (or fewer) to pull something into shape. With this one I also managed to get a terrible joke into the title, which always makes me happy.

A Stupid Place to (Jurassic) Park (656 words)

“What kind of arse-brained idiot parks a steg next to a T. rex?”

“Maybe they just popped in for some milk or something,” says Alison.

“Look at this shit-awful mess! I hope their insurance covers this.” I wave at where the stegosaurus is placidly chewing the cud and still swinging its club-ended tail, scattering a few drops of blood. Rover’s snapped chain and the stamped-flat scrubby carpark bushes were no doubt just the first steps on a trail of destruction.

“Oh dear. You can’t blame the steg for defending itself. Our boy’s had a go again,” says Alison. “We really need to put a stop to that.”

Alison just doesn’t get it. If I left it up to her, we’d be plodding around on a triceratops.  Safe, solid, oh so slow. Give me a carnivore every time.

“It’s in his nature,” I say. “He’d be fine if some cock-knocking moron didn’t park a stupid herbivore next to him. And now I’ll have to try and catch him.”

“Have you got any spare Trexie treats?”

“Of course I’ve got spare Trexie treats. I’m not the cock-knocking moron. But the spare Trexie treats are where they always are. In the glove compartment, strapped to Rover’s back. For crying out loud Alison!”

“Sherbet lemon?” She pops open the bag and holds it out to me. “If you’re going to work yourself up into one of your rages, you’ll need the sugar.”

“I don’t want a fucking sherbet lemon! Do you hear that? That din is Rover rampaging down the High Street, destroying our credit card balance. Come on!”

I sprint off, glancing back to see Alison sauntering behind me, sucking ruminatively on a sweet. As I scramble round the corner, I tot up the damage in my head. Broken glass, flattened bins, scattered brooms and buckets, a butcher waving a gnawed haunch of something at me.  “Shut your door next time,” I shout as I sprint past.

I teeter at a road junction and look around. For fuck’s sake! There’s Alison down the street outside a shop, standing in a plastic avalanche of laundry baskets, exercise balls, storage boxes. She’s handing some cash over. I can’t believe she’s actually shopping! That woman just does not understand the concept of immediate action.

Looking the other way, I see Rover bounding down the street and I take off after him, full tilt. He skids to a halt at the mall doors, scrabbles round, tail windmilling madly, then charges back past me. I spin on my heel, flailing my arms for balance, and follow. Alison waves as I run past. She waves again as we repeat the maneouvre at the other end of the street. Rover’s tail is bouncing half-time now. He’s a hunter, a sprinter, not an all-day plodder like the pathetic herbis. The third time we pass Alison, Rover’s breath huffs out in hot gales. He staggers to the end of the road and flops, sides heaving. I lean on an unbroken lamp post, red-faced and gasping.

There is the spanging sound of over-inflated plastic smacking off pavement. Alison wanders up the street, bouncing her just-bought exercise ball. Rover’s head snaps up and he clambers to his feet.

“Good boy,” said Alison. “Who’s got a new toy then?” Rover tilts his head and trots towards her. “Let’s go home and you can play with your new toy. Come on, it’ll be nice.” Our T. rex follows Alison, placidly as you like, tail waving happily.

“Are you alright?” she asks me.

“I’m worn out. You could have helped.”

“Sorry,” says Alison. “You know I’m not as quick as you. Let’s go home and I’ll make you a big steak dinner. Come on, it’ll be nice.” She smiles her wide sunny smile.

And I smile back, secretly pleased. Of course I’m the cleverest, but it’s nice to have it acknowledged once in a while.

An Experiment (539 words)

The question before us, ladies and gentlemen, is: how much can the subject  take?  

Red and pink.  The colour of valentines, love-hearts, babies’ skin and little girls’ bedrooms.  The colour of blood and peeled nerves, sizzling in the raw air.

Earlier experiment has shown that this amount of trauma applied at once tends to result in massive shock and almost immediate termination.  As you will notice, gradually increasing the amount of trauma over a period of time permits the system to adjust.  Some nerves are destroyed.  Scar tissue is formed.  Note that the scarred areas lose their sensitivity not only to pain-stimuli, but to pleasure.  Note the lighter, rose-pink colouration of these areas. 

Increase the nutrients, please.  We do want to keep this going as long as possible.

Love hearts, lace, valentines.  You can’t love scar tissue, and scar tissue can’t love.  Yet who would want to go on feeling?  Surely, in the end, you must become numb.  

But what if that isn’t true? Sometimes you can’t stop feeling, even if you long to.  Even if that’s your greatest desire.  Instead, sometimes, perhaps what you feel…changes.  It mutates like a virus.  If you can’t find love in a laboratory, an end, a cessation, seems all that’s left to aim for.  But after enough of the essential nerves have been severed, enough scar tissue has formed, the desire for oblivion can transmute into - something else.  

Please note that the pattern in which the stimuli are applied is almost as significant as the intensity. If this is done correctly, the survival period can be extended far beyond what was originally considered possible.  The subject’s system continues to adapt. What one might term ‘the survivable level of trauma’ becomes greater than was originally considered possible.

We have experimented on a great many subjects in order to gather this information, but there is still more information to be gathered.  The question remains, ladies and gentlemen.  How much can the subject take?  At what point does survival become pointless?  At what point does the system simply give up? 

Old habits die hard and almost invisibly, draining away, leaving a hollow place.  What fills it?  The last fragments of the old self are seared away. Heat cauterises. Once you’ve learnt to take enough pain, perhaps you can learn to take…everything.  

The subject’s responses have altered.  This is interesting.  Note the increase in adrenalin levels, the bunched muscles.  I do believe our subject would be baring its teeth, if it still had lips. We have of course seen this before, if you look at your notes.  There is sometimes this last-minute surge of physiological activity before the inevitable end.   Gather round a little closer, please....  

It’s been a long time since I had vocal chords.  Now…I scream, not with the throat but with the entire body.  To feel stripped muscles snap their chains is like exploding into a new universe, like becoming another order of being.  I am transmuted, translated.  

There is nothing left of what I was. 

It doesn’t matter if the figure on the table was one of those that originally strapped me down.  All hands are shaped for scalpels, including mine.  The question remains, ladies and gentlemen...how much can the subject take?

Sarah says:

I tend to write long. Things that I start as fun little breaks from long projects usually haul in characters (often orcs, we like orcs) and plot twists and end up being novellas. So flash fiction is a really refreshing change for me - the satisfaction of finishing something within a few days instead of months.

My first attempts came from exercises in flash at our writers' group workshops. Half of this story was written at Eastercon when I was buzzing with enthusiasm after attending the Friday Flash Fictioneers' workshop.  I picked up a valuable piece of advice there about suggesting the world around the story, and that's what I'm trying to achieve here.

One last thing: it was inspired by reading the list of ingredients on a packet of processed cheese.

Liquid Smoke (100 words including title)

Liquid smoke for wood and water, the places my revenge seeks him out. A dragonfly's wing for swiftness. Steep in moonlight and the spell is done.

Liquid smoke twists in the air as rope twists. It will bind as rope binds. I was the slowest of my sisters in that dark forest flight, my breath burning, lashed by the sound of his pursuit.

Liquid smoke presses him down and forces itself in. He does not breathe but to utter my name. My love potion spreads its happy poison through his veins and I have my lifetime for vengeance.

Gaie says:

When I first heard of flash fiction, I was, I admit it, sniffy.  How could anyone possibly create something worthwhile within such a limited wordcount?  Of course, I was struggling to finish a novel at the time and was not in the mood to admit that maybe you could produce good fiction without taking two years and an inordinate number of words to do it.

But then there's poetry, my first love.  And poetry, with some epic exceptions, encapsulates an idea, a moment or a feeling within a very small space.  It struck me (slowly but with some force, like a doped grizzly) that flash fiction, like poetry, isn't about being lazy, but about being precise.

So I started reading some flash, liked some of it a great deal, and realised I wanted to have a go at writing it.

Folie a Deux might be considered cheating.  It was originally a 3,500 word story, and has been cut down to flash size.  But there was a great satisfaction to be had from trimming out everything that didn’t need to be there.  I may yet do this with other bits of the unpublished back-catalogue I have been keeping in the vague hope they might Come In Useful, like string.

But for those who would consider it cheating, I’ve also got some new ideas; in the same way that reading poetry makes me more inclined to write it, reading flash does the same.

I hope you enjoy the following.  And if you don’t, well, at least you won't have wasted a lot of time…

Folie A Deux (829 words)

“I’m getting  married,” Marty said.

“Married?  To Jeff?”

“Yes.  Full commitment.” 

I felt my insides clench.  Marty was always such a free spirit, it was the last thing I would have expected from her. 

“Let’s meet up!”  She was all bubbles.

“Great.  Um…”

“The Pig in Clover?  Tonight?” 

***

Too late I remembered the Pig in Clover was where I’d had my final never-darken-my-psyche -again row with Jane.  Of course, the only booth  left was the site of the row, and of course the place was wall to wall couples. 

Marty glowed, she really did.  “Jeff, darling, get Kate, oh you have, there you go.”

Jeff put our pints down, and sat, and smiled at me.  I wanted to hate him but it probably wasn’t even his idea.  Marty’s always had what you might call a whim of iron. 
“So,” I said.  “You two.  Eh?”

Yeah, I know.  Brilliant. 

“You look funny, Kate,” Marty tilted her head like a puppy.  “Oh, don’t say you disapprove, honestly, I’ve had that from my Dad.  He just doesn’t get it.  You’ve been in love.  This is the, like, ultimate.  You know?”

“Your Dad must have been in love once,” I said.  “And as for me…” 

Yes, I’d been in love.  In love enough to move in, though never quite in love enough to sign papers.  Enough to run along beaches at midnight, but not enough to move to Hawaii.   In love enough to do what they were contemplating?  Not on your life.  “You’re serious.”

“Of course we’re serious!”  And she turned to look at Jeff and just beamed at him and he beamed back, a full-on daffy in-love grin.

They really meant it. 

“It’s going to cost a fortune, Marty.”

“Oh, Kate.  Always the accountant.”

“It’s my job.  I mean, seriously, where are you going to get the money?”

“We’ll find it.”  She took Jeff’s hand.  “People are going back to this kind of commitment, Kate.  After all, how else are you supposed to prove how much you love someone?”

***

The months leading to the wedding were horrible.  It got so bad I even phoned my ex, Jane. 

“Uh, how are you?” I said.

“Over it.”

“Good!  I mean, Jesus.  Jane, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well.  Oh, come on, you silly cow.  What’s up?”

So I told her.  I managed to keep the swearing and ranting to a minimum, pretty much.  But there was still this long silence at the end.

“They’re going to do it then,” she said.

“Seems like it, yeah.”

“OK.  Well, I can get why you’re upset.  I mean, I think it’s yuck.  But there’s…you know.  The other aspect.”

“What other aspect?”

“You know what I mean, Kate.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. 

“They want to do it. They’re…committed.  We were together three years and you wouldn’t put me on your car insurance.”

“Oh come on!”

It didn’t go well, on the whole. 

***

I went away, I told Marty I’d booked the holiday the previous year.  I couldn’t face the wedding.  I spent a lot of my savings.  I slept with a few people, including a pair of identical twins I met in a Cairo bar. 

That didn’t end well either.  There was this moment when I looked at them and thought, Jesus, they’re not really two separate people at all, and I threw up all over the bed.  

Some of that was probably the dope, which was another thing I wasn’t used to.  But it definitely put a damper on the evening. 

I’d only been back a few days when I got the phone call.  I was in that disembodied state you get after a lot of travelling,  and I picked up without thinking.

“Kate!  You’re back!”

I knew who it was, of course. 

“Yeah, I am.  How…how are you?”

“Great!  Still a bit…you know.  Let’s meet up!”

It was the Pig in Clover, of course. 

I got there too early.  Not early enough to be as drunk as I’d have liked, when the door finally opened and somehow I knew who it was.   I kept staring at my pint until I heard the chair being pulled out. 

“Hi Kate.”

I looked up.

It was tall, and smooth, and androgynous.  Good-looking, I suppose, objectively.  I recognised Marty’s mouth, and Jeff’s eyes.  But it was a bland, blunted face.

My own felt utterly frozen, I don’t know how I spoke at all.  “I don’t know what to call you,” I said. 

 “Well,” the thing said, “We decided on Jeffmar, in the end.”

I started laughing.  I couldn’t stop, until the paramedics hit me with the second syringeful. 

Jeffmar.  Jesus, Marty.  You never did have any taste.

***

I sit at home with the phone on my lap, and wonder who to call. 

Exes.  Friends.  People who might be more than that…or not.   So many possible combinations, so many possible conjunctions.  I wonder about calling Jane.

But in the end, I don’t.