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This is a very old, unfinished story, disinterred, gutted, and refleshed.
Red (1244 words)
I was eighteen and as wild as the ocean when I met Maximilian. My sisters and I used to go barefoot into town, our hair blowing behind us like banners, sea salt on our lips. We were creatures of a different element to the people who herded their children past, burdened with rubber rings and windbreaks and lotions to block out the sun. 

Max’s eyes were the blue of a summer sea and he strode the promenade with the assurance of a prince.  His beauty put a hook in my soul; I felt it tugging at me as I dashed past with my sisters, pulling my gaze back to him.

I told my grandmother all about him the next night as she wove white flowers in my red hair and forced me into the high-heeled shoes that pinched my feet.  “Handsome is as handsome does,” she said.  “Now go along with your sisters, Stella, and sing your best.”

Our voices rose in the faded theatre, ebbed and flowed, rang out like ships’ bells. Max sat in the front row, a faraway look on his face. He waited for me outside the theatre.

“From now on, you’ll only sing for me,” he said. “And I’ll turn your voice into gold.”

My sisters laughed at him. They sung for whom they pleased. But I agreed, and he was right.

By our wedding day, he was rich, his music label famous.  Max pricked his finger pinning on his buttonhole flower. As he placed the gold band on my finger, a drop of his blood smeared there, looking black in the stained glass light.

When I tried to sing at the reception, nothing but a croak came out.

“Never mind,” said Max, smiling at me. “It doesn’t matter now.” I looked into his calm eyes and knew he’d be my anchor. He hasn’t changed a bit since then.

The package of  dye came in the post this morning. I don’t know where from. Perhaps one of my sisters sent it.

Yesterday I was sitting here, brushing out my hair, wondering when it got so grey. I wore the clothes that Max chose for me; grey wool skirt, grey cashmere jumper, pearls around my neck. I looked around our room with its magnolia walls, and beige carpet, and black and white photos and decided I was going to dye my hair red again. It took me half an hour to open the front door. I paced the shining parquet of the hall, and paused with my hand hovering over the doorknob, fear drumming in my chest. Finally, I went out.

I’m a long way from my sisters now, living in a maze of concrete and brick. Noone goes barefoot here. Noone strolls. I tiptoed along the streets like a woman walking on knives. The air tasted of rubber and tarmac and dirt, and I coughed and coughed until I was hoarse. I went into the chemist’s and read the warnings on the boxes of dyes, about rashes and open cuts and damage to your eyes. I wanted to ask the woman behind the counter about them, but she looked me up and down, and when I opened my mouth I couldn’t make anything come out. I tiptoed back home again as fast as I could go.  So this morning, I smiled when I found the package.

I’ve made sure the house is spotless, except for the bathroom; I’ll do that after the dye. Max doesn’t work hard all day to come home to a messy place. I gather up the package, and some old towels and a comb and go into our white bathroom. I’ve never taken my wedding ring off, but perhaps I should for this? Max told me it was unique, specially made. I twist it hard, but it’s stuck. It doesn’t move with soap, so on it will stay.

There are instructions in the dye package, written in a copperplate hand. They tell me that once I put it on, the dye will take some time to work. For the first time in a long time, I get my battered old radio out of its hiding place at the back of the wardrobe, a little music to keep me company. My condition, as Max calls it, hasn’t changed since the wedding reception. When I try to sing, I can only croak like a frog. Sales of my records soared when he announced that there could never be any more. Max bought me a platinum ankle chain to celebrate. He told me the sales would only peak higher if I died.

Inside the package are several bottles. One of them smells of salt and breezes, seaweed oil I think. Another is sealed up with wax and I have to get a sharp knife from the kitchen to open it, and a bowl to mix in. I feel like a witch as stir the dye potion. I massage it into to my hair, and comb it through.  The radio plays one of my favourite songs, and I croak along until my voice becomes a whisper. I’ve been been so careful, but there are red splashes all over the bathroom. It’s going to take a while to clean, but Max comes home late these days. He’s making a move from business to politics. His friends tell me he’s got a silver tongue, and he’s rising fast. He can talk anybody round.

I get into the shower to rinse out the colour. It is as though I am standing in a frothing bath of blood. I rinse it all down the drain and comb out my hair.  I open the window to let out the steam, go into the bedroom and put on some old clothes. I bend under the sink to get out the bleach and the scrubbing brush, and when I stand up there is a young woman in the bathroom with me, hair redder than a danger signal. Just my reflection in the mirror over the sink, but her expression is furious.

“What are you doing?” she says.

I think about it as I scrub the walls and I turn the radio up louder.

I don’t hear Max come in until he is behind me in the room. There are still old towels piled about, the dirty bowl, the bottles, the knife. But he doesn’t even notice the mess. He’s staring at my hair.

“You’ll have to change that back,” he says. “It’s not the right look for the newest MP’s wife.”

“I don’t think I can,” I say.

“Never mind,” he says. “We’ll get it cut. Something sensible.” Max strokes my head gently, then there is a tug and a swish. He has picked up the knife and sliced off great lengths of my hair.

“No!” I shout. I shove at Max, surprising him enough to grab the knife. I make a cut on my finger above my wedding ring, blood flows and now the ring slips loose.  I throw it to the floor, scramble away from Max’s grasp.

Max looks up at me, his eyes pleading. They are still the blue of a summer sea, but now I see the surface glitter and the cold depths. He opens his mouth, and nothing but a thin croak comes out.

Outside, the dirty air is filled with blackbird song. My voice rises to meet it, ringing like a ship’s bell as I go to find my sisters.
 
 
This is an old story idea, possibly revived by the fact that someone in my office is now off work with 'possibly swine flu', so the general sense of paranoia is rather higher than usual.
Sinking (905 Words)

“Disgusting little bugger,” the owner said, peering into the box.  “Thought there’d be more of ‘em.  You sure you’ve got them all?”

“You can never be completely sure,” Rob Stevens said.  It was what the firm told them to say, but it was also true.  “But if you take the precautions in the leaflet, and notify us straight away if you see any of the signs, then you shouldn’t have such a problem again. I’m just going to check the back.”

He went through to the rear of the building.  It was a lowering day, the light already seeping away, faster here among the blank windowless walls and seeping pipes. 

Rob had been an exterminator for going on twenty years.  He had developed a high tolerance for unpleasant smells, a respect for his prey’s amazing survival capacity, and an almost telepathic awareness of the dogs, druggies and rough sleepers he encountered on jobs who occasionally decided to make his life difficult.  Something tugged at this sense now, and he stood for a moment, head cocked, his heavily gloved hand unconsciously tightening on the rod he carried. 

Nothing.  No snoring breathing from behind the bins, no low growl or rattling chain. 

He poked the rod at a patch of shadow under the bin, but it crumpled.  Cloth.  He shook off his nerves, thinking it must just be the weather, the nights drawing in.  He started picking up the traps.  Heavy, heavy, heavy…light.  He checked.  Empty.  So were a couple more.  Surprising in this area; he got called out here so often he knew every yard, backdoor and bin store. 

The phone buzzed.  “Hi, Molly.”
“Rob.  Just to remind you about that four-o’clock in the City tomorrow, you up?”
“Yes, I’m just finishing here.” 
“Good to get another one so soon, it’s been thin lately.”
“It has.” Rob knew he was lucky to still have his job.  “Everyone’s trying to save money, I s’pose.”
***
The place in the City was one of those monumentally impressive structures built in a rush of monetary optimism.  Successive recessions had taken some of the shine off.  Rob shook his head at the damage to the wiring. 

“Tell me about it,” the maintenance manager said, gloom pulling his heavy features down like extra gravity.  “I told ‘em.  Rats, I said, do you a thousand quidsworth of damage overnight.  Ounce of prevention, I said.  But no, would have made that quarter’s budget look bad.  Well, wait till they see this quarter’s.  I told ‘em.”

Rob was used to the scutter and whisk of them all around him, especially on a late job like this, when they started getting active as the day faded.  But as he laid his traps and patched entry holes, he realised it was oddly quiet. 

He shone his torch into the corners, eventually highlighting a familiar double gleam, but the rat was already dead, buck teeth pathetically comic in its half-open mouth, paws scratching stiffly at the air.

“Where’s all your mates, eh?”  If there’d been a level under this one he might have suspected they’d all retreated down there, but there was nothing under him but earth.  Unnerved, he forced himself to finish up neatly, to do the job properly, but he was glad to get back in the van.

Headquarters was in Greenwich, right down past the Dome, near the Thames Barrier. It was crowded with operatives at the end of their shift, come to hand in report sheets and get their assignments for the next few days.  But the atmosphere was a little twitchy, the laughter a little too loud.  Rob trudged up the stairs to the office, but kept finding himself looking about, as though a savage dog or drugged-up yob was going to leap out of one of the cubicles. The place was a maze of them, and all of a sudden he felt like a rat in one of those old experiments, and felt an intense desire to get out of there.  They had the windows open, as it was a warm night, but he felt he couldn’t breathe.

He’d hand in his sheets on Monday.  Molly would scold, but she’d sort him out.

Rob was heading for the door when he heard a noise outside, like heavy rain, or gravel pouring down a chute.  It was a sound he’d heard a few times in his career, but never this loudly.  His first thought was that someone was mucking about, playing one of the training films at top volume.  But by the window one of the men was standing agape, his hands flapping like broken-winged birds.   Feeling as though his feet were caught in strange, electric glue, Rob walked to the window, and looked out.

The street was moving. 

It was black with rats, charging singlemindedly along the road, a great squeaking skittering tide of rats.  Rob’s gaze, as though tugged on a string, moved up.  From here, he could see a good stretch of the peninsula and its scatter of industrial buildings; and all across it, under the streetlights, he could see that same, relentless, pouring tide. 

Unwillingly, Rob’s gaze moved further up, towards the rest of London, but it was hidden behind the dome, only the hazy orange glow of light-pollution betraying its presence.  Even if he could have seen it, he wouldn’t have known what it was they knew, and why, as one, they were heading for the sea. 

 
 

An unfortunate reaction to antibiotics meant I spent about a week lying down, sometimes watching the ceiling spin round. It seems to have scrambled my brain too, because I had two flash stories die on me halfway through before I wrote this one.  And this one doesn't meet our definition of flash. I hope you won't mind getting a bigger slice of fiction this Friday. Enjoy!

The Balance Sheet (1713 words)
It’s all about the balance sheet, as Prentice told me in our last, strange conversation. I killed a man and I got caught. I had my reasons, but Explora Ltd protects its most valuable property, and Morgan was Project Manager. There’s no resources to bang up guilty men and feed them when they’re not earning their keep. They forced me into a armoured scuttler with a month’s worth of nutrition and sent me out into the Howling Wastes to look for Annabelle Tinker’s mobile base.

You want to set up in a place like this long term, you need someone who knows how to work with rocks and dirt and plants. That’s why I’m here. I’m a mason and a smith and a farmer. Everyone here’s got to be a multipurpose tool. The first thing they had me do was put in a well with an Archimedes screw for a water supply and start growing crops. Seemed pretty low tech, but I wasn’t complaining. I trust low tech.

Tinker’s an engineer and a biologist. She was out in the Wastes with boxes that beep and flash, looking for money. She might not see it that way, but you can bet Explora does. Prentice told me Explora had once made a fortune from some alien cocoon polymer, so it’s worth the expense of keeping a biologist on the staff.  While she was out tracking some big, gliding creatures the worst storm recorded blew through, Tinker stopped calling in, and they couldn’t make her base come back by remote command. The company lost a lot of expensive kit. Tinker is Kate Prentice’s sister.

On a nice day out in the Wastes you get blue sky over grey dust, and it’s fuck-I’m-dying-of-heatstroke in the shade. On a bad day the roaring winds are freighted with grit that’ll strip you to the bone. If I go back without finding the gear, I’ll be shot. And if I die looking, the scuttler’s biosense will pick it up and stomp back on its pistoning legs to HQ, so no loss to them. They could send the scuttler out on its own to look, but there’s always the chance that a pair of human eyes will make all the difference.

It’s kind of restful out here. The first few days, I can’t see anything out the cockpit but roaring sand. Now it’s day twenty, the storm’s settled and it’s wide open blue and grey. I’ve thought over my killing Morgan, and I still don’t regret it. I know he killed Prentice. Our last conversation, she and I were playing chess in what passes for the bar, Prentice playing worse than usual.

She kept looking at me, taking in breath to speak, and sighing it out again.

“What’s up Prentice? Books looking bad? No bonus for us this turn? What about those big beasties your sister was following?”

Prentice stared at me, frowning fiercely. “Bonuses? Fat chance. It’s always about the balance sheet with this company. D’you know how much it costs to send a ship out here? S’a lot. More than all of us’re worth.”

“Uh huh. You’re pretty drunk. Want to skip the chess and get properly shit-faced?”

She shakes her head. I don’t think it’s no to the drink. “Remember the Nightside stock crash? Th’company took a big hit. There’s accounts for everything, if you look hard enough.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward. “I found something.”

“What is it?”

“The first time...” She jumped as Morgan appeared at our table, bad enough to spill her drink.

“Need a word,” he said. “Just got a message from your sister.” 

That was the last time anyone saw her alive. Morgan proclaimed her dead of a heart attack. He’s also the doctor.

I knew enough to program the scuttler for a spiral sweep, starting at Tinker’s last known location. I’m now on the far arm of the arc, furthest from HQ and I am sick of rattling about in this metal pod. I open the door, and step down. The heat presses against my skin. The air is still, and it’s so quiet it makes my ears ring.  I start walking, kicking up puffs of dust. I can see all around to the curve of the horizon. It’s stupid to talk about this place like it’s malevolent. It just is what it is,  and it is completely fucking obvious that it’s a place in which people are not supposed to be. So why did I get out here? I look around again, and see the faintest set of caterpillar track marks in the dust. The storm didn’t get this far. I get back in the scuttler and point it in the direction of the trail.

At first I think it’s just a speck on the cockpit glass. High up, a kite shape, sailing in the breeze. As I follow the tracks, and the grey dust shades into red, there are more of the creatures, wheeling in a flock And in the distance, on the ground, something glints. It’s Tinker’s mobile base rumbling into the distance.

Puffs of dust spurt up in front of the scuttler. Some kind of volcanic activity? A tiny dust devil forerunner to a storm? No, Tinker’s base is firing on me. I don’t know if her comms are bust,  but  I buzz her anyway.

”What the fuck? Tinker, if you can hear me, it’s Crewkerne. I’m here to help you.”

No response. Tinker’s base squats on its tracks, motionless. For the second time today, I get out of the scuttler. I stand with my arms outstretched and turn around slowly, so if she’s looking she can see it’s just me, no weapon, no tricks.

A ramp lowers from the base and I let out my breath. A lean sunburned woman stands at the top, holding a gun on me in shaking hands.

“Pleased to see me?” I shout across the distance.

“Come closer. I’m not getting out,” she says.

I walk up to the bottom of the ramp.

“Crewkerne?” she says, squinting at me.  “You’re, uh, you were Kate’s friend.” She lowers the gun a bit. “She said you cheat like a bastard at chess.”

I shrug. “How can you cheat at chess?”

She looks down. A drop of water splashes from her eyes to the metal of the ramp.

“So, what’s wrong with your base?” I ask.  “Comms out? Nav busted? I’m not so great with that, but the scuttler’s repair systems can fix it.”

She shakes her head. “Comms are fine. And I took out the remote command. But you – you can’t fix this. ”

“Alright.” I wait in silence.

“I have to show you something. Come up.” I follow her up the ramp and into the cockpit. I see now that the tracks go on, she’s turned the base around to come back and meet me. It trundles on, and ahead of us is a thin, bright ribbon of water edged with flourishing trees. It marks the edge of the Wastes. In the distance, the land gets motivated enough to throw up a few green-furred mountains. And by the river is the scorched skeleton of a touchdown shanty town. The company usually sets one up for an initial exploration. Scorched, bent struts from semi-permanent tents and the twisted frames of flat-pack shacks poke out of a drift of red dirt. Bleached white branches lie scattered by the wind. When we are closer, I see they aren’t branches.

“I told Kate I found this,” said Tinker. “She called back. She said she’d looked into it and found some things out and I shouldn’t be here.” Tinker shivered. “I was on my way back and then someone told me...”

She lets me pat her shoulder, takes a deep breath. Then she lowers the ramp, and we get out.

There’s not much and too much to see. Blackened metal, melted plastic, scorched bones. Now and again, the odd remnant that survived, a cracked mug with “Sharon” painted on, a half-melted plastic horse on wheels. Tinker huddles close behind me as we look around.

“How did a fire get this out of control?” she asks.

“This site can’t have worked out. If they’d found anything worth having, we’d be digging here now.” I think back to the conversation with Prentice. “Remember the Nightside crash? Kate told me the company took a hit. It must have been cheaper to let people starve here than hire a ship to pick them up or drop more food. Especially if it’s not on a scheduled haulage run. When Explora could afford to come out here again, they started somewhere else. Then they burned this place and buried it in the dirt.”

“I was out here in that big storm. It must have uncovered it again.” says Alice. She bites her lip. “We’ve got to tell somebody.”

I think about the Archimedes screw, about the agriculture program, the stone buildings. Not a touchdown town. Things to keep the base independent of the yearly scheduled ship visits. Things a Project Manager would be responsible for. “Morgan knew. I don’t know about anybody else.”

Alice’s lets out a scream of rage. “I’m going to rip that bastard’s throat out.”

“Already done. I killed Morgan. But I used a knife. They sent me out here to look for you as punishment.”

She looks right into my eyes. Hers are a bright silvery grey. Then she says, “So we can go back?”

I shrug.  When Alice and I go back to her base, my scuttler has gone. HQ have called it back.

“No going back then,” says Alice. If she hadn’t disabled her remote command, her base would be gone too. Somebody else knows, and if we go back they’re going to kill us.

We pick up tools and collect metal and anything else that looks useful from the ruined site. There are plants and animals on the green foothills. We haven’t got much food left, but I can grow things and build things and Alice is a biologist, with a base full of analytical kit. The haulage ship isn’t owned by the company and will be here in six months. Maybe that’s enough to add up and tip the balance our way this time.