Winning Flash - "Last Call" by Dan Pietrasik

We have a winner! I launched another flash fiction contest a month ago and what follows is our winning story. The entries had to be under 1,000 words, have a speculative fiction element and involve one or more mirror balls. I kicked it off with a story of my own, "Mirror Images". Our winning author, Dan Pietrisk not only is published here on Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys, he also has a mirror ball, complete with a motor to turn it on its way to him. Lucky him, huh?

"Last Call"
by Dan Pietrasik

Based on how many people are already here, I'll be eating well tonight. The sun is barely down and there's already a nice selection on the dance floor and milling around the tables. A guy like me will have no problems.
   
“Here you go, buddy,” the bartender says, handing me a Long Island Iced Tea.
   
I include a non-memorable tip when I pay him, and move on to a table. The big mirror behind the bartender bothers me. Not that I worry about a mortal noticing I don't have a reflection. They usually come up with some lame excuse on their own about line of sight or something. If they don't, it only takes a little mental push to give them the idea. The part where a mirror absorbs a piece of me instead of reflecting it back is what creeps me out. The table is also a better hunting position.
   
I sit and watch the herd for a while, wondering why another vampire hasn't claimed this place. Not just quantity, but quality of feeding here. A waitress catches my eye as she leans on the bar chatting with the bartender, but I know better than to choose from the staff -- at least if I want to come back. And I think I'd be a fool to not frequent these grounds. With a quick glance around I can see two women I'm definitely putting on the menu, and at least a dozen that wouldn't require lowering my standards.
   
“Ready for a refill?”
   
I look up over my left shoulder as the waitress I noticed earlier pulls her hand back from mine. Apparently I didn't hear her the first time. It's nice to be able to control my hearing enough to come into clubs and not be overwhelmed, but not hearing someone approach because of it takes some getting used to. I order another drink, the better to blend in. She's checking me out more than I'd like for someone on my Don't Drink Here list, so I send a little extra “ignore me” vibe her way. If she forgets to bring my drink, so be it.
   
I pick out my first appetizer. A young woman obviously drowning her sorrows in a girls' night out, and far enough into it that her friends won't notice the effects on her if I take a little off the top. I'm sure she'll appreciate the attention, even if she doesn't remember me afterward. And just a couple of unexplained wounds to differ tomorrows aches and pains from any other hangover. I'm about to make my move when the waitress comes back with my drink and sits across from me at the table.
   
“I just wanted you to know,” she says with a smile, “I can take a break now and dance, before we're too busy.”
   
I really need to work on turning down the attraction level, this is not the right kind of attention.  Sticking with drunk patrons for my meals is so much less complicated, and if I get carried away, much less inconvenient. But turning down an attractive offer to dance is not the way to avert attention. There's definitely worse sacrifices I've had to make than a little exertion with a hot woman. I've always been a sucker for the assertive but shy thing she has going on, coming up to me like this, but keeping her eyes slightly downcast while waiting for my answer. I'm hooked when she reaches up to scratch an itch on the side of her neck. Besides, she'll go back to work after one dance, and write me off as a player when she sees how many others I plan to go through tonight.
   
“Then let's dance,” I say, standing and offering her my hand.
   
She laughs at my gesture, and with a quick tug on my sleeve heads to the dance floor. At the edge, she turns to make sure I'm following and starts to dance. I glide smoothly into my carefully restrained, “let the woman I'm with appreciate me, but don't draw stares” moves.    She's using her whole  body, spinning and swaying, drawing me after her toward the center of the floor, but still not meeting my eyes. I sense the blood rushing through her veins, feel its pull. I'm getting worked up. All my urges are focused on her.
   
My hunger is growing as she dances. I need to break away before I succumb, but I can't. Why can't I look away? Why aren't I closing in? I've stopped dancing. I'm just staring at her. She finally looks me in the eye, but I can't catch her. Her smile has changed. Leaning forward, she whispers in my ear.
   
“Last call.”
   
She dances back again, raising her arms over her head. My eyes follow her hands as they go up. She's pointing toward the ceiling. I look up further, and see that we're dancing directly below a triangle of disco balls.
   
Hundreds of little mirrors. Flashing. Rotating. Pulling me apart. 


***

Dan Pietrasik is a reader and writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two kids and three cats. A programmer by profession, he also dabbles in improvisational comedy.

Freaky Weather: Flash It! winner - "Careless Wishes"

Congratulations to D.E. Helbling on his winning entry in the Freaky Weather: Flash It! contest. I also want to thank all the other writers who participated. I hope you had fun writing your flash pieces and wish you all the best submitting them elsewhere.

Here's what our judge, Paula Johnson, of Rose City Sisters had to say of the entries:

Each of the submitted stories reflected an inventive take on the "freaky weather" theme, but the tale that drew me in the most was "Careless Wishes."

The writer's effective use of dialogue (with just enough Southern patois) revealed both the nature of the main characters' relationship as well as the curious backstory to the action taking place.

While "Careless Wishes" told me everything I needed to know to enjoy its satisfying ending, it made me ponder what the future holds for the characters.


Careless Wishes
by D.E. Helbling

“I’m sorry, son,” she said as I helped her up from her rocker on the front porch.

“Never mind that now, Momma. Let’s get you to safety.” I led her down the steps and across the brown, patchy lawn of the front yard. I whistled for Scruffy, her Jack Russell, as we made our way toward the storm cellar. The sky had grown dark in just a few short minutes. I was fixing to pull the door shut behind us when Scruffy appeared and nudged his way past me. I shoved the heavy crossbar into place and descended the steps into the depths of the shelter. I flicked on the switch for the battery light, and then joined Momma and Scruffy on the tiny couch in the back of the little room.

“I’m so sorry, Billy,” she started again.

“I’m sure you didn’t mean it, Momma. Maybe it wasn’t even you. You know, sometimes storms are just storms.”

“If only I wasn’t so greedy,” she said, shaking her head. She looked grayer, more tired and frail than I’d remembered ... it had been too many months since my last visit.

“Now, Momma, you can’t help wishing for things.”

“Like that scholarship of yours?”

“You didn’t know the kids on that bus were after the same scholarship as me, did you? You didn’t wish that bus into the river. Momma, that was years ago. You gotta let that go!”

“Or your sister’s new husband?”

“Now, come on, Momma. None of us liked Harold, not even me, and I went to school with him. Did you wish Harold into bumping that radio into his bathtub? I know you didn’t wish him into beating up Charlene every time he and Johnnie Walker got together.”

“I’m just saying---“

“I’m just saying, too, Momma. I’m saying it’s all about silver linings. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. OK, so maybe Harold was an exception. But still, sometimes those bad things mean good things for somebody else. If that somebody else is you or me, or Charlene, well, that’s just God evening out the blessings is all.”

The door to the shelter started to rattle and shake, straining against the big iron hinges. The wind howled through the cracks. Momma looked up at the ceiling in surrender. “I think I used up our share of blessings, son.”

“Let’s never mind that mean old storm,” I said. “Say, I know you have some shortbread down here in one of these tins.”

“Over there on the second shelf.”

I found the tin, opened it up, and fished out three cookies. I gave one to her and one to Scruffy. The three of us sat there, nibbling our cookies, while the wind roared above like a train was running over the top of the shelter.

“Still the finest cookies in the county,” I said.

“Or what about that time---“

“Jesus, Momma!” I almost choked on my cookie. “You can’t go on blaming yourself for every little thing that happens.”

“Now let’s not be bandying about the Lord’s name.”

“I’m sorry, Momma,” I said. “But I’m sure Jesus wants you to be happy, just like the next person.”

Scruffy perked up his ears, turned his head toward the stairwell. I started to hear it myself. Plops, first a few, then more, then a thunderous smashing, pounding barrage. “It is surely hailing big time out there, Momma.”

“Oh, my,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s hail, son.”

The pummeling sound stopped as quickly as it had begun. Now there was no howling wind behind it. We sat in silence, listening for further signs that the storm had really passed. Scruffy decided we’d waited long enough. He bounded up the stairs, barking at the door for us to let him out. I followed him. I put my ear to the door. Nothing but a couple of birds chirping. I slid the crossbar over and shoved on the door. It resisted. I shoved again. Fallen tree limbs, I hoped, though I feared it might be the remains of Momma’s house on the other side of the door.

I shoved again, harder, and the door finally gave way. I stepped out of the stairwell and promptly slipped, my feet flying out from under me as I slid a few feet into the yard. I propped myself back up, my arms wrist deep in dark goo, a mush of red and green and black that seemed to cover the entire yard.

The house, at least, was still standing. Scruffy was running all over the yard, barking wildly, bits of goo hanging from the corner his mouth.

“Oh, my,” Momma said from somewhere behind me.

“Be careful, Momma,” I said. “The ground’s pretty slippery. It looks like the twister dumped a load of silt from the river right here on top of the yard.”

About then the smell of the goo hit me. I raised one hand to my face, gave the mush a sniff. That’s when I saw that some bits of the mush had form. And shape. This one little bit looked like a salamander leg. That bit wasn’t worm, but a trace of tiny intestine. Those round things: little eyes.

“Oh, my, Billy,” Momma said. “Looks like we got us a frog puree.”

I brought myself up to my feet, found a sturdy looking branch poking out from the goo, and brought it over to Momma for a makeshift cane. “What’d you wish for, Momma,” I asked, as we made our way slowly across the yard and up the steps to the front porch.

“Fertilizer,” she said. “That soil around here is so tired, I figured it was due for some kind of ripening up. Good thing.”

I helped her back into her rocking chair and began to pull off her shoes. “Good thing?”

“Good thing I didn’t wish for a new rock garden.”

“Good thing, Momma.”


D. E. Helbling is an engineer, writer, and a native of the Dakotas, now living in Oregon. When he’s not working on strange cryptography projects, he explores fiction, philosophy, paranormal research, and game A.I. software development. He can be reached via email at doug@dehelbling.com.

Flash Fiction contest winning entry - Absorbed by Nicole Krueger

Congratulations once again to Nicole for winning my Attack of the REAL blob flash fiction contest. Here's her winning story.


Absorbed
by Nicole Krueger

Tina squats on an overturned bucket, head between her legs, trying to breathe without vomiting. The bobbing of the charter fishing boat makes her stomach heave, but she’s determined to hold on to her breakfast. Damned if she’s going to be Absorbed with the reek of puke still in her mouth.

At the front of the boat, a man in brown druidic robes intones to the dozen or so people around him: “…the One, the Collective. Once we are integrated into the Akashic stream, once we return to the primordial mud from whence we crawled, we shall know and see all that is, has been and ever will be…”

Tina—no, not Tina, she reminds herself; here, she is Sage Willowdusk, a name she chose carefully but cannot seem to apply to herself internally, feeling absurdly self-conscious whenever she uses it out loud—Sage tries to listen to his words, his words of significance, the last words she will ever hear, but the buzzing in her ears and the motor of the charter boat make his voice sound like a radio broadcast on a fuzzy AM station. This is her chance to prepare herself, to bring her energy into harmony, and all she can manage is to not stain her Jack Purcells.

The robed speaker, Panther Blackthorn, raises his arms and bows his head, leading the passengers in meditation. He’s a short, square man, with tightly trimmed brown hair, quarter-size spectacles, and a beard that tangles down to his chest. Sage met him at a drumming circle back when she was still Tina, back when she would bite down on her pillow every night with wet tears on her face, back when she was searching for something to make the evenings shorter and less devastating. He was kind and looked into her eyes as though he saw a specialness in her, and when the circle ended he wordlessly handed her a business card. It took an entire week to muster the courage to call.

Discovering these people… it had been her something.

Then a dark, globby mass was spotted in the Arctic, its miles and miles of hairy goo mystifying the scientists who rushed out with their test kits. Panther had been the only one to recognize it for what it was. He knew right away, just like he always knew things, like he knew Sage was having doubts that night he'd taken her aside after group and spoken to her gently about her tendency to give up.

One by one the passengers emerge from their trance and begin milling about, their eyes silently connecting and sliding away. From this point on, they will approach their destiny without speaking; Panther calls speech a trapping of the physical world that obscures more than it expresses. A freckled girl with curly red hair and unshaven legs lays a hand on Sage's shoulder, her eyes radiating love and excitement. Willowmoon has always been particularly nice to her, and Sage thinks if only they'd had more time, they might have developed a real friendship. She's tried to express this once, but Willow merely gave her a painfully earnest look.

"Ohhh, but once we're Absorbed, we'll be one with each other, and everyone else. It'll be better than friendship."

Sage nodded then.

"Oh yes. Of course. So much better."

Now she musters a weak smile for the woman she would have liked to share a movie and a bottle of wine with. She stands, and her legs quail, but she remains on her feet and even manages a few steps. The people around her, people with whom she's spent countless evenings, seem like strangers in this Alaskan dusk. A woman with long blond braids clasps white-knuckled hands over her abdomen, her face blank. A skinny man, with a beaked nose and shiny pink skin, wears a faint smile. A black-haired girl with a lip ring and a furrowed brow stares at her boots, refusing to meet anyone's eye. They are alone, all of them, wandering the deck like ghosts, as if they have already checked out.

The fishing boat chugs to a stop and its motor cuts out, leaving behind the silence of lapping water. Sage lines up with the others to stare over the side. And there it is, just below the surface: a giant clot that roils and oozes with the waves, stretching out as far as she can see.

The sight makes her shiver, makes the back of her neck crawl.

It's the energy of it, the life force. We are in a place of power.

It is time. They strip out of their clothes, not bothering to fold anything. Each member has a bucket, overturned near the edge of the boat. They mount these now, Panther in the center, and clasp hands. Sage barely has time to think, This is happening, to draw one last breath, and they're going over, they're falling, they're plunging into the frigid water, right into the center of that black mass.

Then everything is churning, and she tries not to struggle, but she can sense them now, their panic and terror. She thrashes uncontrollably. Her head breaks the surface, and she feels the ooze surrounding her, pressing against her skin. The sacred primordial mud gropes at her with the insistence of a seventeen-year-old boy.

When the thing begins digesting her legs, she can no longer hold it in. Tina spews up her breakfast into the icy Arctic. And after the sea regains its calm, the waves settling back into their placid rhythm, it continues to float there, undisturbed, while the sunset paints the water red.



Nicole Krueger is a book publicist, freelance writer and former newspaper reporter. She writes fiction, poetry and a book blog in her spare time. Her compulsion to write is constantly at war with her desire to bury her nose in a book.




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Attack of the REAL blob flash fiction contest winner

Wow! This was hard. Good thing I don't do this for a living. I so enjoyed all the wonderful stories people sent in. And my apologies for being a day late with the announcement.

We need a drum roll here...

Oh, first a refresher for those who don't know what the heck I'm talking about. On July 17th I ran a little flash (under 1K words) fiction contest in answer to the news item in the Anchorage Daily News concerning an actual blob off the shore of Alaska. Scientists have since discovered it's algae after all, but we had fun speculating - spec-fic style.

The news story had the following information on the blob:

1) It's not an oil slick
2) It's organic
3) It's gunky
3) It has hair-like strands
4) It's 12-15 miles long
5) No one has ever seen anything like it

The decision was tough. But, as in The Highlander, there can be only one...

Congratulations to Nicole Krueger for her story, "Absorbed."

The story will appear right here on Tuesday and she'll be receiving a signed copy of Awesome Lavratt by yours truly. Great job, Nicole! Excellent character development in so short a piece.

Because this was such a tough call, I want to name two honorable mentions:
Emily Bush for "Excuse Me, Waiter, There's a Space Elevator in my Primordial Soup" and Bob Myers for his untitled entry.

You can still read Bob's if you're a member of the Science Fiction Readers, Writers, and Collectors group on LinkedIn. He posted it there. I do also appreciate the sense of humor in these two stories that came close to taking the prize. Join the LI group and read Bob's. I'm sure Emilie's will still find a home somewhere where you can read it, too.




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