"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Continuing my Rudyard Kipling jag I (re-)read “The Bridge Builders,” a story I had read before maybe 30+ years ago.
Read some of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book,” where he re-tells Greek Myths for a young audience. I read a lot of these stories but never his version. A lot lighter tone than in his more famous works (like “Scarlet Letter.”)
Finished reading Kipling’s story “The Maltese Cat,” a story about Polo from the horse’s point of view. Funny and actually sweet! (I had to look up a couple of the old songs mentioned in the tale; at least one of them quite bawdy!) It’s Kipling’s December 30th birthday and I plan on reading at least one more Kipling story today. And I did! “Children of the Zodiac,” a downbeat tale I’d read before.
Wrapped up the Kipling Birthday read with his poem “Envoy.”
Finally got around to reading stories in Peter Cannon’s “Scream For Jeeves,” which places P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Bertie Wooster in the world of H. P. Lovecraft! Started with “Cats, Rats And Bertie Wooster,” and read “Something Foetid.” The latter a mix of “Cool Air” and “Fawlty Towers!”
Those stories are collected in Cannon’s spoof-laden collection “Forever Azatoth.” (The original “Scream For Jeeves” has become rather pricey!)
Also in H. P. L. mode, listened to “At The Mountains Of Madness” done up as a Dr. Seuss book by R. J. Ivankovic. Great fun!
For Clark Ashton Smith’s January 13th Birthday, read his story “Mother Of Toads” and his poem “The Old Water Wheel.” The poem was sweet and wonderful!
(Oh, and Smith is an offstage character in Leiber’s “Our Lady Of Darkness” which I’m also reading!)
Started reading Stephen King’s “The Gunfighter,” the first book in his “Dark Tower” sequence. This is the version he revised about twenty years ago as there were some inconsistencies with later books in the series. He said he set out “to tell a tale of wonder” and it is a gripping read!
And of course I read the excellent offerings online by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper.
There was in ancient Averoigne a sheltering spot, well-known to travelers and available to all, with a fireplace that was always tended. Food and drink were ready, prepared by grey-robed monks who were hooded and veiled so their faces were never seen. The shelter’s roof and walls protected visitors from the elements, though the style of architecture indicated no human builder.
The table by this fireplace was marble and made in a semicircle like a half-Moon with a similar divan surrounding that half, with cushions and blankets. The flat center of the table was where platters of hot tea, wrapped meats and cups of broth were placed.
To this spot, one wintry day with a cold rain driving down, came two sets of travelers; one pair down the road that led from the mountains of the far North. The other across the barren plains of the East. The Northerners were garbed in furs, the larger man carrying two huge swords at his belt. His brawny arms seemed ready to wield both swords in battle and have no problem with their heft. His brown beard trickled with rainwater.
His companion was smaller, leaner and was carrying a large bundle in each arm, with another strapped to his back. The smaller man saw to it that their furs hung by the fireplace to dry.
The other pair was the mirror-inverse of the first. The tall one, skinnier but with muscles beneath his layered robes. He had a stubble of beard and his greying hair belied his youth. His servant was squat and fat but gave the impression of being equally adept in battle. He was wrapped in robes similar to his master and was carrying their belongings in two large, oilskin bags.
The taller man had a long, thin sword at his belt. The squat servant had a knife.
The robes were likewise hung to dry by the fireplace.
The two pairs of warriors eyed the others carefully, until the servant of the taller man said plainly “Master, I smell no hostility from this pair, at least none towards us. We should find kindred spirits here. Their weapons have the scent of enemies blood and ichor, doubtless drawn in battle.”
The servant of the fur-clad warrior stepped forward and bowed to the other pair.
“This is Iodos, the grand Warrior of the Mountains of the North, his soul forged in a hundred battles. I am his loyal servant Thal. I am ready to serve my master to the last drop of blood.”
“I am Ahmodrias,” the other servant replied with a bow. “I serve Nobie, he of the silent sword. We have traveled from Pengtousha, across the arid plains and through jungle worlds. Ever ready to meet in battle those who would strike against us.”
“I believe for now we should strike battle with the foodstuffs that have been laid out for travelers,” Iodus said, stroking his long brown beard.
The four men, warily at first sat down on the couch that was in a semicircle at the table. Without a word the servants sampled the food and drink first. No ill effects produced they nodded at their masters and they all partook of the offering.
“Thal is ready to serve me to the last drop of food,” Iodos said with a laugh.
The servant smiled and began eating another of the meat rolls, which were succulent pig wrapped in one of the vegetables native to the province. There was, for a while the sort of convivial talk from warriors who have sat down at table instead of battle. Mixed in with the sounds of rain on the roof.
“A fine repast,” Iodos said. “Perhaps our servile ones should entertain us by copulating for our amusement.”
Nobie shook his head. “Amodrias has been slow to follow orders in the sleeping chamber so a fortnight’s deprivation is his punishment.”
Amodrias busied himself with a cup of broth and Thal gave him a sideways glance and Iodos smiled in his beard.
Ahmodrias suddenly stiffened and sniffed the air.
“Master, beware!” he cried jumping to his feet and grabbing the knife at his belt with a fluid grace that belied his girth.
The scraping of feet on the floor and the ringing unsheathing of swords was background to the shuffling of the eight monks stepping silently forward, cowls withdrawn revealing faces of rotted flesh, partly exposing skeletal mouths, mouths that had been nothing human in life. Teeth that looked used to devouring what they wanted.
One of the monks dove for Thal who seemed unprotected but the servant swung his staff in a swift arc which connected with the robed abomination with a harsh crack, a crack which was not the sound of the sturdy staff shattering.
Another monk went for Ahmodrias who slashed at the grey robe with the small knife in his left hand, then with a longer knife which had been concealed up the right sleeve. He swung back and forth, shredding cloth and bone with eye-blurring speed until with a sudden popping sound the skull and right arm of the monk fell clattering to the floor, the hand still reaching to clutch as Ahmodrias made short work of the rest of the robed nightmare.
Nobie took on three of the monks who surrounded him, slashing out with his long sword. One of the skeletal monks gripped it, stopping its swing in midair; it’s skeletal grin seeming to widen. But with a triumphant roar Nobie flung the monk at the end of his sword into the two of its fellows before it could let go. Nobie then skewered the skeletal trio and with a mighty heave exploded them in a burst of robes, bone and dried flesh.
Iodos did not bother with preliminaries; huge sword in each hand he threw himself at the remaining monks and spun and bounded until his adversaries were shredded to pieces.
For a moment, there was quiet. Then, Ahmodrias spoke, sniffing the air.
“Master, I believe that is all of them.”
Nobie smiled. “His nose never fails!”
“A wonder he can smell anything else with the stench from our playfellows,” Thal said gazing at the wreckage that had been the animated monks.
“I have seen too many battles, witnessed too much thaumaturgy to believe that the originator of this might be either traveling hence or reading another assault by something from someplace worse than the grave.” Iodos said, not bothering to wipe his swords as he sheathed them.
“I agree, Master,” Thal said helping Iodos into his furs and grabbing their belongings.
“We had best head away from here,” Nobie said. “What is your destination?”
“The Southern Mountains,” Iodos said. “The ‘Witched Mountains.”
“Ours too,” Ahmodrias said helping Nobie with his robe and sword, only pausing when Nobie kissed him.
“I fear they know of our intent and this may have an origin in their Mountain witcherey,” Iodos said.
“So we take this battle to them,” Nobie said, patting his sword.
“Look, the rain stopped!” Thal said.
“If it was ever there,” Ahmodrias said sniffing the air.
The four warriors stepped out of the shelter, headed for the road south.
—end–
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The prompt pic is part of what was once a dorm lobby at my old college and I imagined a contemporary story, but then I noticed that January 13th (when I wrote most of it) was the birthday of the legendary fantasy writer and poet Clark Ashton Smith. So I set out to write a Smithian tale, remembering that it had been said that nobody since Poe “loved a rotting corpse” as much as Smith did in his fiction. One of his settings was Averoigne, a mythical version of a region of Medieval France.
My meager effort is dedicated to Clark Ashton Smith.—–mike mayak, January 14, 2025.
We were in line outside the old movie theater which was showing the original version of one of those old epic movies, y’know, the one they re-titled and re-numbered a bunch of times when he started rambling.
“I was walking down Main Street a couple of years ago, y’know,” he said, “not on the street, but the sidewalk because the street wouldn’t be safe and the sidewalks were a lot safer so I walked on the sidewalk and this was the old sidewalk, the one with a bunch of cracks in it and I turned to where it goes past the City Park, y’know, the small one downtown not the big one over by the University…”
I knew. I nodded.
“When all of a sudden I notice the park is full of bears! They looked like they were trying to hide but they weren’t hidden very well. One was standing up behind a tree but he was so much bigger than the tree y’know?”
I knew.
“And there were a few peeking over bushes and one was actually sitting on a park bench pretending to read a newspaper somebody had left there but I knew they were all looking at me. Maybe waiting for me to step on a crack or something.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“So, I kept walking along, pretty casually, trying not to step on any cracks or anything, yeah I know that’s silly but it seemed the bears were really watching where I stepped and I remember when I was a kid I read a poem about bears who eat kids if they step on cracks or something.”
“Milne,” I said.
“So, anyway, I made it past the park and I glance back to see if the bears are following me and they aren’t but still I’m being careful where I step and I make it to where I parked my car and I drive away and I actually take a roundabout route because I don’t want, y’know, the bears running after me or worse piling into a car and chasing after me.”
“That would be bad,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “And so I make it back to my apartment and my landlady is all upset because she says somebody broke in and it was a bunch of bears and they ate all my poetry books.”
“That was good,” I say laughing.
“Yeah,” he said. “Hey, you done with that soda?”
I hold up the bottle I had just opened a while back. “Haven’t started it. Help yourself. Was going to drink it in the theater.”
“Thanks,” he said swigging it. Then he got a strange look on his face and fell over.
The poison did its work but the medics got to him in time. He’s in a hospital and I’m in a different hospital. I still haven’t figured who I really meant the poison I dumped into the soda for, but it would have been a funny way to end that story he was telling if he’d fallen down on a crack and the bears had gotten him.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the January 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Shaggy Dog Story involving a bottle of poison in a line outside a theater. I was stuck for an idea and a title and then I remembered A. A. Milne’s poem “Lines and Squares” and it all came pretty easily after that! Watch out for bears! ——mike
Ethan sighed as he walked from the bus stop towards the little building made of round stones. He patted the small paper bag in his jacket pocket. The big stores couldn’t replace the burned-out bulb from the old floor lamp that had been his Mom’s Grandmothers. One of the clerks had recommended a place called “In the Room Of Light,” on the west side of town so Ethan took the bus and found himself walking up to the little shop. The windows were probably glazed because it looked dark inside.
Inside was another story.
Floor lamps, table lamps, chandeliers hanging almost down to the floor from the ceiling, most of them lit. The room looked bright somehow. Like Christmas, Ethan thought. One side of the room had a wall of bare bulbs in sockets and even a mirrored dressing table ringed with lights like he’s seen on TV.
He pulled the bag out of his pocket and looked around for a clerk in the maze of lights. He saw a thin, balding man behind a small counter against a wall, sitting in front of a cash register, going through receipts. The man was facing the back wall and didn’t look up as Ethan approached.
“Um,” Ethan said. “I’m trying to find a replacement for this bulb…they sent me here.”
The clerk muttered “Let me see,” and reached out a hand without even turning. He glanced at the bulb and said “Yes. They don’t make many of these anymore. But we carry them.”
He reached under the counter and rummaged around and then handed Ethan a duplicate bulb that looked new. He still didn’t look up at Ethan.
“Uh, thanks,” Ethan said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Twenty,” the clerk said, busy with his receipts.
Ethan’s Mom had given him fifty dollars to cover the replacement bulb “just in case.” She knew the bulbs were an off-size. And Ethan had bus fare, his own money from his part-time job at the burger place. He set a twenty on the counter and put the new bulb in the little paper sack.
The clerk turned and picked up the twenty.
Ethan stared. It was like the man was only half there. He was divided right down the middle and his right hand side wasn’t there but there was a dim light coming out of the length of his body. It reminded Ethan of a light bulb he’d seen set in a coffee cup as a decoration one time.
Ethan ran, clutching the bag. Somehow he made it through the maze of lights and out the shop door. He didn’t really remember the bus ride home except that he spent it sweating and shaking.
He watched his Mom put the bulb in the lamp telling him he shouldn’t run with a light bulb in his pocket.
First, here’s the prompts for the January 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, the first one of the New Year of 2025! Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Shaggy Dog Story
Involving A Bottle Of Poison
Set in A Line Outside A Theater
Now, on to the details.
Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.
Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!)
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Nine of Hearts (a Shaggy Dog Story), the Ten of Diamonds (A Line Outside A Theater) and the Eight of Clubs (A Bottle of Poison.)
Yes, Eight, Nine, Ten!
So we will write a Shaggy Dog Story, set in a Line Outside A Theater involving a Bottle Of Poison.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday January 13th, 2025.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
And have fun!
——mike
Here’s the list:
Flash Draw Sheet for 2025 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
When I finished the annual draws for the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge this year, there were three draws left over on the list; A Paranomal Story, a Greenhouse, and a Cellphone. Usually, I just slip them into next year’s draw list but the idea for a story banged into my head when I saw them.
So here’s a New Year’s Eve story; a Paranormal story set in a Greenhouse, involving a Cellphone.
Happy reading! —–jeff, a.k.a. mike
We always have our Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Pelzer’s, right on the edge of town. They had an old farmhouse with a big garden and a big greenhouse out back that was about as big as a double-wide trailer a friend of mine lived in.
Afternoon of December thirty-first, New Year’s Eve and Grandpa had called me over to his place to “help out.” It was fairly warm for December in Kansas and so I was in my sweats from Gym Class as I bicycled over, gloomy about how school was going to be starting up again in a few days.
Grandpa Pelzer met me at the greenhouse and ushered me inside. It was big but felt cramped inside. There were long wooden tables extending the length of the greenhouse along the walls and one right down the middle. The tables were full of planters, some in use and there were bigger planters and a lot of gardening equipment underneath the tables. It all smelled weirdly green with the scent of garlic and some other plants I couldn’t identify. And it felt almost like summer in there.
This is where I grow the Christmas trees,” Grandpa said as we walked down to one corner of the building. “I usually put the one in the living room and give one to old Mrs. Plunkett and one to the Retirement Center downtown. But I have this one here and it needs to be pulled out of its planter. I shouldn’t have waited this long.”
On top of one of the tables was a plastic flowerpot with a small fir tree growing out of it, about half as big as I was and I was sixteen. Its branches were dotted with little multicolored bulbs that looked like little glass ornaments.
I pulled out my phone and was about to take a picture when Grandpa waved it away.
“When I was your age we didn’t stop to take pictures every two minutes,” he said.
“No, because you would’ve had to run inside and grab your camera!” I laughed.
“Ah, the early Seventies,” Grandpa said. “Terrible time. Here, help me with this.”
He tossed me a pair of dirty gardening gloves and I fumbled with putting on the gloves and stuffing my cellphone in my pocket at the same time while Grandpa tipped the pot over on its side.
“Those ornaments look like they’re growing right out of the tree,” I said.
“They are,” Grandpa said. “Help me pull it out of the pot.”
“Sure,” I said, grabbing the top of the tree. Grandpa braced himself and started pulling the pot as I pulled at the tree.
“Tradition…UMMPFH! Says you toss out a live tree…OOOMPH! On New Year’s Eve….UNNNGH! But these trees can’t be…UNNNNNGH! Still planted in dirt on New Year’s Eve…OOPPP!”
The little tree popped out of the pot in a shower of dirt and Grandpa and I both landed on our butts. The little tree landed on top of me. I pushed it off and stared; the roots were little striped candy canes.
“My gosh,” I said. “These things ARE growing out of it,” I said.
“Yeah,” Grandpa said. “But it’ll shrivel up now that it’s New Year’s Eve. That’s why I cut the bases off the trees I give away.”
“Where did you get these, anyway?” I asked, standing up.
“Special seeds,” Grandpa said, waving off any attempt to help him up as he braced himself on a table and stood. “A guy I know supplies me with them. Basically peppermint pine cones. He’d sell them to a candy store except they have seeds in them. He says he bred them for years to have them…”
There was a sudden rattling noise, like someone dropping marbles on a tin shed.
“I missed one!” Grandpa said. “Quick, help me find it! I shouldn’t have moved everything when I…”
In the opposite corner behind a flat planter on the ground with tall brown grass growing out of it I could make out one of the little Christmas trees, this one shaking violently.
“This one’s starting early this year,” Grandpa said, “but I guess it’s New Year’s somewhere.”
As I watched, the multicolored little bulbs began to pop of the tree and started bouncing around on the floor; obviously not glass, bouncing higher with each bounce.
Grandpa rushed over and closed the greenhouse door.
“Quick!” Grandpa said. “Grab them! If those things get out, it’ll be a disaster!”
We started chasing the bouncing bulbs around the greenhouse and I managed to grab a few of them, one of them when it almost bounced up my nose.
“What do I do with these?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Grandpa said. “You grab them, they lose their momentum. The crumble up pretty quick. If they get out and drive themselves into the ground they’ll grow huge. And their seeds will be huge, and their seeds will be even bigger and the trees will be even bigger…”
“And on and on…” I said amazed I believed it all. But Grandpa and I were running around a greenhouse on New Year’s Eve lunging after bouncing, living Christmas ornaments.
It took a little bit but finally we were done. I had mine stuffed in my pockets, Grandpa had taken off one of his gloves and filled it with the bulbs.
“We got ‘em all,” Grandpa said. “Now we…”
There was a CLINK from overhead. We glanced up in time to see the last of the bulbs zipping overhead through a broken pane in the glass, landing on the ground outside.
“I got it!” I said, running for the door.
I was outside when I saw Grandma and Grandpa’s big, furry dog sniffing the bulb on the ground.
“Ralphie! No!” I hollered.
Too late. Ralphie happily chomped down the bulb, then bounded away.
Grandpa walked up behind me.
“He…he ATE it!” I said.
“No harm done,” Grandpa said. “They’re edible.”
For the next few months, Ralphie’s farts smelled like peppermint.
—end—
NOTE: Actually had to really revise and trim this to make it shorter and add reference to cellphone (I’d forgotten in handwritten draft!) as well as re-set it in the present day, not the 1970s as I originally planned. —-mike
I started out 2024 by telling myself I was going to finish a bunch of half-finished stories I had in my catalog and I amazingly did, especially through the first half of the year.
I also promised myself I would finish this one longer story I had been working on. I sloughed-off on it and it took most of the year but I got it done!
I didn’t really work on a lot of longer stories in 2024, so I’m planning to do more on those in 2025. I have a couple started as well as one idea I want to see finished; another story that’s a sequel to one that got published that is partly started in a notebook somewhere and a longer story set in Wichita which will be a novella if I do it right, or maybe even a short novel.
I have to finish the corrections/suggestions a friend of mine sent me on a mystery I showed him—I got distracted. (Boy! Did I get distracted!) The ms for that one is in one of the boxes I moved to the spare room when I brought the kitties home.
Also, I am planning two books; a long-overdue collection and a collaboration with someone that I can’t talk about now.
So, things look good for the new year. I hope so, anyway!
That’s about it for now, but of course more on the way!
Not a lot on the progress front, other than the usual flash fictions and my end-of-the-year stuff. Did some synopsizing and playing around with ideas. Wrote one column and started a couple of others. Didn’t really do any work on any full-length fiction this period. Nonetheless, I’m proud of that as well as the work on writing I’ve done this month and this year.
I’m probably going to do an end-of-the-year progress post where I also talk about my hopes for next year’s work.
Read John Floyd’s “The Home Front” in “Punk Noir Press.”
Read more of “Sara Was Judith” by Julian Hawthorne.
Read Kaje Harper and E. H. Timm’s online offerings.
Started reading a bunch of Rudyard Kipling: Read “In the Rukh,” a story a lot of people don’t like. I did.
Read “The Return of Imray” (Creepy!) as well as “By Word of Mouth.” Both ghost stories, the latter a variation of the old ghost story about Ticonderoga. Also read another ghost story “The Lost Legion.” A very effective tale of soldiers and ghosts in India. Kipling swore that a lot of this story was true.
Read two of Kipling’s elephant stories: “Moti Guj—Mutineer!” and “Toomai Of the Elephants.” Read his “Red Dog” and The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.”
The above Kipling stories were collected in “Picking Up Gold and Silver,” a fine collection edited by M. M. Kaye.
Got the anthology “A Constellation of Cats,” edited by Denise Little. I love theme anthologies and this one from 2000 combines cats and “celestial influences.” Read “The Stargazer’s Familiar” by Mary Jo Putney, a charming little tale. Started reading “Three-Inch Trouble” by Andre Norton.
During the last several months I’ve been reading through the Barnes and Noble “100” anthologies of things like Vampires, “Hair-Raisers,” “Wicked Little Witch Stories” and the like. A treasure trove of very short genre stories. In “100 Sneaky Little Sleuth Stories,” they reprint five detective stories by pulp writer Leroy Yerxa about beat cop Paddy O’Sheen who comes off at first like the stereotypical Irish cop but has the detective skill of a Sherlock Holmes. Not a lot of character development except for his devoted relationship with his wife Marta. The stories actually surprised me with fairly placed clues for the reader to follow (if they’re clever enough!) including one that ties into something people would have known on the WWII homefront. Yerxa here is almost a precursor to Edward D. Hoch. I had never read Yerxa before and fortunately his stories are available in various places on the Web. He’d be better known if he hadn’t died in his 30s, after selling at least 70 stories in three years.
The O’Sheen stories collected here were:
“O’Sheen Minds the Baby,”
“O’Sheen Is Best Man,”
“O’Sheen’s Photo Finish,”
“O Sheen Sees Red,”
and “O’Sheen’s Sweet Tooth.”
There is one last O’Sheen story uncollected here; “O’Sheen Goes To the Dogs,” which is reprinted online. I found it and read it. Wonderful!
authorjeffbaker 