"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
“Yeow!” Eddie said as they pulled the city truck up to the big parking lot.
“Yeah,” Mack said, the older man shaking his head.
The old grocery store was used for a thrift shop but not today. The wind that had blown through had knocked the big tree to one side into the parking lot and had totaled the electrical pole on the corner. A crew from the city had shut down the power last night and rolled up the wire which was hanging on a smaller tree that was still standing.
“Ironic they turned to power off,” Mack said. “The power to this area stayed on. Not so in much of the south side.”
“Look at this,” Eddie said, staring down the street. “It’s like there’s a line. Wrecked stuff on one side and the other side looks ready to open for business.”
“Yeah, but nobody’s opening here today with the power out and the street closed.” Mack said as they got out of the truck.
“That’s the way life is, I guess,” Eddie said. “Sometimes the storm hits you sometimes it hits across the street.”
“Never take things for granted,” Mack said.”
“Right.” Eddie said.
“Okay,” Mack grinned. “Let’s get at that tree so things can open up again.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the September 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Horror Story, set in a Costume Shop, involving a Dumpster. Here’s mine.—-mike
The sign on the little downtown shop read simply: “Margolis’ Costumes.” Scrunched in between a key shop and a closed-down garage it was part of a row in an old brick building that dated back to the thirties at least.
Joey Margolis and Matt Wieks were crouched over in the cramped back room going through boxes of old theatrical costumes Joey’s Aunt (who owned the shop) had bought in a blind lot at auction. So far they hadn’t found anything that would have been out-of place at the thrift shop a few blocks away, including a suit that looked like it had stepped out of the year 1975.
Joey glanced around the room, glad his Aunt paid the two of them to do stuff like this. They were both twentysomethings who’d moved into a cramped apartment not much bigger than this back room. They needed the money.
“Hey, look at this!” Joey had pulled out a long, flowered dress that looked like it belonged in 1890. It was out of a separate and very dusty box that had been in the lot.
“That’s from that play your Aunt talked about,” Matt said. “Pretty rare stuff.”
“I can’t believe she’s thinking about getting rid of it,” Joey said, holding the dress next to him. “She’s funny that way. Hey, give me a minute or two, okay?”
Joey stepped into the next room with the dress while Matt inspected the box. On the outside was a printed label: THE SCAR OF THE PHOENIX. Original Production, 1911. Besford Theater.
Matt rummaged through the clothes, pulling out an old red derby which he set to one side. Then searched the name on his smartphone.
“Hey, Joey!” Matt called out. “I think I know why this stuff creeps your Aunt out. The original production lasted one night after one of the actors killed another one during the first performance. Yeow! Wasn’t in the script.”
Matt scrolled down and read some more.
“Hey get this; during a revival of the play in 1947 one of the cast went after her fellow cast members with a knife during dress rehearsal. They subdued her and canceled the performance. The guy who wrote the play, Chambre, was a notorious Occultist who died under mysterious circumstances and the play is believed to be cursed.”
He looked up and whistled. Joey was standing there in the dress. He wasn’t doing full on drag with wig or makeup but the dress did something for him.
“Nice!” Matt said. Joey had done an amateur drag show at a local club the night when he and Matt had first made out. That had been their sophomore year of College. They were still taking classes but hadn’t graduated. They were “an item” if not officially a couple.
“Glad you like it,” Joey said. The voice somehow wasn’t quite his, it spoke of an earlier time and ancient things that had not all crumbled to dust. “I serve the Ravager. Dark Dolggna and the Low One.”
Joey advanced on Matt. He was holding a screwdriver like a knife. The point looked dangerous.
Joey swiped at Matt barely missing him.
“Hey, what the hell?” Matt yelled. Joey stabbed at him again cutting Matt’s shirt and drawing blood from his shoulder. There was a look in Joey’s eyes that wasn’t Joey.
“You will be for the Servitor an entry into greatness.”
“Joey!” Matt yelled as Joey moved in. But Matt had dated biker guys, he aimed a kick at Joey’s crotch doubling him over. Matt quickly pushed Joey down on the ground, knocked the screwdriver away and jumped on top of him. He clutched the fabric of the dress as Joey struggled and snarled; it felt warm, humming, alive.
“This stuff is cursed,” Matt said. “I don’t believe it but it is,” Matt said. He began to rip the dress off Joey. The ancient fabric gave away and tore easily and in a moment Joey stopped fumbling for the screwdriver and stared up with a blank expression.
Matt tore the rest of the dress of Joey, leaving him there in his t-shirt and jeans.
“What the hell is going on?” Joey breathed. He looked up at Matt. “Did I? Was I? Oh my God! That wasn’t me!”
“Yeah, I know.” Matt said. “There’s evil in this stuff. Your Aunt was right.”
“What’re we gonna do?” Joey asked.
“Burn it out back.” Matt said. “In the dumpster. All of it.”
He helped Joey to his feet and then they kissed for a moment, Joey not noticing that Matt had tossed the screwdriver under the cabinet on the wall.
“I bet Aunt Belinda wanted it burned anyway.” Joey said.
“Let’s not wait to ask her.” Matt said, picking up the big cardboard box of clothes from the ancient play.
It wasn’t as if they’d never burned old stuff before, Matt reflected. He followed Joey out as he tossed the torn-up dress in the dumpster and fumbled around in his pockets for a lighter. Matt was balancing the box full of clothes in his arms and had put the old derby on his head, making it easier to carry. Matt remembered that Joey had always admired his muscles. Matt worked out a lot. So it was easy for Matt to use one of the costume’s belts to throttle Joey from behind.
Matt let Joey’s body fall to the ground and pressed the hat down more firmly on his head. There would need to be more sacrifices, he realized. He walked back into the shop remembering where Joey’s aunt kept the pair of scissors, the names echoing in his head as they were once called out in lost Carcosa; “Hastor! Hali! Uoht! And Icy Thabbas!”
They would see blood run…
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay, “Kill Your Gays” is a trope I justly despise, but I figured what the hey! And I dedicate this to the late writer Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933) with thanks for the inspiration! —-mike
First, here’s the prompts for the September 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Horror Story
Involving A Dumpster
Set at A Costume Shop
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 Ten of Hearts (a Horror Story), the Jack of Diamonds (A Costume Shop) and the Queen of Clubs (A Dumpster.) So we will write a Horror Story, set in a Costume Shop, involving A Dumpster.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday September 16, 2024.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 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
Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, if we find the gold, maybe we could split it with Giancarlo, if he’s still your boyfriend.”
“He’d like that,” Luc said, as he stepped inside the room. I picked up the device from where Luc had set it down. It was heavy, but I was able to swing it and connect with the back of Luc’s head with a sickening crunch. He fell to the floor.
Giancarlo had been my boyfriend.
Nasty when old friends have a falling-out like that, isn’t it? (I feel like the Crypt Keeper!) Next week something just as fun!
“Golly Captain Ecology!” Compost Boy whispered. “Why are we staking out the Labs on tonight of all nights?”
“My sources tell me that The Chicken Queen has been nesting in Goat’s Town, and with his vast intellect and thirst for power the labs are his most likely target.” Captain Ecology said. “Why their work on computers alone could…Compost Boy are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah, Cap. It’s just that…well I guess…”
“There you are, caped do-gooders!” came the familiar, nasal voice, a voice somehow tinged with a leer. Captain Ecology thought it sounded like the actor who was in the center of that tick-tack-toe game show. “I’ve got the plans for the technology that will revolutionize storing information right here in my grubby hand!”
Holy floppy discs! Will our heroes escape? (Do both of them want to?)
Next week, we travel someplace very dark (but there’s tea!)
You have to understand about my Uncle Gil. He always meant well. He invented a light bulb he said would never burn out, but it blew out the power for the entire block when we tried to use it. He’d had it plugged into the generator at the old farmhouse outside of town he used as his laboratory.
He tried shooting something into the clouds to make it rain but it just made a bad smell.
Then there was the incident with the peach tree.
Uncle Gil had a bunch of trees on his property, usually fruit trees including one with crab apples which he let the birds get. He said it was part of an experiment and I never found out what. But that was back when I was about nine years old.
Anyway when I was about fifteen he fenced-off one of the peach trees and said he’d been busy crossing and splicing them for years and finally “got the consistency.” The peach tree wasn’t that tall and the peaches were nothing to brag about; they were small and green like the under-ripe ones my brother and I used to pull off the tree in our own backyard. But on closer inspection they were bluish-green under the covering of fuzz.
“They’re perfect!” Uncle Gil said.
He explained that he had crossed a peach tree with cuttings from an African Baobab tree; “a tree that can be used for anything,” he declared.
“And these little gems will save households millions,” he said, holding up one of the little green peaches. It was about the size of the screw top of a bottle of soda.
“What do they do?” I asked.
“They’re laundry detergent!” Uncle Gill said. “Natural laundry detergent! Toss one of these in with the wash with a load of clothes and they’ll be clean as a whistle! Can you imagine how much money people will save by growing their own detergent?”
“Have you tried it?” I asked, eyeing the peach the way I would a big cockroach. I’d seen Uncle Gil’s experiments work and I’d also seen them go haywire.
“Of course I’ve tried it, Jason my boy!” He turned around twice and I realized he was displaying the clothes he was wearing. “I did my own laundry with a peach this morning!”
I had to admit his clothes looked really clean.
“Here, you try it out!” Uncle Gill pulled out a small paper bag and proceeded to plop several off the mini-peaches in and hand it to me.
I managed a “thanks,” wondering what I was getting myself into.
“Remember, just one peach per load,” he said. “Unless you have a really big, dirty load.”
I nodded and rode my bike home, hanging on to the little peach bag.
It was the weekend and Mom and Dad were out so I grabbed my gym shorts, sweatpants and sweatshirt, went downstairs to the laundry room and tossed the clothes in the washer along with one of Uncle Gil’s peaches. (Mom and Dad had made sure I knew how to do stuff like do my own laundry part of “helping around the house.”)
About a half hour into washing I opened the washer and inspected the load. My sweatshirt, shorts and sweatpants in with water and suds. Just like a normal load of laundry. I shut the lid and turned the wash back on wondering if the peach would leave a pit. I’d kept remembering TV shows where a kid tried to do laundry and filled the house with suds.
Two hours later the clothes were washed, dried and back in my room.
Next day in Gym Class I was wearing those clothes when Coach made us run laps outside first thing. That was when I really broke into a sweat as it was one of the first really warm days. And the first I noticed anything was wrong was when Kenny Beasley ran past me yelling “Run!”
A couple of other kids ran past me too and I glanced behind me and saw the line of kids who had been jogging along scattering every which way. And over them was a huge cloud of what looked like little dots swirling in the air, heading my way.
Bees.
After me.
I had already turned on the track and was heading for the gym and I don’t know if I set a school speed record but I made it back inside, tore off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the inside floor and ran for the locker room slamming the door behind me. I hid there until Coach pounded on the door to be let in.
He said bees were swarming around my discarded clothes and I explained all about my Uncle’s crossbred peaches. I wasn’t sure he believed me but he made me shower and change into my street clothes. By then they had somehow shoved my gym clothes (and the bees) outside and left them there.
“An unforeseen side effect,” Uncle Gil said. “Your sweat must have activated something in the formula that made it attract bees. Maybe some kind of hyper sweetness. You know, this could be a boon to beekeepers.”
I never found if he sold the peach tree process to any beekeepers. I just know I gave him back the bag of laundry peaches and went to buy new gym clothes.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
I graduated about six years ago (Lanier said, sipping his drink) with degrees in archaeology and biology. In a roundabout way I found myself attached to an Antarctic expedition within a few months. A Sir Borthwick-Leslie, whose family had been Arctic explorers since Victorian times, was sponsoring an expedition to the Antarctic, what he called “the mastery of the ice,” and I signed on. It was a heady rush to be on such a prestigious endeavor and I was filled with excitement. It didn’t hurt that I had become involved with Carleton, one of the other young men they had hired, he from one of the British Universities.
Here’s more. (Where’s my parka, it’s getting chilly!)
The expedition went much as you would expect; a flight to the southern tip of Africa, then Australia, then New Zealand. From there we were flown to our base in Antarctica. It was then that we were told the true nature of our trip: the leader of the expedition had found evidence in manuscript, with ancient photographs, of a once-thriving civilization beneath the surface of the Antarctic. If we had a way, some of us might have left right then. But we were largely stuck there for the season. Somebody grumbled that we had traveled all that way “to follow some Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy.”
Nice and cool, huh? Next week I’ll have something really wonky! ‘Till then—-jeff
“Well, here’s how we solved it,” the Detective said. “They weren’t smuggling anything on the trains, that was what misled us. The stuff was coming in at the airport. We’d stopped the trains several times but didn’t find any of the contraband.”
“Then what?” The young officer said. He hadn’t been there.
“The trains were flat cars shipping large containers across the country, almost like those storage bins people rent to keep their stuff in. Every color of the rainbow. Red, Green, Yellow. But every now and then they would have a bunch of pink containers. We thought that was what they were shipping the stuff in, but we were wrong. It was a signal.”
“A signal?”the young officer asked.
“Yes, to the guy at the other end. That it was time to tell his guys to go to the airport. It was perfect. No electronics or anything that could be intercepted and it worked perfectly for him.”
“How so?” asked the officer.
“When we knew the signal was coming, we staked him out and followed his men to the airport.”
“What signal?”
“The Detective smiled. “Pink was a color he could easily make out. We found out our suspect was color blind.”
FULL DISCLOSURE: This review probably contains a spoiler or two.
‘Nathan Burgoine’s novel “Triad Magic” is the last in a trilogy that began with “Triad Blood” and continued with “Triad Soul.” Set in a version of Burgoine’s adopted hometown of Ottawa, Canada, a world where Vampires, Wizards and Demons (among others) stick to their own kind and bond in groups of three. But the Demon Anders, the Vampire Luc and the Wizard Curtis have formed their own triad to build their lives and stand against the forces that stand against them either from their own kinds or from others.
What follows in “Triad Magic” is danger, drama, intrigue and romance as the three (who are all LGBT) not only deal with the mystery of who (or what) is killing those with gifts to see the future in Ottawa (How could they not see it coming?) but with the ramifications of their own relationship? Are they a thruple or just friends? Are they even that? Will they live to find out?
“Triad Magic” is full of the sights, sounds and feels of the Ottawa that people see every day as well as the magical one most people don’t see. Neighborhoods in the city, a mysterious shadow realm walked by demons and even a Parliament Building the tourists won’t see are all finely drawn.
Characters, including our main triad, come off as very real as they love, lie, live and die and participate in the mystery that fills the book. And the reader cares about Curtis, Luc and Anders. In the moment when it appears they may go their separate ways we hope they won’t.
There are magical methods of murder and healing, ancient vampires who were around during pivotal events, a mysterious book with seemingly blank pages, stolen magical artifacts and ties to a long-ago historical fire. All blended together by Burgoine’s skill as a writer.
