"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Author’s Note: The draws for the October 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were A Romance on the Interstate involving a Rusty Musket. Here’s what I came up with.
The two forty-something men’s car barreled down the interstate.
“Hey! Slow down, will ya?” Rusty said. “You want us to get pulled over?”
“Speed limit’s seventy around here,” Tony said.
“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting.” Rusty said. “Changed it since we used to drive home from college.”
“That would be screwy if the cops pulled us over and found that gun in the trunk of our car!” Tony said.
Rusty laughed. “Then they’d see it’s falling apart and hasn’t fired a shot since Concord Bridge rudely unfurled in Seventy-Five.”
“Yeah, and it’s rustier than you are!” Tony laughed.
The two men both laughed. Then Rusty sighed.
“You know, I really lucked out the day I found the perfect man to go antiquing with…or to do anything with.”
“Yeah!” Tony said with a broad smile. “If we weren’t heading home I’d kiss you right now! But I guess I’ll have to wait!”
Rusty pointed ahead. “Don’t have to wait. Rest stop ahead,” he said.
“Well, I guess we don’t have to wait,” Tony said, flipping on his turn signal.
“Yeah, because I can’t wait,” Rusty said. “Three bottles of unsweetened tea! Yipes!”
The two men laughed again as they turned into the rest stop.
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
“The Three Phases of Ghost-Hunting” is Alex Brown’s contribution to the YA Halloween anthology we sampled last week where all the stories involve YA POC and the writers are also POC. Me? I’m incredibly white-bread. (My middle name is “Skip,” you don’t get whiter than that!)
Here are some snippets as two friends investigate a haunting in the mall after-hours.
The ghost of a pirate haunts the Golden City Mall Food Court.
Well, okay, the pirate doesn’t haunt the food court because it’s a food court…According to local legend, Terrifying Bob allegedly buried his forbidden treasure one thousand paces inland from Angler Rock. And yes, Angler Rock was responsible for his ship wrecking. Or that’s how the story goes, anyway. Nowadays, that would put Terrifying Bob’s treasure right under the middle of the food court.
Hungry for more about this supposed mall ghost who floats napkins and makes food vanish?
So that’s why I’m spending Halloween in the Golden City Mall food court—dressed as a fashionable witch—with my best friend, a microphone, a few tea candles and a to-go box of Sbarro pizza. Sure, we could be going to a cool party, or getting jump-scared in our town’s haunted corn maze, but instead we’re doing a public service. We’re going to accomplish the impossible; contact Terrifying Bob and ask him to leave the napkins and Sbarro in peace.
It was late afternoon when Billy Delaware’s doorbell rang.
The man who stood there was six-foot-one, a little bit of a gut, red hair and beard that were going white. Billy could see the long shadows of the warn October afternoon and the fading green on his small boat on its trailer in front of the house.
“Hi, I’m Charles de Salle,” the bearded man said. “I saw your ad in the Eagle about the boat.”
“Oh, oh yeah,” Billy said. He remembered placing the ad and being surprised that nobody called about it.
“Are you sure you want to get rid of it?” Charles said. It’s in great shape.”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “I don’t use it anymore. My Brother and I used to go out on the lake on the weekend but he got married and moved and I’m kinda busy with work and all.”
“Damn shame to lose it,” Charles said. “I mean, it’s not the Nautilus or anything but it looks like a good serviceable boat.”
“Yeah, I know.” Billy said.
“Well, maybe you just need someone to help you with it,” Charles said.
He leaned over and kissed Billy full on the lips. After a moment of pure bliss, Billy started to laugh.
“That is NOT how it happened seventeen years ago!” Billy said.
“I wanted to ad-lib this year!” Charles said, laughing too.
“Okay, we’ll give you a Tony Award,” Billy said, kissing him again.
It was a sentimental thing, recreating the moment they had met. They started doing it after Charles had been living there two or three years on the anniversary. The irony of the whole thing was that Charles had bought Billy’s boat but when he moved in a year later he brought the boat with him and parked it in the same place in front of the house.
“Hey, what do you want do do for dinner?” Charles asked.
“What did we do on that first date?” Billy asked.
“Went out for coffee at Riverside Perk,” Charles said, laughing again. “And that’s when I asked you your name! I’d forgotten to!” They both laughed.
“Hey, it’s warm enough,” Billy said. “Let’s order that box of tacos from the taco place and eat them out in the boat.”
“Right in front of the house.” Charles said, kissing him. “Such a sweet, romantic man.”
On the wall beside the bookcase in the hallway of their cozy suburban home, framed and under glass was that original ad that Billy had placed seventeen years ago: Beautiful Pea-Green Boat.
NOTE FROM JEFF: I’m turning this over to my alter ego Skip Hanford (the side of me that writes more erotic, kinky stuff) as he basically wrote this new story! —–jeff
Hi! I’m Skip and my new story in “RoMMantic Reads” is called “At Auction.” A fantasy/paranormal kink thing that is based on a couple of things. First: my wishing that I’d been able to be “out” when I was in College about 40 years ago. Second: some kinky stuff I have fantasized about doing when I was with my closeted boyfriend in the mid-1980s.
It also has some hints of the kinky dystopia I use as a background that I (Skip) am using in a longer story/novel that slothfully working on!
And I wouldn’t mind looking like that alternate world version of Ty; minus the scar, tatts and that blinking light thing!
First, here’s the prompts for the October 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Romance
Involving a Rusted Musket
Set on the Interstate.
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 (and hopefully have one of my own written!) the week of October 16th, 2023.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the Five of Clubs (a rusted musket) the Four of Hearts (a romance) and the King of Diamonds (the interstate.) So we will write a romance, set on the Interstate Highway (or any highway!) involving a rusted musket!
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week!
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 love anthologies! Especially YA anthologies! This snippet is from Wednesday Books’ new YA anthology “Night of the Living Queers.” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61775756-night-of-the-living-queers the book’s theme is LGBT People Of Color (writers as well as characters) set on a Halloween Night with not only a Full Moon but a Blue Moon! (Yes, the second Full Moon of a month on the 31st will always be a Blue Moon.) Of course, very strange things happen on this Halloween with stories running the gamut from comedic to affirming to tragic.
My snippet is from Kalynn Bayron’s story “The Visitor.” I love this description of the anticipation of Halloween. It reminds me of my Grade School days. Of course, Toya has other reasons to want that night to get here…
All day I counted down in hours. Big chunks of time seemed to go by quickly when I kept track that way. But in the afternoon I switched to increments of thirty minutes, then fifteen. The anticipation grew as the moments passed…By the time the sun tucked itself behind the horizon and the clock lurched past the 8:30 P.M. mark on Halloween night, time felt like it wasn’t moving at all. I looked at my phone for the hundredth time that day.
Yeah, a flashback to October nights around 1969 for me!
Next week, something else from this cool anthology, something a little goofy! —-jeff
We knew something was wrong when we stepped out of the hotel.
My younger brother Zander and I had gone with our Dad on a business trip, staying in some town on the edge of the Malacruz Mountains. We’d bugged Dad to take us up on the ski lift which ran for tourists all through the summer but he was busy.
He always said he was busy.
The snacks at the hotel were expensive, at least a buck-fifty for a small bag of chips seemed expensive back in 1975 when I was fourteen and Zander was twelve. So early that evening we decided to go to the gas station which was only half a block away. But we stepped out the hotel’s front door, stopped and stared.
We could see the Malacruz Mountains in the distance but they weren’t their usual mottled brown and green; they were covered in snow. A cool breeze was stirring up. I glanced up and down the street; a lot of the flat roofs of low buildings were replaced with pointed domes like I’d seen in an Arabian Nights cartoon. In addition to cars there were several horse-drawn wagons on the street. A few of the people walking around were wearing flowing robes.
“I know this is California, but this is crazy,” I said.
Zander was pulling on my shirt and pointing at the mountains. There was a pinkish-white full Moon rising over the snow-covered peaks.
Zander stammered. He did that sometimes when he got excited. Or scared.
“G-G-Gordie! Th-the Moon! It’s full! It’s not supposed to be full, it was full last week, remember?”
Zander was the one who was into Astronomy and was always trying to take closeups of the Moon and stars by holding his little Kodak up to the eyepiece of the telescope. Me? I was into sports and checking out girls and guys. (But I hadn’t told anybody that last part yet!)
“Let’s get back into the hotel,” I said, grabbing Zander’s shoulders and steering him back through the doors. I stared again; the big stone pillars were now carved images of tall, thickly-muscled men holding scimitars at their sides.
Inside, the hotel lobby now looked like a set for a sultan’s palace in a movie. Big pillows on the floor had replaced the chairs and couches. There was a round pond full of glittering fish in the center of the floor under a round skylight. But the hotel desk was still there even if the desk clerk didn’t look familiar. I walked up to the desk, pulling Zander along with me, both of us trying not to gawk at the lobby. I felt that a lot depended on our acting like nothing was different.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Gordon Hankins. My brother and I are here with our Dad, Alexander Hankins and we got turned around. Could you look him up please? I think he’s in Room 786.”
I was hanging on to the hope that we’d gone out the wrong door.
The desk clerk gave us the once-over and flipped through the registration book. He was, thankfully, wearing a conventional suit and tie.
“Alexander Hankins, Senior,” I said. “We checked in three days ago. It was Monday.”
The clerk ran a finger over a list of names.
“Noooo,” he murmured to himself. He looked up. “No Alexander Hankins registered here. And we don’t have a Room 786.”
“This…this is the Broadway Hotel, isn’t it?” I was trying not to panic.
“Of course,” said the clerk. “But there’s nobody by that name here.” The clerk gave us another once-over. Our shorts, sneakers and cartoon t-shirts felt way out of place.
“Are you two wanting to check in?”
I barely had enough change for the chips and soda I’d planned to buy. I managed a “no” and half-walked, half-pushed Zander through the front doors and out onto the sidewalk.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I certainly didn’t plan on starting another serial, but here it is! (I already have one going on in “RoMMantic Reads” https://rommanticreads.wordpress.com/2023/07/15/jeff-baker-at-the-market-of-the-two-dark-moons/ ) By the way, those aren’t mountains in the prompt pic (taken by me, by the way, from the second floor of the Wichita Public Library where this story was written!) they are clouds! And I have seen the Moon rise over mountains—beautiful! —-jsb
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
My snippets this week are from a nearly-forgotten hard boiled detective novel by Lou Rand called “The Gay Detective.” It takes place in “Bay City,” a thinly-disguised version of San Francisco. First published in 1961 and only recently reprinted. Here’s a link: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/491567.The_Gay_Detective
One complaint about the book is that the detective Francis “Frank” Morley puts on an effeminate manner. Here, Morely’s tough, ex-football player assistant “Tiger” Olsen is discussing that with Police Captain Starr. Olsen is speaking first in this snippet.
Olsen has apparently learned a few things…
“Yeah we got together. Down at Sandy’s Gym. Morley knocked me on my ass twice in five minutes, just for thinking what you think.”
“Oh, no! You mean that guy can fight too?”
“That I do.” Olsen rubbed his jaw reminiscently.
“Well then, why the hell does he act—”
“I don’t know Captain,” Olsen cut in. “Maybe it’s some kind of Eastern gag.”
There was no breeze but the late September evening was cool. Stephen Bauer stood by the big barbecue grill and watched the flames and sparks rise upward. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. It was tradition, the last cookout of the year.
Stephen’s Grandfather (who he had never known) had started doing the end-of-September cookouts decades before and Stephen’s Dad had continued the tradition. Stephen’s brother, Mom and cousins in town (and their kids) all looked forward to it. It was sort of the last party before Fall really kicked in and schoolwork became intense.
Stephen smiled and glanced around. Over the fence he could see the other trees and houses in the neighborhood. He glanced through the kitchen window; some of the family were piling buns, and hot dogs on plates and grabbing ketchup and mustard. They’d have to get the flames to calm down; they were way too high.
And after the hot dogs somebody would sing the old song about the last rose of Summer.
Stephen closed his eyes and spread his arms, imagining himself rising with the sparks and looking down on the neighborhood.
“Hello, Fall,” he whispered.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This little vignette was not what I planned, but it just popped into being. Happy Fall, everybody! —–j
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