"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Jack gripped the wheel, his fists opening and shutting.
Just drive, Jack, he kept saying to himself. Just drive.
Don’t freak out. Speed limit. Watch the stop signs.
Rob and Joey are in the back seat. Trying to stay calm. Don’t speed over the damn speed bumps, it’ll make the stuff in the trunk bang around.
Maybe get hurt.
How much money were they going to get? Rob said they were just dealing in money. Maybe in bootleg hooch like that guy Capone.
He hoped Eddie wasn’t too uncomfortable banging around in the car trunk. Not too uncomfortable with his hands and feet tied or the big gag stuffed in his mouth.
Stop light ahead. At the intersection. Pull up easy. Stop. Yeah.
Deep breaths. Deeeep breaths. You can do this.
Oh Hell. Cop. Right beside me. At the stoplight.
Come on light, turn. Turnturnturn.
What’s that banging? Someone shooting? And that noise?
Just got my autographed (thanks, Jeff!) copy of “Three Left Turns to Nowhere” from Bold Strokes Books. The anthology features three interconnected Gay romantic novellas set in the same little town.
Three groups of strangers on their way to a science fiction convention in Toronto, find themselves temporarily stranded in the town of Hopewell, Ontario thanks to breakdowns and a large, toppled tree on the roadway. Once in Hopewell they find that the town’s reputation for being “magical,” especially when it comes to bringing couples together, may be more than idle rumor.
The stories are “Roadside Assistance,” by Jeffrey Ricker; “The Scavenger Hunt,” by J. Marshall Freeman and “Hope Echoes,” by ‘Nathan Burgoine.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the March Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Horror or Dark Fantasy, set at the Bottom of the Ocean, involving a Broadsword. So I drew my sword and put on my Robert E. Howard hat.
Sorion the Wild stared at the bubble that surrounded the ancient City of the Prophets. The bubble was thin and murky, like the few soap bubbles Sorion had seen. He rubbed his thick biceps with one hand, clenching the hilt of the broadsword with the other. He stared at the curious fish which poked their noses against the bubble which held back the deep dark green of the ocean..
Only the magic of the Prophets of Kesh held back the force of the sea and kept the inside of the bubble filled with fresh air.
Sorion had fought his way to the city through the fabled Tunnel of Snakes beneath the ocean and he wiped the greenish blood off the sword on the sea grasses that grew on the ocean floor. The broadsword had cleaved monsters before and doubtless would again.
“Ho, foolish mortal,” came the voice of the sorcerer. “You are all that stands between myself and the sacred library.. Stand aside or die!”
Sorion did not know how the sorcerer had gotten there. Doubtless by sorcerous means, he did not look like he had fought through a tunnel of serpents. He did know that the sorcerer could not enter the library if it was defended. Powerful magic saw to that.
“I fear no wizard, certainly not you Elam of the Crossed Plains,” Sorion said defiantly, planting his sturdy feet on the somehow dry ground. “Bring on death! I have faced him in combat before and defeated him!”
Sorion stood several hands taller than most men and his arms and legs were the thickness of young trees. His loincloth shimmered with worn threads of gold and the bands around his chest were inlaid with the skulls of the evil ones he had defeated.
Elam the Sorcerer, standing tall next to the bubble wall, waved his ancient arms and a section of bubble parted like a curtain and the water held back as a figure strode through—a skeleton holding a sword, a glint of half-life in its eye sockets, shreds of tattered clothing clinging to its form.
“You face my First Sword-man, my Herald,” Elam called out. “You face death!”
Sorion raised his sword.
The sounds of battle echoed off the bubble and the stone walls of the city. Sorion’s broadsword striking the skeleton’s blade. The scuffing of Sorion’s sealskin boots on the ground. The skittering of the skeleton’s feet, the clatter of its bones with every strike. Sorion’s grunts as he thrusted and struck, missing the bones by a coin’s width.
He imagined every thrust going into the chest of the sorcerer Elam. He saw the bubble, the sea, the skeleton and his sword tinted in a haze of red.
The skeleton’s sword hissed in the air. Sorion felt a sharp tug as some of his hair was sliced off of his head. As the hair was falling to the ground, Sorion swung his sword and this time connected with the skeleton’s spine. Sorion’s sword arced through the air and the skeleton’s ribcage shattered. A backward thrust and the skeleton’s sword arm fell to the ground. Sorion readied a final shattering thrust when something bit into the back of his leg.
The detached arm had slashed out with the sword.
With a howl of rage and pain, Sorion plunged his sword into the skull of Elam’s First Herald.
The skeleton clattered to pieces. The skeletal arm dropped the sword.
The sorcerer laughed and applauded.
“Well done, Sorion the Wild. You have shattered my Herald, but as you will see, he was only the first!”
The bubble-curtain parted again and a line of sword-wielding skeletons marched toward Sorion, swords held high.
“I have an army of all the dead in all the oceans at my command!” Elan said. “How long can you stand and fight?”
The sorcerer cackled evilly.
“And then you will join my army of the unwilling dead. Forever!”
Sorion tensed his muscles and gripped his sword as the skeletons clattered forward their grins fixed in silent laughter.
Among my favorite TV shows to re-watch is “Soap,” the soap-opera spoof from the 1970s (which I saw first-run.) The picture prompt for this was a young father holding his young daughter. I always wondered what happened to Burt and Mary and Mary’s gay son Jodie and his little daughter. So I did this version and set them about ten years after the series ended.
This first snippet is a bit over six lines, but what the hey! Liz has awakened her husband Carl. She’s been fretting about the picture of their son and his little daughter…
“What picture? What about a picture? I thought you loved that picture.” Carl said.
“Our son has a baby,” Liz said. “We’re grandparents. We’re old. I’m old.”
“Forty nine isn’t old.” Carl said.
“Forty nine years, three months and six days.” Liz said, sulking. “Next come wrinkles, age spots, grey hair. I’m old. Oh, God, I remember ‘Your Show of Shows’ being on when I was a kid.”
Here’s snippet two:
“I guess I’m just in one of those moods,” Liz said. “But I love that picture of Jeremy and little Margie. Oh, my God…My Little Margie! I just realized! I wonder if Jeremy caught that?”
“He’s Gay, of course he caught it,” Carl said. “I’m turning out the light.”
Snow flurries were skittering through the air as the huge black dog jumped in the snow. He hadn’t been in snow in a long time.
“Cerberus!” came the voice. His master kept himself from saying “here boy!”
The Elysian Fields gave away quickly to the icy purgatory where the dog was merrily romping. His master, Hades, Lord of the Underworld, stalked across the plain in his dark armor. Hades grumbled under his breath that while black spiked armor was intimidating to the newly-dead it was no good for trudging after a wayward dog.
Usually Cerberus stayed at the entrance where he was supposed to, as a guard dog to Hades’ realm. But sometimes he wandered off.
“The Hell with it,” Hades muttered. “Here boy! Here boy!” The Lord of the Underworld whistled for the first time in hundreds of years and was rewarded with a happy barking. But not with the sight of the animal bounding towards his master. He did see the dog’s tracks in the snow, however.
“All right, all right,” Hades grumbled again as he trudged on the ice. “Here’ boy! Come on!”
Hades quickly realized that armored iron boots were no good for walking on ice and snow as he slid, then slipped and landed with a clatter on his backside.
The sound echoed off the icy walls and over the icy river that ran through the realm, a river of woe and torment. In the river, the six young men in thin tunics had been shivering hip-deep in the icy water since the Trojan War. They hadn’t smiled in all that time. Now they were laughing at the sight of Hades sliding on his butt on the ice.
Hades paid them no heed. He saw Cerberus romping in the snow a few yards away. He had a thought.
“Here boy!” Hades called loudly as he tossed a snowball in the dog’s direction. Cerberus happily yapped and dove for the snowball which burst between his jaws. His only set of jaws, it was a Greek writer who had never seen him who started the story that the dog had three heads.
The dog looked up expectantly, happily wagging his tail.
“Here, boy!” Hades said, waving the snowball and tossing it in the direction of the Elysian Fields which those condemned to the ice fields could neither see nor enter. The dog barked and happily ran in the snowball’s direction followed carefully by Hades.
“Good boy, good boy,” Hades said scratching Cerberus behind the ears. The dog gave his master the look which universally said: “Where did my snowball go?”
“Come on, we’ll find something for you,” Hades said as he and the dog walked toward the main portion of the Underworld.
Hades made a note to himself to contact Hephaestus about making iron boots with better traction in snow. Because he wasn’t running after the dog in these slick boots again.
My (as Mike Mayak) latest story “Nereus” appears in the new online magazine “Orion’s Beau, Quarterly,” alongside work by Stephen Mead and Sarah Butkovic in the premiere issue; Spring 2022.
My special thanks to editor Solomon Robert for making the issue look so good!
The magazine features stories, poetry and artwork of the fantastic, all in the LGBT spectrum.
First the results: The draws for the March 2022 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a Four of Hearts, a Four of Clubs and a Five of Diamonds (low cards again!)
Meaning the story prompts for March are:
A Horror of Dark Fantasy
Set at the Bottom of the Ocean
Including a Broadsword.
Now for the details: The Flash Fiction Draw Challenge is a monthly flash fiction challenge done for FUN (no stress!) and started by ‘Nathan Burgoine and continued by Cait Gordon, Jeffrey Ricker and now Jeff Baker (ME!)
Basically, I draw three cards of different suits that correspond to a list of an object, a setting and a genre. Anybody who wants to play along can write a flash fiction story (1,000 words or less, we aren’t picky!) and post it here next Tuesday, March 15th. (I’m running behind, so take an extra day!) I’ll post the results for all to enjoy!
A touch of New Year’s in March, now; another of my weekly Friday Flash Fiction stories, this one from December 31, 2017. I hadn’t expected my Bi private eye Andrew Navarro to become a series character but I did another short-short about him a few months ago. And Andrew hadn’t expected to work on New Year’s Eve until an old friend practically begged him. And he definitely didn’t expect murder to intrude on a simple security job. This snippet helps set the scene in my story “WRUD New Year’s Eve?”
His request was simple; stay sober, keep an eye out and troubleshoot if necessary. The hotel had security but with two floors full of hard-drinking partiers they wanted to take no chances. The hotel rooms all opened out onto windowed hallways with a view of the city, and there was a big conference room at one end of the top floor which had been converted to a makeshift ballroom with streamers, signs saying “Happy New Year” and a cash bar. There was a table to one side where the D. J. was going to set up later, but the partying had already started, I saw about four guys sitting around, drinking beer and laughing. Another couple, both with graying hair, were kissing in the hallway outside their room, one of the two men reaching behind him and fumbling for the doorknob.
Have fun guys, I thought as I walked past the closing door.
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/RainbowSnippets
D’Andre walked through the back corridor of the gym. Fast. He checked his smartphone. It had been an hour-and-a-half. Place wasn’t busy but it was the middle of the week and everyone who lived on campus was probably in the cafeteria. If they ate.
And D’Andre wasn’t sure about that anymore.
He’d been shooting hoops that afternoon after class and had been pulling on his sweats in the back of the locker room. He thought he was alone in the gym but then he heard Coach’s voice talking with someone else, explaining about how “it was working” and how D’Andre didn’t suspect that it was all set up for his benefit and he hadn’t realized that nothing else on the small college campus was real.
Not the school, not its history, not its people. The basketball team D’Andre had been recruited for wasn’t real; their website was a fake.
D’Andre came to the back door. Locked. Usually he could get out that way. It was never locked from the inside.
Somebody knew. They knew he had found out. They couldn’t know.
There Was a “click” and then the lights shut down, except for the exit lights.
They knew.
D’Andre ran down the hall to the side door. He tried it. It opened. He ducked out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Where to go? No car. The dorm? No. He hadn’t trusted his roommate before, he certainly didn’t now.
He had to get away from there. He clenched his fists. If he had to, he’d walk back to Arkansas.
D’Andre glanced around. Man, the place is deserted. And it wasn’t just dinnertime. Usually there was at least somebody walking by on the street or even some kid on a bicycle. And the offices in the Administration building had just closed, people should be going out to their cars to drive home.
Where were all the people?
He’d tripped an alarm somehow. That was it. But what was he here for?
“There he is! D’Andre!”
He didn’t recognize the voice. He didn’t recognize the huge vehicle that was bearing down on him.
D’Andre ran, ran for his life; the huge thing close at his heels, lights piercing the dusk.
authorjeffbaker 