Tag: terribleminds (page 26 of 31)

Flash Fiction: Mr. Caine

Courtesy Scouting NY

My attempt to write an unlikable protagonist.


The phone always rang at the worst times. And in this case, it was the worst person calling.

“This really isn’t a good time.”

“Then why didn’t you let it go to voice mail?” Her voice, as always, had tinge of obliviousness that he simultaneously thanked and cursed her for.

“Because I know you don’t call this number unless it’s damned important.”

“I’m calling because it’s your son’s birthday this week.”

He glanced to his left, placed a finger to his lips and shook his head.

“Yes, I know. It’s Thursday.”

“He said he’d really like it if you were there.”

Oh, God damn it. “I’ll do what I can. I’m out of town at the moment. Business.”

“Oh?” She sounded genuinely curious. “Where are you?”

“It’s best if I don’t say.” You wouldn’t like ‘in an empty office building nobody ever uses except for things like this’ as an answer. “Look, my clients are sensitive people. They don’t like people knowing where they are at times like this.”

“And you have to be there in person? You can’t arrange things like this from your office?”

The office I don’t have? “They trust me. They prefer to have me close by to coordinate things on site. They need me.”

“I just think your son needs you, too. That’s all.”

He rolled his eyes. “I really do not have time for this. I will do my best to be there. Okay?”

“Oh. Okay. Do you want to talk to him?”

For fuck’s sake… “No, I can’t right now. I have to go.”

He hung up before she could say another word. The man in the chair made a noise. The duct tape made it as hard for him to form words as it did for him to get out of the chair. The estranged father put his cell phone back into his coat pocket.

“Sorry about that. Now, where were we? Oh, right, you were about to tell me what you’ve done with Mr. Vugatti’s merchandise. Let’s talk about that, okay, Steve?”

There was another muffled protest from Steve. The man shook his head and reached into the toolbox he’d brought along. He selected a pair of pliers, grabbed Steve’s left pinkie finger with them, and pulled until something snapped. Steve’s scream was distorted by the tape. The man reached up and yanked it off.

“I’m sorry, Steve, what was that?”

“You… you bastard… just… just let me go and… and I’ll tell you.”

“No, no, Steve, it doesn’t work like that. You tell me what I want to know, and then I set you free. Have you never played this game?”

“Game? This is my life, man!”

“Steve. Steve. I need you to focus.” He broke the other pinkie. Steve howled. “Where’s the merchandise?”

“I… I gave it to someone. For safe-keeping.”

“Well, that was probably smart. You’re a smart guy. So do the smart thing, and tell me who this person is so I can get Mr. Vugatti’s stuff back, okay? I mean, if you’d sold it like you were told to do you wouldn’t be here, and I know you don’t want to be here.”

“He… he works down at the docks.” Steve had to spit blood out of his mouth. He’d already been hit a few times before the phone rang and the duct tape went over his mouth. “Pier Sixteen. His name is Terry. He’ll know… he’ll know which container the merchandise is in.”

“Good. That’s good, Steve. I can work with that.” He put the pliers away and closed the toolbox, turning away.

“Wait! Wait! You said… you said you’d let me go!”

The man stopped and turned back. His suppressed Nighthawk 1911 was in his hand.

“No, Steve.” His tone was sympathetic. “I said I’d set you free.”

He raised the gun and fired. The suppressor made the gunshot slightly louder than a snap of the fingers. Steve’s head snapped back, then rolled forward, blood and mucus seeping from his mouth and nose. Sighing, the assassin unscrewed the suppressor, slid it into his coat pocket and holstered the gun as he fished out the phone.

“Lilith.”

“Hello, Mr. Caine. I take it you were successful?”

“Yes. Have Mr. Vugatti’s people come around to their office building to clean up Steve. I have to track down another lead.”

“You know he won’t be happy with another delay.”

“He’s the one who wants professional results. If he doesn’t like it, he can find someone else do clean up his mess.”

“I understand, sir, I was simply making sure you were aware of the client’s inclinations.”

Mister Caine got into his sedan, placing his toolbox on the passenger seat. It was the only name he gave in professional circles, the only name by which Lilith knew him. By the same token, he didn’t know her real name, nor how she’d found him after the CIA had burned him. They didn’t like the excuse of ‘incendiary devices are tricky’ when an entire floor of a hotel had burned and nearly taken the whole building after he’d misjudged the device’s mixture.

“I’m fully aware, Lilith, thank you. After you get off the phone with his people, I’ll need a personnel manifest for Pier Sixteen. First name Terry.”

“I will get right on it. In the meantime, may I suggest you make time for your son’s birthday party?”

“Lilith, I told you. Listening into my phone conversations is rude.”

“Keeping your line secure is difficult, sir. If I am listening I can ensure nobody else is. The fact remains that your son has asked for you to be there.”

“If you heard my name, or his, that would be a serious breach of security. Think about that. That’s your job.”

“My job, Mr. Caine, is to keep you alive and working. And if you see your son, you might remember why being those things are good for you. No more excuses.”

She hung up. Caine fought the urge to shoot the phone.

Flash Fiction: The Thraben Witch

Inspired by Magic: The Gathering and prompted by the Terribleminds Flash Fiction Challenge: One Small Story in Seven Acts


Courtesy Wizards of the Coast

Let them call her ‘heretic’ if they wished. She was a witch, no more or less.

Thalia and the priesthood were never comfortable with her kind. Humanity, they professed, had no need for the tools of the arcane, and such things only drew the attention of the darker denizens in the night. She didn’t begrudge the people overmuch for their fear. Drinkers of blood and changers of shape stalked the shadows outside the city; why tolerate something equally dangerous in their midst?

Staring at the manor house, though, Victoria wondered how many knew what lay within.

She’d observed the comings and goings, the parties and the banquets. Always by night, never under the light of day. The vampires of the house of Markov knew better than to dwell within the walls of Thraben. Yet these were doing so, right under the nose of the supposedly watchful clergy. The Doomsayers and her siblings both told her to stay away from the mansion. She knew in her heart they meant well, but to let these creatures live within the walls unchallenged was folly. So in spite of her better judgement, there she was, alone, knocking on the manor door at sunset. The slot in the door opened slowly.

“Yes?”

“I need to see the lord or lady of the house immediately.”

She held up a symbol of Avacyn, the archangel to whom the clergy prayed. The red eyes behind the slit narrowed.

“We have no business with the church. Begone.”

“Then I will tell them vampires dwell here and the manor will be put to the torch at first light. Good evening.”

She turned on her heel.

“Wait.”

Pausing, she looked over her shoulder. The sound of the latch opening was like a snapping bone. The door creaked open slowly and a pale hand gestured. She approached, the Avacyn symbol dangling from her wrist. The servant stepped aside and allowed her to enter. The receiving hall had a high, vaulted ceiling. As she walked in, the candles in the chandeliers came to life of their own accord. The feeling of dark power was palpable and seductive. Victoria swallowed and marshaled her mind.

The door closed behind her and the bar came down across it. Servants and guests moved slowly out of the shadows, watching her with red eyes. She turned her attention to the figure in the gown that floated just above the staircase.

“To what do we owe this unexpected visit, my child?”

“I have come to ask you politely to leave Thraben and never return.”

Silence filled the hall. Then, the woman began to laugh. The others joined suit. Victoria held up her hand and conjured a light. It wasn’t a great trick, in and of itself, but the intensity of the light was comparable to the noonday sun. It shut the vampires up immediately.

“Do you know who I am, witch?”

Victoria looked up at the lady of the house. “A vampire.”

“Astute. I am Drusilla of Markov, formerly Drusilla of Thraben. I was driven out because I, like you, expanded my mind beyond the clergy’s bounds. And I, like you, know that light is nothing but a conjurer’s trick.”

The vampires hissed. Victoria grimaced. She brought her hands together and poured all she could into the light. It filled the hall for a moment, causing the monsters to cry out. She ran for the nearest door as they recoiled.

“It was an illusion, you fools!” Drusilla’s anger and hunger seethed through her voice. “Capture her! I want her alive!”

Victoria pushed away thoughts of what horrors awaited her as she scrambled through the mansion. She found a staircase leading up, held back from taking the first step by cold fingers around her wrist. She spun, a stake in her other hand, driving it deep into the vampire’s chest. Blood exploded from the wound as the monster fell back. Victoria vaulted up the stairs two at a time, cursing her own stupidity. Why didn’t she listen to her sisters and brothers?

Several of them had flown up to the roof to meet her. She snapped her fingers, bringing fire to their tips, generating heat along with the light to complete the illusion. Before she could draw another stake, however, another vampire grabbed her by the shoulders from behind. The flame went out and the others approached. Victoria closed her eyes. She tapped into the well of power deep within her, convincing herself that releasing all of that power, all at once, was the only way to keep Thraben safe, even if she were to burn with these creatures.

As her clothing caught fire and the vampires began to burn, she was aware of another presence on the roof. Beyond the flames, golden eyes watched her. A dark coat and white hair were caught on the wind. Vampires on fire released her and fell to the streets below. The fire was breaking through her defenses, and soon it’d be searing her flesh…

“Enough.”

The word, whispered and deep, quelled her fire and sapped her strength. She held herself, suddenly aware of the evening’s chill, as she knelt by the chimney. Long fingers gently lifted her chin, and she stared into a face that both tugged at her heart and filled it with fear.

“You’ve got potential, Victoria of Thraben. But if you burn yourself up (and I do appreciate that irony) it’ll all go to waste. So you’ll go home, and I’ll deal with these wayward children of mine.”

His eyes became her world, and the next thing she knew, Victoria was at home abed, in her threadbare nightgown. The window of her loft was open, the morning breeze giving the curtains life. She walked downstairs to find a pile of vampire heads on her porch and a gathering of frightened townsfolk on her lawn.

Some said Avacyn had saved her. But she knew the truth.

The lord of Innistrad had returned. And given this carnage, he was not pleased.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Present Tense

Courtesy Lady Victorie of DeviantArt

Another dubious idea prompted by Terribleminds.


I’m dreaming of home.

I can see endless green and amber fields, feel the grain between my fingers. I hear the distant ringing of the bell bringing us in for dinner. My mother insists on being as old-fashioned as possible, while not skimping on things like transportation and communication. She just keeps the Cyberlink rig in an old writing desk. I love her dearly, all the moreso for her quirks.

I can tell it’s a dream. Everything looks like I’m wearing a big piece of gauze on my head. The sounds are all a bit muffled and the sights are hazy. But it’s a good dream, so why not enjoy it? I can smell Mom’s pot roast, and there’s Jenny, dear sweet Jenny, smiling her bright smile when she sees me coming in the door. She’s helping Mom around the kitchen, learning the trade so to speak, so when we get married she knows how to cook for me.

I’m sitting down when the klaxon goes off.

It’s specifically designed to put a virtual spike in my ear to get me out of whatever dream I’m having, asleep or awake. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. One moment I’m feeling the wood of Mom’s antique dinner table under my hands, the next I’m in my bunk and red lights are flashing. I roll out and am in my uniform pants after about half a second. My boots come on next. I’m pulling on my jacket as I run into the corridor. The brass of my captain’s pins looks angry in the alert lighting. Enlisted folk are scurrying from place to place, heading for battle stations.

I don’t think there was a drill scheduled for tonight. It’s not like Commander Weston to pull one at this hour of the rotation. Something isn’t right.

I get to the command center in the heart of the ship. It’s a vaguely circular room with a couple raised diases around what we call the pool table, where Commander Weston and his XO are studying a tactical display. The helm’s in the pit on the far side of the room. I step down into the cold steel ditch and relieve the chief petty officer at the helm. The second I bring up the navigational array I see the problem.

The Argo is making her way through an asteroid field. I remember telling Weston we’d have to drop out of neg-space to get through it without damaging the ship. This far out, we all know even a stray rock the size of my fist can damage us catastrophically. That isn’t what surprises me. It’s the heat signature on the far side of the field. In space, the slightest bit of ambient energy can be as much a beacon as a flare held up in a darkened room.

Whatever it is, it’s turning towards us on an intercept course.

Weapons crews are reporting in. Point-defense laser batteries, ready. Missile tubes, ready. Main cannon loading crew, ready. I give Commander Weston a nod. I have a part to play in all of this, as well.

The Argo, moving with as much velocity as she does, isn’t really apt to stop on a dime. I need to fire maneuvering and retro thrusters very quickly if hard light and rockets start flying around.

“Line them up, Mr. Frimantle.”

Weston doesn’t have to tell me twice. I get the Argo on a course to clear the asteroids and turn her to face to oncoming heat bloom. Her main gun is a mass driver the length of the ship, and all of the aiming happens at my helm console. I think of my dream, the farm at home, my dad taking me out to show me how to line up a rifle’s sights.

I’m telling Weston we’re ready to fire when the transmission comes in.

It’s a loud, screeching thing, high-pitched chattering and scratching. Nobody can make heads or tails of it as it is. But Natasha’s on it. We brought a linguist along just in case something like this happened. Everybody back home scoffs at the idea of intelligent life out here. The eggheads know better. They’ve given us all sorts of contingencies for just about everything, from encountering alien artifacts to running low on food.

I’m not taking any chances, though. I flip up the red cover from the firing switch for the main cannon. We’re lined up. The unknown heat signature’s barreling down on us. I look over my shoulder at Natasha. She’s attractive, sure, but her dark hair always reminds me of Jenny. I wonder, for a moment, what she and my parents are doing now, then wrench myself back to the situation in front of me. I’ve been in combat before, but this is new. I know what to expect from Terran ships and their operators, not so much something no human’s ever seen before.

The visual sensors blink to life in the monitors above the pool table. The thing is spherical, unlike the Argo’s construction of rotating rings around the propulsion & weapons pillar. Spires and odd antennae sprout from all angles. It’s engines seem to be situated in grooves that divide the ship into quarters. Occasionally I see a flare of light and I wonder if it’s a weapon or an engine firing. But nothing’s blown up yet. No damage or casualty reports. The tension in the CIC’s thicker than summer haze in the fields at noon.

Natasha looks up from her console. Her big blue eyes are wide. She takes a deep breath.

We’re all holding ours.

Book Review: Double Dead

Courtesy Abaddon Books

Ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed? It’s terrible. You’re bleary-eyed, groggy, sore from where your spouse has been elbowing you in the ribs all night to stop your snoring… and you’re starving. It’s that stomach-gnawing hunger you just can’t shake until you’ve devoured half the pantry. If that sounds familiar, you’ll immediately relate to the protagonist of Chuck Wendig’s debut novel Double Dead. Excepting of course that Coburn’s a bloodsucking fiend.

That’s not hyperbole. When we meet Coburn, there’s no question that he’s a monster. Vampirism has not turned him into an upper-class snob or a glittery mewling fangless stalker; Coburn the vampire’s an asshole. He knows it. He revels in it. It was what made his nights so much fun until he woke up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. He hooks up with an RV full of humans heading to the West Coast and, being no fool, volunteers to protect them in exchange for the occasional nibble. Better than getting torn limb from limb and your brains eaten, right?

On the surface, Double Dead is deceptively simple. It’s the sort of premise fans of the horror genre and zombie fiction will find immediately appealing. Diving into it, though, we quickly find these dark waters run very deep. Sure, there are a couple characters who get picked off here and there because it’s the end of the world and everything, but many of them have enough dimension and living, breathing presence that its clear there’s more going on than a simple monster mash-up.

I can’t say it’s for everybody, though. The squeamish will want to avoid it, and be forewarned that Chuck is his usual (and in my opinion, delightfully) profane self. But chances are, being a novel about zombies with a vampire as its driving force, you know already if Double Dead is interesting to you or not. I challenge you, though, to find another zombie apocalypse yarn with a Wal*Mart cult of cannibals, wilderness fortifications manned by juggalos and the scariest thing in a pink bathrobe you’ll ever encounter.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Three Random Photos

Even psychopath’s have emotions if you dig deep enough    :implants and extentions!small valley

Courtesy Ye Olde Terribleminds Prompte


He’d first caught a glimpse of her true form after two years in the lock-up.

They couldn’t fool him. Words like ‘hospital’ and ‘mental ward’ were kindly terms for ‘prison’. He was a prisoner. He couldn’t remember why they kept him here, feeding him chunks of dog food in sewage gravy, denying him his shoelaces and talking to him like he was five years old. But he hated it. He hated every second of it.

Every once in a while, there had been peace; moments that blended together into a meaningless lump of dulled senses, vague lukewarm sentiment and pithy reinforcement from the Beamer-drivers in charge. He remembered week or month-long stretches of time in which he felt calm but not himself, like he was always wearing earmuffs and a thick, gauzy veil. They would call it ‘happy’ but he considered that too strong a word; no strong emotion applied at all when he felt that way. ‘Normal’ was an even more bogus term they tossed around. It never lasted. They kept trying to put him back there, though, with upped dosages and increased voltage and longer group therapy sessions.

And then he saw her.

It had just been out of the corner of his eye, at first. A glimmer, a phantasm, a touch of whispered laughter. As time went on he’d see another wisp, get a longer view of what may have been smoke, hear her voice over his shoulder more clearly. At first he told himself he was hallucinating, that it was the drugs or something. But she became harder and harder to ignore. She’d touch his shoulders in group, brush past him in the hall, even visit him in bed at night only to leave him alone in the morning with sweat and sticky sheets. By that point nobody could convince him that she was fake. How could the only good thing left in his life be imaginary?

Her presence brought things into focus. The drugs stopped working. The shock therapy became a distant thing, pushed aside by her presence. He’d burst out laughing in group because she whispered something funny in his ear. He wanted to be with her so much it hurt, but it was something they’d never allow. So even before she told him how to do it, he was thinking of escaping.

When he threw a chair at the small, old-fashioned television, people were surprised. The tube tossed sparks in a really impressive fashion, and once they died out he saw what he needed on the floor. Orderlies came running in, a couple with syringes and one with a taser. He wasn’t going to let them stop him. He scooped up the biggest shard of glass from the floor, and when the stun-gun guy came at him, he opened up a long bloody hole in the orderly’s scrubs. There were screams and more blood and before he knew it he had one of the nurses by the throat, screaming for the door to open as he held the glass to her pulse. The weak men obeyed and he was free.

He ran through the corridors to find the stairs. He wasn’t sure where to go at first, then he saw her beckoning him upwards. He took the stairs two at a time and when the door opened, sunlight washed over him. Blinded for a moment, he held up his bloody hand as his eyes adjusted. Apparently they had lied to him. He wasn’t in a hospital downtown.

He was on the mountain trail where he’d met his wife.

The memory flooded back with razor-sharp clarity. The view was gorgeous, spreading out below him like a green and brown carpet. He’d been hiking the trail and found her sitting off to the side with a sprained ankle and a busted bike. He’d let her lean on him as he carried them both down the mountain. They visited the mountain many times before and after they were married.

Things were good for a while. Before the miscarriage, the booze, the fights and the tears. Before she’d get angry at him for so much as looking at another woman. Before he started having trouble holding a job. Before he’d come home to find her in the tub with a glass of wine, a bottle of pills and wrists slashed open.

He’d never understood why she’d left him alone like that. Didn’t everybody have trouble with relationships? Weren’t all marriages rocky at times? He’d told her they could work it out. Why didn’t she believe him? He’d wept for her, wrapped her in their wedding-gift bedsheets, carried her outside and set the house on fire. The judge had ruled ‘not guilty due to mental defect’ and that was how he’d been in that hospital.

Only she hadn’t left him alone. She had been there, smiling at him, laying with him, reminding him of the good times they’d lost but could have again. And now she toyed with him, laughing a little, beckoning him closer. He took uncertain steps, the gravel beneath his feet not the familiar gravel of the mountain trail. Not anymore. The trees were replaced by air conditioning units and TV arials. The valley was no longer full of forests but now full of cars and, directly beneath him, started gawking people. Cars with flashing lights would arrive.

And there she was, somehow floating off the edge of the hospital. Her smile was radiant. He could see her clearly, now, when before it had been just a glimmer. She held out her arms. Her wrists were whole. He wanted to badly to lose himself in her embrace, forget all the darkness, be her husband again. He stepped towards her.

“Be with me,” she whispered.

His feet touched air. His body tilted forward. He was still reaching for her. Maybe she was really still waiting for him. He smiled on the way down.

Be it heaven or hell, he’d find her.

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