Hoops of Fire

It's a tough job market in this suffering economy. The main character of this story finds out the hard way.

Hoops of Fire

The bride glides slowly down the aisle, her lace and taffeta train trailing behind on scattered rose petals. Her father is somehow beside her, there for her special day, smiling despite discomfort in his stiff tuxedo. The crowd murmurs approval as they look on, but they blur as she focuses on her beloved standing at the altar, looking so handsome as he awaits her arrival. She cannot wait to spend her life with him, so she speeds up, her father and the violinist adjusting their paces, anxious for the moment when the priest will pronounce them husband and wife.

As they join hands, she feels the spark of a magical electricity course through her. The priest starts to speak, and the bride gazes lovingly at her groom, noticing her beaming reflection in his eyes. She glances away momentarily as the priest asks her to repeat after him, and when she turns back, her fiance’s eyes have clouded over. Sweat is pouring off his brow, drenching his face and dripping onto his starched ivory collar. His forehead creases as if he is suddenly fraught with worry, but then it flakes off in chunky layers, exposing an oozing mass of muscle and soft tissue below. The bride’s mouth drops open as his face suddenly melts away, falling to a puddle of flesh at her shiny sequined ballet slippers. He continues smiling broadly as he leans forward for a kiss.

Deeply Wrinkled

I wrote this one for a contest themed "The Kitchen". Some of this is based on actual events, unfortunately.  

Deeply Wrinkled

The blade slices through the threads that hold the buttons onto Marian’s shirt, one by one, with agonizing slowness, until she is left exposed and breathless. As unwavering hands tear her blouse from her shoulders, she lets out a gasp. Norma tries to call out in her defense, to stop her mentally challenged son from whatever he is about to do. Instead, her voice comes out a low, inconsequential gurgle as she struggles against the restraints that bind her. The blade continues, now on Marian’s bare skin, winding up her side, circling around her breast, scraping against her ribs as they jut in and out with her ragged breath. When the knife reaches the hollow of her neck, she tries to scream, but the tip has plunged into her soft flesh far enough to render her mute.

Juicy

I wrote this for a contest with the theme "cryogenic accident". My boyfriend came up with the great concept. He's very creative. My muse, you could say. I put it into action. It was a wonderful, collaborative effort.

Juicy

The glare of the stage lights blinded me as I peered out through the convex glass of my new home. I’d moved around so much in my short life, from the Winthrop Vine to the crate to the truck, and then aboard a freight train for a long while, it was hard to tell which end was up. Now I was here, wherever that was.

 

Mahogany

I'm entering this story into a contest for Writers Digest. The prompt is: Your return to the home where you grew up, only to find it condemned. The story has to be 750 words or less.

Here's what I came up with:

Mahogany

A roaring vibration yanks me from a slumber filled with deeply satisfying dreams of sinking my teeth into the silky richness of dark mahogany. Sometimes, I imagine feasting on a syrupy maple or a crisp evergreen, but these musings are much less palatable. The blaring sound shakes our home to its core, inspiring my brethren to scurry about. I sense their panic, and it incites me to jump up and follow. It is now time to leave our home forever. I know this as surely as I am running frantically down the tree I call home. I was told this day would come, but I didn’t expect it quite so soon.

My New Alligator Shoes

My New Alligator Shoes

Chingola, Zambia – 2010

     In a remote village on the outskirts of the Congo, the Urdubongo tribe was being terrorized by a particularly vicious alligator with a yellow streak across its head. Unlike the other alligators in the region who stayed near the water and only attacked when provoked, this one crept up when least expected, destroying their huts, demolishing their livestock and even devouring a few of their newborns. They chased him through the brush with poisoned spears, but he had speed unlike anything they’d ever seen and seemed impervious to the toxins that killed everything else they hunted. They set up clever traps for him, but somehow, he always managed to escape. They began to believe that the alligator was possessed by the Mambu Fosim, an evil warrior spirit born from the souls of enemies they had slain in the Tambika Revolution. They considered relocating to a spot north of the Waadhu River, but they feared they would never be safe.

     After another baby was claimed by the Fosim gator, the men of the tribe huddled in a hut to discuss their options. The women of their clan gathered outside, crying for yet another life lost. As the men argued about where in the jungle the good spirits were most likely to find and protect them, they heard loud popping sounds outside. They rushed out with spears poised to find a white man in their midst. When they saw what he held in his hands, they stopped in their tracks. The white man backed away slowly, all eyes on him, dragging an alligator with yellow markings across his head marred by the blood of two gunshots. As he disappeared into the forest, the Urdobongo men and women broke into song and dance. After years of being stalked by the Fosim alligator, they were finally free.

Thunder Thighs

Here is another story I wrote around the theme "lucky". This one is very different from the "Luckiest Girl in the World." I'm now debating which to enter in the contest.

Thunder Thighs

     Just call me Thunder Thighs. Everyone else does. Ever since the fifth grade end-of-year pool party, when I dared to wear a swimsuit in front of the whole class, I’d earned the nickname. My mother had told me the suit she bought me at the mall would be flattering, its skirt hiding my worst parts, and although I didn’t really believe her, I wore it anyway. I wanted to have fun like the other kids, playing Marco Polo and volleyball in the pool, celebrating the end of elementary school. I’d been called other names in the past, like “piggy” and “fatty” and “lard ass”, but this one for some reason hurt the most. And when they called out to me with this name, it was usually followed by a “whoosh-whoosh” sound to imitate my large thighs rubbing together. The name stuck all through junior high, and now that I was in high school, a whole new set of kids were learning my lovely nickname.

The Luckiest Girl of All

I wrote this story for a contest with the theme "lucky". There were no further directions than that. This story is purely fictional, and it's maybe a little different than the style I've been using.

The Luckiest Girl of All

     The room was unnaturally quiet for a change. The students were busy taking their midterm exams, and Maria paced the aisles, searching for cheat sheets and wandering eyes. She had warned them sternly to turn off their cell phones before the test, so when hers started ringing loudly from her desk at the front of the room, every eye was on her. Some clucked their tongues, and others giggled. Her face grew hot as she rushed to turn the thing off.

     “Sorry,” she whispered while fumbling for the phone. She silenced it and returned to her pacing.

Fly on the Wall

I wrote this story in the past few days for a contest. The theme is "invading privacy". The notion of what it would be like to be able to be inside someone else's mind has always intrigued me, much like a fly on the wall in another's consciousness. I'm still working on it, but here's what I have so far.

Fly on the Wall

     I was always a bit too curious about other people. I often wondered, or even obsessed, about what drove them, what their innermost truths were. I don’t know what prompted this unnatural inquisitiveness, but sometimes it took hold of my attention like the jaws-of-life to a wrecked car, incessantly pulling and prodding until its contents were ultimately released. Wide-eyed on many nights, sleep but a whisper of hope extinguished by my churning speculations, I wished I could be a fly on the wall in others’ minds, sharing their secrets and desires, understanding their motivations, making sense of those I found senseless. However, when I finally got the chance, the experience was not what I imagined. It was much more terrifying.

Under the Milky Way

I wrote this story recently, after an experience similar to the one in the story. I had to get an MRI because of a weird buzzing in my ear. However, my ending was a lot better than the main character's in the story!

I may enter this one into a thriller/suspense contest. I was trying to write a horror story, but I don't think it fits that genre as well. What do you think?
　

Under the Milky Way

            “You’re going whether you like it or not!” Randall’s mother bellowed over the phone, but the buzzing noise in his ear drowned out her high-pitched voice almost completely.

            “You don’t understand,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “Final exams start in just three days. I have to study!”

            “Yes, you do need to pull those grades up, but the MRI is already scheduled for this afternoon. I can’t just change it at the last minute. So, I’ll pick you up at two sharp.”

Soul Crossing - Prologue

This is the prologue to a novel I've been working on for the past two years. I thought I'd lost it when my old computer died, but thankfully, I found it again recently! I think I'll keep at it.

Synopsis

During the biggest snowstorm to hit Detroit in years, two cars collide on the black ice shrouding Davina’s Bridge. In that instant, the souls of the drivers intertwine, repeating the tragic events that befell Davina and her lover so many years before. Trent walks away unscathed while Kendra suffers severe injuries, falling into a coma for nearly three weeks. When she awakens, she is paralyzed from the neck down and unable to speak more than a whisper. In a world completely out of her control, she must rely on her increasingly distant fiancé, the despondent nurse assigned to her and the cop who risked everything to rescue her.

When Kendra enters a dream world induced by the myriad of drugs coursing through her IV, she finds herself as an observer in Trent’s mind, unable to do anything but watch as he plans the perfect murder.

Trapped in the insidious state of Trent’s diminishing sanity, Kendra must find a way to stop him before he exacts a revenge that will shatter the lives of many.

April's Fool

Here is a short story I wrote recently in response to a prompt about finding something unexpected in your glove compartment when pulled over for speeding. It had to be less than 725 words, which was quite challenging, but ultimately made it pretty concise. Hope you enjoy!

April’s Fool

     If Sophie’s hair hadn’t turned orange, I would never have thought I’d have to marry her creepy brother.

      We were getting ready for the biggest party of the year, and her hair was downright polka-dotted a sickening shade of tangerine. I tried not to laugh. But when she looked up at me with sheer panic, I couldn’t contain myself.

Mommy's Coming

This was my entry for the WritersWeekly.com 24-Hour Short Story Contest. I had to respond to a prompt given at a certain time and had 24 hours to write and submit my story in 925 words or less.

Here is the contest prompt I had to write about:

She was standing on the porch of a sagging cabin with bright yellow leaves collecting around her feet. As the cold wind billowed her skirt, she shivered and wondered if the owner of the purse really lived here. She knocked timidly and the door quickly opened, revealing a tiny girl holding a hideous, bald doll...

Here's what I came up with:

Mommy's Coming!

     "He still doesn't think my boobs are big enough. I just can't seem to win with him, you know?"

     "Hmm..." Derek said, trying to look elsewhere. Instead, he focused on the box she held with ribbons cascading down the front. "Why don't you put your gift on that table and perhaps we'll discuss this later."

     As the woman sauntered away, Derek heard giggling behind him. "They just don't leave you alone, do they?"

     Derek turned to find his sister-in-law wielding a large knife. "Guess not. You would think that even though I'm a psychiatrist, my wife's baby shower would be off-limits."

Magnificently Magnified

Here is another story I wrote for a contest. The deadline had already passed, but I wrote a story anyway just for fun. It's a bit twisted, but I liked how it came out. What do you think?

Here is the contest prompt:

She always kept the object safe and close to her. Mama made her repeat the promise over and over again during those last days. "I will never show it to a living soul. I will never show it to a living soul."

She cried about Mama less now, not as much as she had before. She was missing Mama now as she did each night when she removed her scuffed shoes. She then carefully peeled the gray sock off her foot, and waited for the familiar object to fall out. Nothing happened. Panicked, she quickly turned her sock inside-out. It was gone.

Here is what I came up with:

Magnificently Magnified

     I am Alex, the one in charge. Even when the others take over, I pull the strings from the balcony.

     I dial 911 and wait for the dispatcher to ask the nature of my emergency.

     “There’s a car fire on Interstate 27, right past the Love Ranch on the southbound side,” I say with mild panic. After the dispatcher promises to send out a patrol car, I click off and throw the disposable phone into the woods behind me. I wait patiently.

The Dead Man's Letter

This story I wrote for a contest, but I decided not to submit it yet. I think it needs a bit of work. It had to be less than 4000 words, and I had some difficulty getting across what I wanted to in that word count. So, now I'm debating whether to expand the story into something more significant or try to cut it down to submit for the contest. I like the idea, anyway... Oh, by the way, it's actually based on a true story. Something somewhat similar happened to me. I got a letter from an inmate in prison, but it was to the wrong person!

The Dead Man’s Letter

     The only joy in my miserable life was my daughter Ariana. Each day when I went to pick her up from nursery school, I felt almost human. On a warm Friday in April, I was in a panic because my boss at my new job kept me after and I was terrified I wouldn’t have dinner ready in time. I rushed to fetch Ariana, thinking of some sort of meal I could throw together quickly, when the playground teacher stopped me.

Dropping Eve

I wrote this story recently. Imagine if you overheard someone on their cell phone plotting to kill someone. What would you do?

Dropping Eve

     Senility had embraced my mother with great fervor, and her latest pastime was sending me odd and unnecessary gadgets she saw on television. Every week or two, I could look forward to another package waiting in my mailbox. There was the special dog collar that controlled excessive noise. What a clever and useful item, if only I owned a dog. Then, there was the pickle picker-upper, to prevent one from getting their hand caught in a pickle jar. That was certainly a common problem that needed a remedy costing $9.95 plus shipping and handling. My favorite was the bra extender, which would have been perfect if my size A breasts would ever suddenly bloom into a size B. Then, such an item would surely come in handy. If she hadn’t sent the latest must-have gizmo, I may have never killed the blonde girl with the pink beret.

The Meaning of Perfection

The Meaning of Perfection

     None of the day’s events would have happened if the new nanny hadn’t called in sick. At 6:30 that morning, as Dr. Mika Landis stirred from a deep sleep filled with disturbing dreams, her new AppleSoft MindPhone announced loudly that she had an important call. Before she could figure out how to turn it off, Jania’s sickly voice was on the line, interrupted by bouts of coughing, apologizing profusely that she couldn’t make it there that day. Jania had only been with them for a few weeks, so it came as a surprise that she was already asking for a day off. Normally, Mika would have taken the news in stride, but she had two satellite radio interviews and a DTV show to do and it wasn’t a great day to be so highly inconvenienced. What was she going to do with Zendra now?

Death Quotient - Part 1 - Chapter 1

Below is the beginning of another novel I've been working on. It's in a very rough form right now, but I think it has many possibilities...

Death Quotient

Synopsis

A reality show like no other has aired all across the country. What makes this particular show unique? Its contestants are unwilling participants, a group of citizens kidnapped from their daily lives and forced to be the stars of the show. And now it is up to the voters to determine which contestant should die each week and how their lives should be ended. It is up to the other contestants to enforce the punishment that the voters decide, or they shall pay the consequences.

.

PART ONE – The Tragedy at Limelight Bay

Chapter One

     “I just can’t do this anymore!” a tearful blonde said as she hovered for a moment of privacy in her tent. Her face flushed redder than her persistent sunburn, and she wiped at her eyes with shame. The more she tried to stop the steady flow, the harder her tears fell.

     She tried to control her breathing, repeating the same mantra to herself over and over. “This will be over soon. You can do it. This will be over soon. You can do it.” The more she told herself this, the insipid self-doubt that was always lurking beneath her confident facade denied her the ability to calm down. Instead, she grew more agitated.