Wednesday Prompt: Taxi Ride

A/N: As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every Friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Taxi Ride
Word Limit: 300

‘Let’s go through this one more time shall we Mr. Smith.’

‘Smythe, my name is Smythe, how many times should I have to tell you this. I’ve been involved in a crime. Show some professionalism.’

The police officers stare blankly at Robert Smythe, ‘Please, continue.’

‘I was on main st. It must have been about 10 o’clock. I’d had a few drinks with the boys after work, O’Malley’s. We were at O’Malley’s. We got a lift home together, James watched to catch an Uber or Lyft or some shit. I dragged us into a taxi. You gotta look after them, they are losing their jobs. So it’s all fine and we are dropping everyone off. Dave first, then Andy. Then it was just James and me in the taxi’

He stops for a moment, takes a deep breath and continues.

‘Just me and James, and the cab. It pulls onto the interstate entrance. I told the guy that he was going the wrong way. But he just stared out the front, his dead charcoal eyes not moving. We banged on the plexiglass barrier. He didn’t turn, James eventually tried to open the door to jump out, but they were locked. He must have driven until well after sunup, except for. Well. The sun didn’t come up. It was just dark, what must have been like 18 hours later I fell asleep. I woke up at home, I don’t know how. I called James to see if he was alright, but his phone has been disconnected. He never pays his bills on time. I called Dave and he is pretending not to know James.’

Robert looks at the two police officers sitting in front of him. ‘Shouldn’t you be writing this down? James is missing.’

One officer shuffles some clearly blank paper. ‘This would be James McFadden?’

‘That’s right.’

‘We’ll make some inquiries Mr. Smith, thank you for coming to us so promptly.’ The officer says as he gently ushers Robert Smythe out the door.

334 words.

Wednesday Prompt: Super Secret Hawaiian Punch

A/N: As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every Friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Super Secret Hawaiian Punch
Word Limit: 100

I think they call it a luau. There has been dancing, which was cool and everyone wore grass skirts. There was so much food, all cooked until the meat fell apart as you ate it.

But that isn’t why I’m writing about this. I’m writing because of what I drank. It’s some kind of super secret Hawaiian punch. There was rum, vodka, and I think some triple sec. But there was something else I could not place.

I begged people all night to let me in on the secret to the punch and no-one would until the very end of the night as I was leaving an elderly woman whispered in my ear ‘It’s pineapple liqueur.’

117 words.

Wednesday Prompt: Put on your slippers and Let's Rock

A/N: As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every Friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Put on your slippers and let's rock.Word Limit: 100

‘Simon!’ I hear a familiar voice cry from some very distant place. The name washes over me without meaning.

‘Simon!’ There it goes again, but I’m being shaken this time. I am Simon. Simon, the man who has now been rudely awakened 3 times this week by his annoying roommate.

‘Simon, you’re awake. Excellent, throw on your slippers.’ He excitedly babbles.

‘Wha..’ is all I manage to get out before I am being forced into my slippers and out the front door.

‘I have tickets to this awesome rock concert.’

‘Rock concert?’

92 words

Wednesday Prompt: Fold Out Beds

Authors Note: So I've been bad, It's been two years since I last posted. Which isn't ideal for a "weekly" prompt. I have however been writing while I was away, and I am pretty much up to date (or as up to date as I plan to get) So without further ado my weekly prompt. As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every Friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Fold Out Beds

Word Limit: 100

I’ve been here for four days now. A few have been here longer. Eight days since frail old Mrs Johnson hobbled into the shelter with her dog, Spike. It’s still here pretty early, so I have a fold out bed to myself. If you got here two days ago, you have a bit of floor space, roughly the size of what a fold out bed should be allocated to you. The people are still pouring in, at least they are trying to. I can’t be sure, but it looks like the little army officer running this place was turning people away this morning.

103 words.

Wednesday Prompt: Yargh! Pirate Zombies

Authors note: a bit late again, but at least I got this one written before getting the next prompt. I am a few words over again for this story. I could have edited it down a few words to get within count, but I am doing this for fun. and editing is no fun. As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every Friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Word Prompt: Yargh! Pirate Zombies.

Word Limit: 600

“Row harder men, we need to get over these waves.” The first mate yells at us. We are all so tired but we keep rowing hard towards the shore of the small uninhabited island we happened across. Our muscles bulging as we pull our oars, taking us every further away from the blazing ship we have abandoned.

The longboats nose drags in the sand, I jump out and help pull her up further on shore. In the distance the burning mast finally snaps and smashes through the weakened decking. The fire rising into the sky creates what looks like a second sunset.

How did we get here I hear you ask? You will never believe me, but for the thousandth time I will tell the story anyway.

It was a normal breezy summers day, I was a manning the crows nest when I saw it on the horizon. A small ship, making great speed in our direction. I called out to let the captain know and he climbed up into the nest with me to see if he could see anything else.

It wasn't long before we saw the flag through our spyglass. The flag was black with white on it. We couldn't make out the imagery on the flag, but the colours could only mean one thing. Pirates.

The ship was making good ground against us, but there was still a lot of time to prepare. To their credit the men did prepare for the pirates as well as could be expected on a merchant vessel with no cannons on her. The men with personal flintlocks made sure their pistols were ready, and there was enough swords aboard the vessel for every man to have a cutlass in hand when they arrived.

When they did arrive it was quiet, with nary a shot fired towards us. The sun had set, but the moon was full and allowed us enough light to fight by. The schooner maneuvered well into position beside us. Then they came.

The first one swung across trailing rope behind him, someone fired their flintlock to no avail. There was a man on board, he dropped what he was holding and drew his cutlass. The hooks he had been holding onto slid across the deck and dug themselves into the planks. The ropes attached to them pulled taut and across shimmied the pirates. 

An ungodly roar sounded from behind me as the captain opened fire with his blunderbuss, it took a man in the chest just as he climbed aboard and he fell overboard. The crew clashed fiercely with the pirates.

One came up upon me, he was clearly dazed in the confusion of battle and I neatly stepped forward and speared him in the gut with my cutlass. It sunk through to the hilt. I was now right beside the man, I could smell his breath, it was horrifying, the smell of death and decay. 

He batted me aside and I fell to the ground. I watched as he pulled the sword from his gut, it made a squelching popping noise as it came free. He frowned at it, then tossed it aside. I couldn't tear my gaze from him, I watched as he proceeded to take a bite out of the captain.

I will admit, I don't know much about what happened next. I am ashamed to admit it, but I ran and hid until they were gone. There was a lot of shouting, it was sunrise by the time they left. I saw the flag whipping around as they cast off with most of our cargo and half the crew as food. The white devil piecing a red heart, the jolly roger of Blackbeard and his zombie crew.

Three days later we cast the ship free of anchor, doused in pitch and set alight. The wounded crew had all since passed away and begun to turn into zombies themselves. We tried to kill them all one at a time, but another crew member was bitten in the process. We just threw all the bodies in the hold, lit the ship on fire, and rowed to a nearby island.

Word count: 694 words.

Wednesday Prompt: Blue door, Red door.

Authors Note: As always, I am late as heck with this. I wrote it on my lunch break at work and never got around to transcribing it to post. As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

This week Sasha gave me a much longer in depth prompt as apparently that is what I do to her a lot. The full prompt is "You are in a room, it is dark with only one light in the centre. To the left is a blue door, to the right a red door. What happens next?" I've shortened it in the title for ease of reading.

One final note, we try to keep our stories within 10% of the word limit, this one blew out to almost double that. I really like the story the way it is, and I didn't want to have to go back and edit something I barely remember writing. So I have left it as it is. Sue me.

Word Prompt: Blue door, Red door.

Word Limit: 700

I look behind me but the door I entered through has vanished. There is only the blue door, the red door and the dim bulb hanging from the ceiling swaying silently even though there is no breeze, making my shadow dance behind me.

I put my hand on the red door knob, it is cool to the touch and a shiver runs down my spine. I slowly open the door, there is a white room, it Is large I cannot see the walls or floor, it is all just a blinding white. A little way ahead of me is a chair. There is someone sitting in it, the chair is facing away from me. “Hello?” I say “Can you help me? I don't now where I am.”

I hear a loud HONK! As the chair slowly spins around. First I see the fluffy red hair. The shiver down my back intensifies, it is as if a bucket of ice water has been thrown on my back.

HONK HONK goes the clown, I can see him fully now, his baggy yellow clothes, his comically over sized red shoes, his face painted white with a laughing smile painted on.  His real mouth cracks open into a grin, upon close inspection it is clear that his teeth are razor sharp and filed into points.

He is starting to stand up now, “It's alright, I think I picked the wrong door.” I hastily say as I close the red door. My last glimpse of the clown showed me a look of malice and rage glistening in his eyes. I don’t know where I am, but I am certainly not dealing with that guy.

“Blue door, definitely blue door.” I mumble to no-one in particular as I move across the room to the other door. Taking a deep breath I grasp the handle, I can't help noticing it is cold as well. I push the door open, on the other side is a hallway. I can only see about ten meters ahead of me before the corridor turns ninety degrees left. With a look over my shoulder at the red door I push through into the corridor. When the door closes behind me it promptly vanishes. I cant find a handle, or a latch, or anything to suggest that up until a moment ago this was a door. I decide to continue on around the left hand turn, another ten meters a right hand turn. A further ten meters ahead is a plain looking wooden door.

I open it and gulp at what I see. A small room with a dangling bulb swinging back and forth, lighting up the blue and red doors.

How is this possible, the corridor didn't loop around. It must be a different room, I hope it is a different room. I check the blue door, it opens with a creak, hallway, looks the same as the last one. I gulp together all my strength and put my hand on the red door, I am shaking uncontrollably now. No matter how much I tell myself it can't be the same door, but deep down, in a part of the soul long since forgotten about, I know that it is.

But I need to be sure, logic tells me this is a different door, I pray that it is. I slowly open the door, and it is different. Different, but not better. Oh god it isn't better.

The noose is tight around his neck as he slowly swings back and forth. His clown make-up smudged where the ropes have rubbed, his red over sized shoes hanging floppily below him. I take it all in, this clown dangling from the ceiling by the neck, his baggy clothes hiding the majority of his form. Then I notice it, his eyes. They are staring at me. He isn't dead, he can't move, and is stuck there. But he is not dead.

Movement in the distance catches my eye. Dear lord it is another one, he looks like he is about two hundred meters away, but he is walking right towards me and the hanging clown. As my eyes focus on the distant whiteness I see another, and then another. There are at least seven that I can see. I close the door and decide to keep walking the blue door.

It has been twenty times now that I have ignored the red door and followed the corridors behind the blue door, every time they are different, they turn in different directions. Every time though they come back to this room. I have checked the red door a few more times, but I cannot bring myself to recount what I saw. Honestly I try not to think about it myself.

I'm starting to get really thirsty, I am not sure I can continue much longer. When I enter the next room, under the swinging bulb something has changed. There is a bottle of water sitting on the floor directly in the middle of the room.

I will never escape this place. The room provides everything I need, food when hungry, water when thirsty, a bed when tired. 

I will die here.

Word count: 865 words.

Wednesday Prompt: Interstellar Dance Party

Wednesday Prompt: Interstellar Dance Party.

Authors Note: Here we are once again, me posting late. In honesty I wrote this only 1 day late.... I just never got around to posting it. As always check out The Short Story Press for Sasha's prompt. We give them to each other every friday and post on Wednesdays. At least Sasha posts Wednesdays, I post when I post.

Word Prompt: Interstellar Dance Party

Word Limit: 600

It started in a remote part of the galaxy some 50,000 years ago. Now the anomaly has spread to cover a space over one hundred thousand light years wide, containing many hundreds of inhabited worlds. The galactic council has been keeping an eye on the anomaly but it shows no signs of stopping.

The science academy deemed it worthy of interested 10,000 years ago, but so far they have uncovered no clues as to what is causing the disturbance.

Soon the anomaly will spread to the galactic centre, if the super massive black hole is effected the way other high gravity bodies are, there will be untold damage to the entire fabric of the galaxy. The arms will we thrown off place, it would mean the end of all faster than light travel in the entire galaxy.

There is no guarantee that it will stop there, what if it doesn’t, we have no way of informing the inhabitants of M31 of the impending calamity.

After ten thousand years of study, today is the day that scientists of the galaxy will begin to work out the greatest unsolved mystery of the universe.

It was only recently that the Vox joined the science collective with their FTL capable vessels, capable of surviving the gravitational flux created by the aftermath of the anomaly. With their joining the science collective were finally able to get to the outer edge of the wave and begin monitoring the anomaly from when it first starts.

The ship is in orbit around a red dwarf star when it begins. The star begins to pulsate furiously emitting dangerous amounts of radiation that is absorbed harmlessly by the shielding.

“Sir, the star is being effected by the anomaly, all sensors are functional and recording data.”

The commander of the ship nods his head thoughtfully, there are hundreds of ships around the galaxy taking readings at different stages of the anomaly’s life.

Six hundred years later, at the science directorate, generations of work is coming to fruition. Members of almost all space faring species are present, pouring over the strange movements and gyrations made by every star effected in the galaxy.

The blind molemen of Proxima have changed the oscillations into a background noise that can be heard over the conversations in the room. The molemen are busy slowing down and speeding up the sounds created by the star movement when a small bipedal creature jumps up and yells out “STOP!”

Hundreds of eyes turn to the pink creature, “I think I heard something, a word.” All present in the room mumble about not hearing anything, however the molemen go back over the settings until the creature beams “That’s it.”

“That’s words from a proto-human language called English.”

“It says ‘’”

To understand the importance of this linguists are called in from all edges of the cosmos.

True to form the Zeta Reticulans run analysis. The small gray men stand around in a circle. “Finally we have found the origin of the anomaly”

“Yes, it is centred around the human home world Earth, and it spreads more than 50,000 light years in every direction expanding at the speed of light.”

“But what is it?”

The linguists chime in “It’s a song, a kind of human social activity.”

“why is it effecting the stars.”

“It’s like the stars heard the song and are singing and dancing along.”

“What like some kind of interstellar dance party?” says the tiny pink human.

“Exactly.”

Word Count: 579