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He spent most of this time in seedy bars near the docks of New York, getting free drinks for his feats of strength, amazing strength from so wrecked and ruined a human specimen.  He could easily lift a table with six burly stevedores sitting on it as though it were nothing more than a cardboard table piled with rag dolls. 

Sometimes in a drunken haze, he would dream of a man wearing a stars and stripes costume, who seemed to be his friend, but it was all so far away in a different time and place.  He doubted it was a true memory, for he detested all men that much he knew; something about humanity revolted him, angering him although he knew not why.  He felt strangely humbled, as though he had once been someone extraordinary but couldn’t quite remember.

Another image that came to him frequently was of him flying as easily and lightly as a bird, a regal figure of the air, and he felt powerful for an instant.  But it quickly passed. 

He worked occasionally on the docks, unloading freight from ships, his incredible strength getting him a job when he wanted one.  The labor gave him enough money to eat, drink and sometimes sleep in fleabag hotel for the night. 

But a soft, clean bed made him dream – of the stars and stripes man, of flying, of fighting against a mighty army, some great dark force in another land.  A burning man, who was somehow not consumed, fought along side them, but this strange memory made no sense to him, just another confusing image in his addled brain.

One day in May, a hotheaded teenager came into a bar where the derelict was sleeping fitfully on a table. The fiery young punk ignited his hand, much like the man in the dream, and skillfully shaved his bread and cut his hair with controlled fingertip fire. 

Men in the bar jumped to their feet, and everyone began yelling a name at him, a name that meant nothing to him but apparently a lot to everyone else.  They stumbled over themselves trying to get away, to escape from the bar.

The teenage suddenly burst fully into flame and lifted the derelict into the air, flew him out of the bar and to the docks.  The clean-shaven derelict wasn’t sure any of this was really happening to him; it seemed surreal, like his dreams, and was probably just a whiskey hallucination.

Circling over the choppy waters, the flaming teenager dropped him, and as he fell deeper and deeper into the ocean, his clothes floating off, he began breathing the water as naturally as oxygen, realizing instantly who he was, what had happened to him, the years that he had lost, why he hated humanity and what he would do now to them in revenge. 

Rod Drake observes, thinks and writes in the neon wonderland of Las Vegas. Check out Rod’s longer stories posted in Fictional Musings, Flash Forward, MicroHorror, Six Sentences and AcmeShorts.

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The first announcer took the cue.  “Well Bob, it’s a beautiful morning here by the banks of the gently flowing Hudson, birds chirping their little hearts out, and the sun is just popping its yellow head over the horizon.”

“Yes Ray, another stunning Weehawken sunrise.  I see that the contestants are here for the duel, their seconds hashing out the final details before this competition starts.”

“Alexander Hamilton looks a little nervous, but he is normally a strong competitor, Ray.”

“Probably just cold, Bob, the sun isn’t high enough to warm the landscape yet.”

“Speaking of cold, Ray, Aaron Burr seems to be his usual frosty self.  Hard to believe he is the vice president.”

“Yes, but not president, and I think that answers the obvious question.  Burr has been demanding this duel for some time now, and Hamilton is finally going to give him satisfaction which might not end up the way Burr obviously anticipates.  It seems to me-”

“Excuse me, Ray, but it looks like the seconds are checking out the firearms.  Let’s switch to our field reporter, Tom Hastings, for the details.  Tom?”

“Thanks Bob.  As the folks at home can hopefully see, if I can get Aaron Burr’s second to tilt the revolver box this way, there, thanks, you will notice the flintlock is one of the sleek German models, maximum firepower, minimum weight, contoured barrel, minimal recoil.  In all, a superior dueling pistol, one lethal weapon.  Who is the maker of this fine pistol?”

Burr’s second answered, “Rippenzbigholez of Berlin.  The champion of dueling pistols.”

“Okay, Bob and Ray, there you have it.”

“Tom, what is Hamilton using?”

“Ray, Hamilton brought his old trusty British Dunnmist flintlock it appears.  Nothing special for Alex, it seems.  Back to you.”

“Well, the two duelists seem to be exchanging pleasantries before the action.”

“They don’t seem too pleasant actually, Bob; Burr is taking the opportunity to insult Hamilton with some especially salty language.  Boy, that is some string of unprintable words.”

“Hamilton looks a little flushed and, is that what I think I see, yes it is, well, how do I describe it – Hamilton is giving Burr half of a peace sign and a particular wet raspberry.”

“Yes, lots of posturing and threats to psyche out their opponent today; hey, it looks like the seconds are going to have to separate them; Burr’s temper has gotten the best of him.  Should be quite a duel.”

“Alright the match judge is calling both men and their seconds to the center of the dueling ring for some final instructions before the match begins.  I can feel the excitement in the air; how is it up close to the action, Tom?”

“Definitely electric, Ray.  These two political figures are ready to get this contest underway; it has been a long time in coming, and there is no love lost between them.”

“Thanks, Tom, okay, the two duelists are standing back to back now and the regulation ten-step turn and fire rule is in place.  The match judge checks that the seconds are out of the way and in neutral territory.”

“The match judge has waved this handkerchief, the two contestants are walking their ten paces now and this thing is about to happen. Tom, give us the play-by-play. ”

Tom whispers, “Both men have turned now, facing each other only twenty steps apart.  Hamilton is raising his pistol, really raising it high, and he fires.  He’s shot into the trees to Burr’s right.  Guys, he threw away his shot, apparently ending this duel on an honorable note.”

“What about Burr, is he-“

“Hold it, Burr is aiming, and he is in this to win.  Oh, a direct hit above Hamilton’s right hip; he is going down, gentlemen, he is hurt, maybe badly.”

“What an upset.  Although not surprising, considering that it’s Burr; comments, Bob?”

“Hamilton is going to feel that in the morning for sure.  And Burr definitely sucker-shot him after Hamilton tried to acquit this grudge match honorably.  Certainly not the expected outcome, considering the betting line, but an interesting duel nonetheless.”

“Thanks for joining us this morning, now back to our regular programming.  Today on Good Morning Weehawken, Ethan Allen and His Green Mountain Boys will be performing some of their popular country hits, including ‘Benedict Arnold Was A Redcoat Weasel’.  From everyone here at SportsBeat, have a good day!”

Rod Drake observes, thinks and writes in the neon wonderland of Las Vegas.  Check out Rod’s longer stories posted in Fictional Musings, Flash Forward, MicroHorror, Six Sentences and AcmeShorts.

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The poltergeist’s invisible energy sizzles.

“In this house, we don’t throw tantrums and break perfectly good stoneware every time we don’t get our way.”

The radio switches on, blasting alternative rock.

“I know you’ve been through some trauma, being dead and all, but that’s no excuse for your behavior,” the woman says, turning down the music.

The lights flicker, throwing scary shadows.

“From now on, your bedtime is nine o’clock.”

The refrigerator flies open and condiment bottles rattle together in a war cry.

“And you’ll eat when the rest of the family eats.” She pushes the door shut. 

A cold wind rushes through the room. The woman puts her coat back on.

“We’ve tried everything with you,” she sighs. “We brought that nice psychic medium over to help us work things through, but all you wanted to do was pretend to be Elvis. I’ve had it with the lying.”

The phone bursts into a quick succession of rings, then stops.

“Naughty children need discipline.” The woman reaches into her purse.

The poltergeist wonders how this woman could possibly touch her.

She pulls out a bundle of sacred dried sage. “I got this at the ghost-busting store.” She waves it around like a knife. “If you turn on the television at 3AM one more time, we’re taking away your TV privileges for good.”

“You’re so unfair,” the poltergeist thinks, rushing toward the room she died in.

The woman knows that tough love is the best approach. She saw it on Oprah.

And later that night, the sad little ghost sees phantom traces of blood on the wall and remembers the stabbing. She turns on the TV one last time, and reluctantly floats toward the light. 

Linda Courtland lives and writes in the city of angels. Check out her other flashes at Fictional Musings, FlashShot and Six Sentences.

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I could barely see Holmes through the fog, leading our treacherous way to the ship over the dangerous crags and rough waves, his torch held high like a beacon.  Then he ducked inside the ship through the raw opening.  I scurried to keep up with him, but slipped and fell too many times to do that.  I was, however, careful not to drop my torch or revolver.

Holmes’ blazing torch illuminated the ship’s cavernous hull, filled with massive crates from the Orient.  Many of them were broken open, most likely in the crash ashore, their contents spilled everywhere.  I lifted my torch and looked at the bounty spread out before us.  “My God,” I breathed in awe. 

“Actually, Watson,” Holmes replied, “it’s more accurately many gods.”

Holmes was correct.  Gold statues and holy artifacts of pagan deities, jade figurines and sacred weapons, all decorated with priceless gems, glinted in our torchlights.  Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, all sizes and shapes, some statues taller than us.  Beyond a king’s ransom, closer perhaps to the Bank of England’s assets. 

And something moved.  Something large.  Something that moves on feet with claws.

“Holmes,” I began, but he shushed me instantly.  He tilted his head in intense concentration, trying to pinpoint the noise’s origin. Carefully he made his way among the shattered boxes, waving his torch in front of him like a weapon.

It was then that I noticed a rather heavy iron cage with its door sprung open.  At the same time, Holmes torch nearly touched a strange creature’s face.  A monstrous rodent, the size of a Great Dane with yellow, beady eyes and a twitching snout. 

“The Giant Rat of Sumatra,” I exclaimed in disbelief, “it does exist!”

“Indeed,” Holmes replied, keeping the massive rat barely at bay with his torch, “and ravenous too.  I imagine it has been a while since the creature fed as fully as he wished.” The beast’s enormous fangs snapped at Holmes, ripping his coat sleeve.  “Watson, if you would, shoot him now.”

Collecting my senses, and realizing Holmes’ situation, I aimed my pistol quickly and fired three bullets at the monster.

Squealing horribly, the giant rat turned and sprang at me despite one paw’s uselessness, knocking me over, sending both my revolver and torch flying.  In sheer revulsion, I rolled out from under the rodent who snapped at me ferociously, tearing my suit coat. 

Holmes, suddenly brandishing a gleaming golden scimitar taken from the pile of weapons, struck the rat behind the left shoulder in a stunning blow that dropped the beast in a shower of blood.  With both front paws now crippled, the creature struggled to stand up, failing again and again.

Locating my gun, I emptied the revolver’s cylinder into the rat, ending his suffering and his threat.

Holmes turned to me then, saying, “Help me toss this poor freak of nature out into the sea, so no trace of him will exist.  Sharks will make short work of him.”

“But why, Holmes?  It’s the zoological find of the century,” I asked. 

“Too frightening to let anyone know such a monstrosity exists,” Holmes replied as we heaved the rat out through the hull’s hole, “and this treasure must also remain a secret.  Queen Victoria is counting on our discretion in the matter.” He winked at me conspiratorially.  “Sorry, old man, but this is one Sherlock Holmes adventure that you must not write up for the newspapers.  It will stay our secret case.”

Rod Drake lives, observes, thinks and writes in the neon capital known as Las Vegas.  Check out Rod’s longer stories posted in Six Sentences, Fictional Musings, Flash Forward, MicroHorror and AcmeShorts.

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In this artificial environment where day and night no longer exist, I am forced to live in a transparent prison cell that, while providing the illusion of freedom, separates me from the real world by impenetrable glass walls. The captors wear masks that obscure their identities. They study my behavior and take notes, perhaps looking for pointers.

I observe the other hostages in the room but we don’t speak. An independent breed, we are better suited for individual action than group therapy. We each deal with detainment in our own way. I watch with dismay as my fellow prisoners experiment with their power, shamelessly reinventing themselves, trying to curry favor.

The captors men discuss our fates as if we can’t hear them. Still, I’m intrigued with their idea of using my special talents to cure disease. I dream of curing cancer. Or diabetes. Or a myriad of illnesses that would bring me international acclaim.

While in their custody, I am encouraged to reproduce. They try hard to make me comfortable, to get me to be a willing participant in their plans, but I wonder what will become of my progeny and start having second thoughts. Still, as other kidnap survivors will tell you, when confined by a group of organized captors, you do what you need to in order to survive. And so, I comply. And afterward, alone, in the silence of my dark and shattered soul, I feel like half of my being has been stolen.

I lose track of time then, and float around in a daze. Finally, after a series of frightful experiments, a female captor peers down at me with microscopic intensity. She blinks back startled tears, perhaps at what she has accomplished, or perhaps in empathy for my tragic plight.

My present situation has forced me to concede that for all my bravado, my life as a stem cell has been highly overrated. Perhaps as a perverse lesson in humility, my captors have placed me deep inside the brain of a rat. And instead of curing cancer or Parkinson’s disease, I am now doomed to create limitless brain cells for an ungrateful rodent; cells that transmit thoughts no more complex than, “Who moved my cheese?”

Linda Courtland is an LA-based fiction and travel writer. Check out her other flashes on Fictional Musings, FlashShot, and Six Sentences.

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By the time I see him, in white coat and stethoscope, performing life-saving measures on a young child, his altruism is boring. Then there’s static. I change the channel and see my soul beating an elderly woman before stealing her purse. I change again, and here he is cursing at a cop while trying to walk in a straight line. I don’t like reruns, so I change again.

Samantha Duncan’s work has appeared in Six Sentences and The Indite Circle. She lives in Georgia.

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I tried to remember if she had lost anything.  But other than her life’s savings, which we had all lost in the collapse, nothing came to mind.  “Found what?”

“A way through.”

I glanced toward the hallway where my boss had just emerged from his office.  “I haven’t got time.  What should I bring today?”

“Nothing.”

Mr. McGillen was almost within earshot.  “Right.  Gotta go.” I hung up, but not soon enough.

“That better not have been a personal phone call.”

“No, sir.  Just another question about when we’d have those tires for Best Dairy’s delivery fleet.”

He scowled.  “You’d think those assholes hadn’t heard about the shortages.  Do they think manufacturing-grade petroleum grows on trees?”

I considered pointing out that petroleum had, in fact, once been trees.

“No more personal phone calls.  I can replace you with a dozen girls who’ll work three times as hard.”

“Yes, sir.” I watched him stomp away and wondered, as I often did, if a legitimate job was all it was cracked up to be.  Surely I could find employment on the black market that would subject me to less abuse.

After work I went to three different grocery stores, standing in long lines each time.  Although Aunt Elyse said she wanted nothing, no way was I letting my only near relative starve. I used my scrip to buy a bag of potatoes and some beans.

When I got to her apartment, I found her in good spirits.  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling.  She accepted my offer of food with good grace, but said, “This wasn’t necessary.  I found a way through.”

I looked at her sharply.  She hadn’t snapped under the strain of the recent troubles, had she?  “Yes,” I said.  “But we still have to eat.”

“That’s why I made sure to find it.” She pointed to a paper sack on the floor.  “That’s for you.  Enjoy.”

Inside the sack were riches—cans of soup, a box of crackers, a jar of salted peanuts, several cans of condensed milk, and a crinkly blue package that looked like something I should recognize, but didn’t.

“Oreos!” Aunt Elyse crowed with delight.  “And on sale, too!” When I hesitated, she added, “Go on, try one.”

The chocolate cookie was cloying in its sweetness, but left me craving another.  “What did you do?  Trade your jewelry on the black market?”

“No,” she said patiently.  “I found my way through.  To the past.”

“Impossible,” I said through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Maybe so, but you can draw your own conclusions.”

For the next few weeks, each time I went to her apartment she had some strange new bounty for me.  One time it was olive oil, another time it was a box of white sugar.  She gave me tomato sauce in jars and potato chips in crinkly bags that seemed a decadent waste of petroleum.  With Christmas approaching, she offered me gingerbread and a box of candy canes, which I distributed at the office, earning the gratitude of my co-workers and suspicious looks from Mr. McGillen.

Throughout the crazy days of my aunt’s gifts, she seemed to grow younger.  The creases around her eyes softened, her dull cheeks grew rosy and her gnarled and spotted hands became smooth and nimble.  But when I questioned her, she would only say, “I already told you.  I found a way though.”

On Christmas Eve I knocked on her door, shivering in my patched coat and holding a box wrapped in brown paper that I had decorated using pens and ink pads at the office when Mr. McGillen was in meetings.  Inside the box was my gift to Aunt Elyse—a clumsy but warm sweater I had knitted myself.

When she didn’t come to the door, I let myself in but she was nowhere to be found.  On the table was a stack of boxes wrapped in shiny paper and stuck with bows, and on the seat of her favorite chair was an envelope with my name on it.  I picked it up and pulled out the card, dislodging a shower of glitter from a printed image of a snowman.  In Aunt Elyse’s tidy hand were a few cryptic words.

I sat and read the card again.  Then I went to the table and began opening the boxes.  They contained an old-fashioned plaid skirt, an acrylic sweater, real nylon stockings, and soft boots of plastic leather-like material.  And in a small flat box was a string of synthetic pearls on a nest of pink rayon.

I shed my second-hand clothes and dressed in my new petroleum finery.  Then I picked up the card and read it again.  Nibbling an Oreo that I found on a plate by Aunt Elyse’s chair, I made my way to the bedroom.  It seemed like any other room, but the instructions on the card were clear.

I could always come back, right?

I stepped into the closet, an odd little space that had once been a doorway connecting something to somewhere.  I made my way to a dark nook where wallpaper and sheetrock had been torn away.  Still clutching cookie crumbs in my sweaty palm, I closed my eyes and launched myself at the wall as the room tipped sideways and went black.

In the darkness I called out.  “Aunt Elyse!” Then I knew nothing.

I came to, surrounded by warmth and a glow of twinkling lights.  I breathed the heady aroma of roasting turkey, fresh bread, and other wonderful foods that only the rich could afford.  Somewhere there was music and a woman’s laugh, like the sound of happy bells.

“Merry Christmas, dear.  Welcome back to the oil age!”

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This abandoned factory was a common meeting place for gangland conferences.  One of those had just occurred but with a deadly surprise this time.  As a private eye, it’s my business to know when something’s not right.  The dead guy was no thug or thief, that was for sure.  Nice suit, academic looking and definitely mixed up in something he shouldn’t have been, but was.  And he paid for it with his life.  But why?  That was the question bugging me.  Max Frost.  Just a small-time private investigator with a curious nature that usually gets me into trouble.

An old staircase creaked to my right.  The killer was still here in the factory.  Good for me, bad for him.  I pulled out my .45 and moved slowly, staying in the shadows.  The night was overcast and dark, and the night lights inside were about half burned out.  Great place for a murder.

As I tracked the killer, I wonder why the dead guy was here and got killed for his trouble.  I was here on a totally unrelated case, meeting with a reliable stoolie.  Obviously he fled when the shooting started.  Me, I wanted to know what was going on.

There was something about the dead guy.  He looked vaguely familiar.  But not from a police blotter photo.  Maybe from the newspapers.

Then it hit me.  He was that physicist guy all over the papers, Dr. Zatterling, I think his name was.  He had something to do with a nuclear bomb arming device.  A European refuge, he came to help America in the Cold War race.  And now he was even colder.

So what did the piece of paper have to do with it?  Was it why he was killed?  And who would kill a guy for a crummy slip of paper?

Another creak upstairs then a deafening gunshot exploded near my ear.  This guy wanted no witnesses left alive.  I scurried out of sight from where I judged the shot came from. 

Crouching behind a heavy piece of rusting machinery, I realized the killer probably wanted two things; my life and this slip of paper.  That could work in my favor.  “Hey buddy,” I called out, “if you want this slip of paper, stop shooting.” I waited.

“Very well. How do we work this then?” A hard voice with a trace of a foreign accent.  Russian, I wagered.

“Come out into the light, let me see you,” I replied, knowing there was no chance of that, but if I could keep him talking, I could get a bead on his location.

“You step into the light first,” he said wryly.

“How about,” I stalled, “you tell me why you want this piece of paper so badly.”

“You don’t know?  You’re not CIA?  Then who are you?”

The puzzle came together for me then.  Dr. Zatterling was being blackmailed.  The Russians wanted his formula for the nuclear bomb arming device; most likely they were holding his family or relatives hostage behind the Iron Curtain.  That was routine Soviet practice.  Killing Zatterling prevented him from telling our military that the Russians had this information too, giving them a big edge in the arms race.

“You want the formula,” I took a gamble, “here, take it.” I lit a scrap of paper I found laying on the machinery and tossed it to the floor in the light.

The Russian swore and leaped over the stair railing, firing wildly at my general location.  Rather, my previous location.  With him now in the light, I only needed one, good shot. 

I saw it and squeezed the trigger.  He fell dead before he hit the concrete floor.  With the slip of paper safely in my pocket, I walked outside to look for a telephone.

It ended with a dozen police and government cars rolling up to me, standing in front of the factory, as I finished my second cigarette.

Rod Drake lives and writes in Las Vegas, and wishes he was as cool as the heroes in his fiction. Check out Rod’s other stories on Six Sentences, Fictional Musings, MicroHorror, Flash Forward and AcmeShorts.

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The Red Plague, they called it, for the scarlet spots that were the first sign of infection. Within hours the spots would spread to form livid blotches that swelled to grotesque proportions. The victims trembled and shook, gripped by muscular spasms that contorted their limbs and constricted their breathing. Within 24 hours they were dead.

The bodies were collected by the local coroners, but soon the morgues were full and plague pits, the like of which had not been seen since the Black Death ravaged Europe in the 14th century, were the hasty burial ground for hundreds of unnamed individuals.

Then the tide seemed to ebb, and we survivors breathed a sigh of relief. It was over, or so we thought. How wrong we were for the true horror had barely begun. As grave after grave disgorged its dead, we learned the meaning of the word ‘horror’.

Horror is seeing the dead shambling down the high street.

Horror is watching those ghouls tear into a screaming victim like a pack of slathering dogs.

Horror is running for your life, your breathing ragged and your heart pounding in your chest, knowing that they are gaining on you, knowing that they are getting closer and closer and closer…

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