Titled Paradise Lost, the story deals with Ellie, who in fleeing the collapse of civilization has found herself facing a terrible choice.

The story is just one of 30 included in my new book A Torrent of Story., which also includes extensive commentary on the creative writing process and is suitable as a text for any creative writing class, or simply as a really useful guide for any aspiring writer.

Click here to select your format and download the story.

I’m very pleased to announce that my new book, A Torrent of Story, subtitled How I wrote an original short story every day for a month and how you can too, is now available for sale both from my own web site in ePub, PDF and mobi formats, or from the Amazon Kindle Store.

The book contains 30 original pieces of fiction all written by myself in a single month, together with extensive commentary about the creative development and writing process. It’s an extremely useful text for any creative writing course, or for any aspiring writer.

Here’s a quote from the introduction of the book:

The 30 pieces of fiction in this collection – 29 short stories and one poem – were all written by myself in a single month. Writing an original short story every day was an incredible challenge, all the more so because it was the first fiction I had written in decades. At the end of the month I had written more than 33,000 words. I felt that I was truly creating a torrent of story.

And so this book can be read in either of two ways. You can simply read and enjoy it simply as a collection of short stories covering various genres. But if you are an aspiring writer, I hope you will find my creative torrent to be inspirational, and that you can use this book as a guide to help you generate your own creative ideas.

More than anything, this book attempts to answer the question often asked of successful authors: “Where do you get your ideas from?” I will let you read each of these stories and then I will tell you how I came up with the idea each day and how I developed it. I hope, therefore, to be able to teach you by example.

UPDATE! All of these stories are now available in a new e-book which also includes detailed commentary on each story, covering how I came up with the idea and how I then structured the story.  It’s a great guide for aspiring writers.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is an index to the 30 pieces of original fiction I wrote during November 2011 in response to a Flash Fiction project held on Google+ by Becky Raymond .

Somehow I managed to keep up during the month, writing and publishing a short piece of fiction every day in response to a stimulus image, averaging around 1,100 words a day, a total of over 33,000 words. It was certainly a good creative workout!

Index

For your convenience, here are the links to my posts of the individual stories:

Day 1: At the End of His Tether (approx 750 words)

Day 2: Nereid (approx 250 words)

Day 3: Yggdrasil (Short poem)

Day 4: The Bastion (approx 1,400 words)

Day 5: Blackfall (approx 800 words)

Day 6: Mindclasm (approx 800 words)

Day 7: Murder Ballads (approx 1,000 words)

Day 8: One Percent (approx 1,100 words)

Day 9: The Other Car (approx 1,800 words)

Day 10: Long Exposure (approx 1,200 words)

Day 11: Intelligent Design (approx 1,200 words)

Day 12: Handover (approx 1,000 words)

Day 13: The Wall (approx 1,000 words)

Day 14: The Project (approx 1,100 words)

Day 15: Motive (approx 1,100 words)

Day 16: On the Edge (approx 1,100 words)

Day 17: Under the Pump (approx 850 words)

Day 18: Paradise Lost (approx 1,500 words)

Day 19: The Despised (approx 800 words)

Day 20: Buddha Laughed (approx 1,000 words)

Day 21: In Concert (approx 1,500 words)

Day 22: Sample Return (approx 1,300 words)

Day 23: The Kid (approx 2,400 words)

Day 24: Trick? Or Treat? (approx 1,000 words)

Day 25: Slow Dawn (approx 1,600 words)

Day 26: The Night Before…  (approx 750 words)

Day 27: Killer Shot (approx 950 words)

Day 28: Fairy Tales (approx 1,800 words)

Day 29: Swear Not by the Moon (approx 600 words)

Day 30: Storytellers (approx 1,700 words)

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 30 – the final day! – of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenged writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Dave Beckerman.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Storytellers

The bus seemed to be taking forever that morning, Mary Benson fumed, as she craned her neck past the others in the queue. She was going to be late for her shift at the hospital. At least she was on a normal day shift at the moment, she hated the evening shift in the Emergency Department when you had so many more drunks, drug abusers and car accident victims to deal with at the counter. Thank God for the security window, though that didn’t stop the verbal abuse.

Here it came at last. But as usual, it was nearly full already, and she would have to cram in and stand.

Just as she started to climb up the stairs, though, someone seemed to stumble into her from behind and she felt a hand slap onto her right buttock. Flushing, she turned to see who had assaulted her, but the other passengers were pushing her forward onto the bus. To her right, a young man with a stubble beard forced his way up, and then deeper into the bus. Behind her, a short balding man in a grey suit climbed on, looking deliberately away from her. Once on board, he turned his back on her. Him, then. What a creep!

Mary briefly debated making a scene, but then thought better of it. But she kept her eye on the man. If he tried to grope another woman – there was a tall young woman with closely cropped hair just on the other side of him – she would punch him. Nothing he could say or do would shock her. She heard and saw far worse almost every day in her job.

-:-

Bob Graham had been thinking about his up-coming meeting that morning with the sales manager, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. It had been a bad quarter, sales were down. It was only to be expected, there was a new model coming next month and their chairman had been raving in public about how good it was going to be. Of course people were deferring their purchases. Why buy an old one now when a better one was just about to hit the stores? But there was no use telling his hot new manager that. He kept piling on the pressure, wanted to clear the inventory.  Bob was ten years his elder, it was humiliating but he had to keep biting his tongue instead of telling the guy what a fool he was.

The bus arrived at last. Just in front of him was a thin middle-aged woman dressed in a black outfit with white trim. Her face was severe. Looked like a school-teacher maybe, a tough one.

As the doors of the bus opened, the woman started to climb the stairs. Just at that moment, a scruffy young man bounded forward, trying to jump the queue, it seemed, and knocked into Bob so heavily that he lost his balance and stumbled forward. Encumbered by his briefcase in his right hand, Bob flailed out with his left to regain his balance, and found to his intense embarrassment that he had put his hand on the woman’s rump. He was forced to push briefly on her to stop himself falling, though now the young man was helping, pulling him back by his jacket.

“Sorry, mate,” said the scruffy man, and then bounded up the stairs.

There were more passengers behind Bob, all pushing to get on the bus before the doors closed, and complaining about the delay and so he climbed up. Should he apologise to the woman? No, his explanation would seem like a feeble excuse, and she wouldn’t believe him. He turned away from her at the top of the stairs to hide his embarrassment.

He glared across at the young man, who had incredibly just gained a seat, as the elderly lady in front of him was getting up, probably to get off at the next stop. There was no justice in the world. Probably one of those unemployed louts heading in to that stupid Occupy protest. Why couldn’t he grow up and get himself a job?

-:-

Shawn O’Brien smiled as he sat down, pushing in to get the old woman’s seat the instant she stood up. He ignored the glares from the other nearby passengers who’d been on the bus longer than him. They could get stuffed, he didn’t give a flying fuck what they thought.

He felt in his jacket pocket for the old guy’s wallet. Stupid prick had been a pushover, literally. He laughed inwardly on the face of that uptight bitch when the old guy had put his hand on her bum. What she needed was a good fuck, that would cheer her up. Probably some kind of secretary, he thought idly. But not the kind that would sit on the boss’ knee.

He wondered how much cash was in the old guy’s wallet. People didn’t carry so much cash these days. He’d have to move quick to make what he could from the credit cards. Maybe he could sell the driver’s license and other id. Identity theft was a big deal these days, they said, but Shawn wasn’t sure he knew the right contacts yet. Maybe one of the guys at the factory could give him a tip. He ask Jimbo tomorrow, when he went back to work.

He glanced up. Standing in front of him in jeans and t-shirt was a good-looking young woman, with short cropped hair. The t-shirt read A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle, with an illustration of a goldfish atop a push-bike seat. What the crap did that mean? Nice tits, though. He wondered what she’d say if he asked her out. Mind you, he’d nicked the seat from her, so she’d probably be pretty snarky. As if to confirm that, she looked down suddenly and glared at him.

-:-

Jen Petridis stared down in anger at the bastard who’d pushed past everyone else to get the seat. Selfish prick. Jen didn’t care about the seat herself, but the woman next to her was in the middle stages of pregnancy, anyone could tell. Except this jerk.

So took her attention away from him, it wasn’t worth the angst. She turned her attention to thinking about the program she was writing, a multi-media simulation game for the Museum. If only they wouldn’t keep changing their minds about their requirements! It was starting to cost her firm a lot of money they hadn’t budgeted for, and the Museum was trying to argue that their changes weren’t variations to the contract. Still, that wasn’t really her concern, that was her boss’ worry and she instead she started to plot out the class structure she would need to simulate the dinosaur population in the game.

After a while, she glanced again at the pregnant woman next to her. She was very neatly dressed, but the poor woman looked ill and tired. Probably an immigrant from Eastern Europe, working in some sweat-shop, sewing clothes together for a pittance per piece. What a lousy job that would be, particularly if you were pregnant, maybe coping with morning sickness. Catch that ever happening to Jen! Her girlfriend and she had decided some time ago they wouldn’t try for kids. All that IVF stuff was way too hard and expensive.

-:-

Lena Balodis was nervous, and her feet hurt. She wished that the scruffy man hadn’t taken the seat. Still, it wasn’t far now to her stop. Thank goodness she could sit down most of the day there. Being a personal assistant to the manager was challenging, but he was a good man and tried to make it easier for her now she was expecting, reduce the running around. The firm had a pretty good maternity leave scheme, too.

But her gaze kept drifting back to the youth, not much older than a teenager, who had been standing in the corner ever since she had got on the bus. He was dark-skinned, Pakistani maybe, and he had a bulky back-pack on, which he kept fiddling with.

Lena had been on holiday in London in July 2005, when terrorists blew up three trains on the Underground and then a double-decker bus. Though she had been nowhere near the incidents, they had made a powerful impression on her. Ever since, she had kept a worried eye on other passengers when she travelled on public transport. Especially now when she was carrying her first baby inside her.

The youth kept looking at his watch. Was there some pre-arranged plan, some scheme to blow up their explosives simultaneously?

She didn’t know what to do, but felt the stirrings of panic. Should she try and tell someone else? Talk to the youth and plead with him not to do it? But he might set it off as soon as she spoke to him. All it seemed she could do was pray, and so she did. If she came safe through this, she’d say three dozen Hail Marys every day for the rest of the week.

Finally, though, the bus came to its next stop and the dark-skinned young man hefted his back-pack higher on his shoulders and got off.

-:-

Asanka Weerasinghe climbed down from the bus. His shoulders were aching with the weight of his back-pack, which was full of text-books and his netbook computer. The straps aren’t adjusted properly, he thought, or maybe I need a better pack. Either that or I convince my Dad to buy me a Kindle or an iPad and start buying my textbooks in digital format. He’d heard that some colleges were doing that, some of them even giving tablets to students as part of their enrollment fees.

He looked at his watch again. There was still plenty of time before his first lecture. Organic Chemistry. He grimaced. Not his best subject. Too many complicated names to learn.

His favorite coffee shop was only a few steps away from the bus stop, and there was a table free outside. He ordered a coffee – long black was the way he liked it – and sat down gratefully at the table. He had a long bus ride and he’d had to stand most of the way today.

He pulled out his netbook and set it up so that he could type comfortably. There was time to get another five hundred words or so done of his novel. With a bit of luck he’d still make it to the word-count by the end of the month.

Thinking for a moment, he put his fingers onto the small keyboard and started to type.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R. Grigg. All rights reserved

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 29 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Katherine Garrahan.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Swear Not by the Moon

The full moon had been rising, silver and serene, when they first made love.

Eager for each other, desperate, they had left a trail of scattered clothes and then coupled in the moonlight as it streamed in through the uncurtained window of his apartment.

That was the first time. There were many times after that, both day and night. But because of the special joy of that first climax they delighted to repeat it when the moon was full.

“Think of me as your own personal werewolf”, he’d said, and she had laughed.

Her regrets came later.

She should, she thought, have known better. He was her boss, after all.

He was, of course, eager to conceal their relationship from the rest of the office. Too many complications if everyone knows, that’s what he had said. So during their working day, they were cool to each other, keeping their feelings under control. For her, at least, it was difficult, and she carefully watched what she said to him, how she looked at him when there were others present.

But it seemed that as even as her passion waxed strong, his had been waning.

On a moonless night they walked through the gardens near his apartment. The sky was full of stars and she was marvelling at their beauty when for her their glory suddenly and forever vanished.

He told her there was someone else.

She raged at him, of course, wept, hammered at him with her fists. But to no avail. He was cold, contemptuous, turned and walked away from her without another word.

She stayed away from the office on the next day, and the next, sobbing in her bedroom most of the time. On the third day she forced herself to dry her tears and go back to work.

He avoided her as much as he could, and she him. But there were times when they had to be in the same room together: staff meetings, documents she had to discuss with him. The dark circles under her eyes grew and were barely covered in make-up. Her work began to suffer.

While the firm’s policies wouldn’t allow him to fire her outright, he could certainly recommend it to the partners, and before she knew it she was out on the street and looking for another job.

That’s when when she discovered that she was pregnant.

She confronted him, literally grabbing him by the elbow as he came out of the office block where she had once worked. He denied that the child was his, claimed it was someone else’s seed, laughed scornfully when she demanded a paternity test. But it couldn’t have been anyone else. There was no one else. Since their first time, there had been no one else for her.

She had been thinking about an abortion, agonising over the decision, when nature stepped in and did the job for her.

The miscarriage changed something in her, made her stronger somehow. She formed a resolve, made a plan. She had nothing to lose, she thought, her life was over.

Perhaps if she had been reading the newspapers or watching the television news she might have been aware of what was expected that night, but these things were of no interest to her now.

As it was, there was again a perfect harmony between earth and sky that night. The night when she waited for him, late in the evening, outside his apartment block. With the long, sharp knife concealed up her sleeve.

As she spied him walking towards her, the moon began to turn a bloody red.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R. Grigg. All rights reserved

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 28 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Trey Ratcliff.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Fairy Tales

Jonathan Gradgrind concluded his speech with a typical flourish.

“…and so, in conclusion, that is why the whole pernicious edifice of religion must be torn down and razed to the ground. We must raise the next generation to be free of all of this nonsense, these fabulations, these fairy tales.”

“After all, how can we possibly justify telling lies to children?”

The thunderous applause, as always, was very gratifying, and he sat down with great satisfaction, a job well done. And, of course, in the foyer of the hall his books would be selling well. He wondered idly whether there was a market for an audio CD version. He would see what his agent thought. Could be a good source of additional revenue. His famous great-grandfather, Thomas, would be proud of him, he thought idly.

Then he realised with annoyance that the moderator was opening the floor to questions. Questions? he thought in irritation. I’m sure that wasn’t in the contract. He would get his agent to write that into future contracts. No question time without an additional fee.

Still, he could hardly refuse now without seeming churlish. He reluctantly stood up and returned to the podium. The moderator was picking out a hand raised at the back of the hall. “Yes?”

A young woman was standing, waited a moment for a wireless microphone to be brought to her. “Mr Gradgrind, thank you so much for your fascinating speech. I just wondered though, about your conclusion. May I ask if you have any children yourself?”

Really? Don’t these people know enough to look me up on Wikipedia?

“No, Madam,” he responded briefly. He toyed momentarily with quoting her the whole of that poem by Phillip Larkin, the one that ends ‘…and don’t have kids yourself’. But he decided it wouldn’t be right for this audience.

“It’s just,” she went on, “that we have a two-year old ourselves. Now, of course we won’t be exposing her to the Bible or anything like that, but you mentioned fairy tales and things like that. Do you think… Is it wrong to read her storybooks? She does so love them.”

Gradgrind smiled. It was a good question, and he had a ready answer. “There’s nothing wrong with reading stories to your child provided the stories are based in fact. Facts, facts, facts, that is what is wanted, Madam. My colleague Richard Dawkins has an excellent childrens’ book available, dealing with the facts of evolution. I’m sure there are many other suitable books which have stories based in the real world.”

Incredibly, the damned woman was continuing. Couldn’t they take the mike away from her?

“But what about storybooks with fairies and dragons and talking animals?”

“All of them fabulations that, like God, do not exist in the real world. Fairies? Little girls with butterfly wings? What nonsense! Throw them all out in the rubbish, Madam. That is my advice.” There was scattered applause from the audience, and the woman sat down meekly.

There were some other questions, none of them difficult. After all, this was an audience which had paid good money to hear him. The God-botherers usually stayed away.

As the audience shuffled out, he considered how to spend the rest of his evening. This was a provincial town, part of a tour around the country which he had been on for the last three weeks. It was gratifying and quite lucrative, but he would be glad when it was over. He had been invited to have dinner with the moderator, the local Rotary president, but frankly he couldn’t be bothered. He’d been to too many similar meals on this tour. Perhaps he would just get room service back in his hotel. It couldn’t be any less boring.

Just as he was stepping down from the stage, however, he felt a hand on his arm. An elderly lady, with a mass of white hair and dressed in black. He was preparing a rude response – he didn’t like to be touched – when she said:

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Mr Gradgrind. But I wondered whether you had any plans for the evening?”

Was the old hag propositioning him? But she went on:

“My friends and I have been so interested in what you have been saying. We have read your books, of course, and we would love to have the opportunity of discussing them with you. We feel a strong personal interest in your ideas.”

Gradgrind straightened his back and smiled. “Well, of course, I’m very gratified by your interest…”

“I wondered if you would come and meet my friends? As it happens, we have a regular meeting each week – tonight, in fact – in the room behind my shop. We would so love you to join us and have something to eat.”

Well, it sounded better than dinner with the Rotary president and his cronies, at least. Why not? It was always pleasing to listen to the flattering comments from his most avid readers.

“All right,” he said. “Is it far?”

“Oh no,” said the old lady. “My shop is just around the corner. It’s never far away.”

That was an odd comment, he thought, but the old woman was probably well on the way to having Alzheimers by now. Hardly knew what she was saying.

“Very good, he said, “lead the way.”

Though it indeed wasn’t far, the old woman was slow on her feet, with an odd wobbling gait, and so it took them quite a while to get there. Along the way, she said to him: “I was particularly interested in what you said to that young mother.”

“Oh yes? Quite a good question, I thought.”

“Yes. What would you think about toys for young children, then?”

It wasn’t something he had ever thought about. “Well, I don’t know. Nothing wrong with toy trucks and planes, I suppose. Or building blocks.”

“But not soft toys like teddy bears?”

“Perfectly all right, provided the bear is realistic. There shouldn’t be any of this anthropomorphic nonsense, you know, rabbits with waistcoats and watches, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, I see. That’s what I thought you might say. Well, here we are at last.”

Gradgrind was somewhat taken aback. The shop seemed ancient, with a leaded glass window. But perhaps that was just a deliberate marketing ploy. That would make sense. Above the window, in old-fashioned red letters, were the words ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. Though the shop was closed, towards the back he could see a light, but at the front it was quite dark. It seemed to be full of knick-knacks and second-hand jewellery, old furniture, that sort of thing.

The old woman opened the door with an elaborate key. “The others will be here already,” she said, “in the room at the back.”

Gradgrind was starting to regret having agreed to come along, but he could hardly back out now without being rude. “All right,” he said brusquely, “but I won’t be able to stay long. Half an hour, perhaps.”

The old lady smiled widely. “Oh, I’m sure that when you meet my friends you won’t be able to tear yourself away.”

She led the way through the dark shop to a little hallway, which was lit by a couple of wall lamps with moulded gold-colored brackets in the shape of cherubs, little human babies with wings. More of the fantastic nonsense we should do away with, he thought in annoyance.

“Just through here,” she said, and opened a door at the back of the hallway, and politely stepped aside so he could go through first.

He stepped though, and then stopped in astonishment.

Instead of the small back room he had been expecting, he seemed to be at the end of an astonishingly long corridor. There in front of him was a series of carved arches or door frames, one after the other, lit up by what seemed like natural light, though it was now night-time outside.

He turned to ask the old woman a question, but when he turned, she was gone, and so in fact was the door through which he had entered. There was just a stone wall, filled with carvings of fantastical figures, as were the walls to his left and right.

Gaping, he turned back to the direction in which he had first been facing, and stared along the long corridor. He had no choice but to stumble forward along it. In a few steps he entered a rough stone room which had windows to left and right, letting in daylight. Naturally he ran to one of these and looked out, trying to find a means of escape from his bewildering situation. He found that he was high above the ground, too high to jump out. Below was a dense forest, and in the forest something white moved.  It came into a clearing and looked up at him. A white horse. It had a long, shining horn.

“This is a trick,” he said. “Some kind of trick. It’s nonsense!” He turned away angrily from the window.

The window on the other side looked over a river bank, with more forest beyond it, and at first he thought there was nothing there, but then, by the river, he spied a bearded man, playing on a set of pipes. The man’s lower parts were covered with hair, and his feet…

“Nonsense!” yelled Jonathan Gradgrind, and looked away. He started to march down the corridor, refusing to look through any more windows. Up ahead there must be someone who was responsible for this trickery, this abduction. He would sue, he thought, he would get his lawyers to sue to pants off those responsible. There must have been some kind of drug he had been given. LSD, probably. Maybe in the glass of water he had been sipping from, during his speech.

He strode forward, passing through room after room, arch after arch. For a long while, he didn’t seem to be progressing anywhere. But the carvings in the stone seemed to grow more and more grotesque, and the light coming in from the windows seemed to grow more ruddy and dark. Soon there were flaming torches on the walls and no daylight.

At last he could see that the long corridor seemed to be coming to an end. The chain of arches ceased, and he stumbled at last, his legs aching, into a final, huge, room.

There was a crowd of… creatures… beings with fantastical shapes. Huge hairy creatures with horns. Scaly lizards with leathery wings and red, forked tongues. Little girls with butterfly wings.

And on a throne in the center of the room, a gigantic man wearing a crown, gloriously robed in red and gold silk, and holding a huge bejwelled mace.

“Greetings,” came its deep voice.

“Who… what…” spluttered Gradgrind.

“I,” said the figure, with an amused expression, “am Oberon, the King of Faery. You have been telling lies about us and my friends. We are not happy, little man.”

“No, I…” was all that he could manage.

“So, little man, now you are going to dance for us. Dance!”

On his already weary legs, ludicrous in his business suit amongst this fantastic company, Jonathan Gradgrind began to dance.

And, as the old woman had predicted, he couldn’t tear himself away.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R. Grigg. All rights reserved

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 27 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Kelly-Shane Fuller.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Killer Shot

Detective Arnold held a rectangular box high in triumph as he came into the squad room. He spotted Mangiamele by the cooler and waved him over.

“The lab boys come through?” asked Mangiamele with interest.

“Yeah,” Arnold said, “they did a good job. “Getting that camera open in the pitch dark can’t have been easy, considering the condition it’s in. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

They went into one of the interview rooms, and Arnold put the box down on the table, then fished into his pocket and tossed the camera down. Already on the table was a small battered spiral notebook which they had been going through earlier.

Arnold opened the box and spread out the prints, making sure he kept them in chronological order.

Mangiamele picked up the first print. It was taken in the dining car of a train, and showed a couple seated at one of the narrow tables. The man had his back to the camera, but looked to be a bulky man in his mid-fifties, wearing a dark suit. The woman was young, blonde, and pretty, with dark lipstick. You couldn’t tell the colour of course, in these black-and-white prints. The shot had been taken from a distance, probably from the doorway into the next carriage. Matt Evans, the private detective, wouldn’t have wanted to be spotted.

The next was the reverse shot, this one a little blurry and from a funny angle. Maybe Evans had taken it while holding the camera at his side? Yes, the next few shots were repeats, all slightly different, some hopelessly out of focus or showing the back of one of the seats. But the best one was clear, showing the back of the blonde’s head and the face of the man in the suit – Carl Studebaker, big business tycoon.

“I’ll give Evans credit,” said Mangiamele, “he wasn’t afraid to take risks.”

Arnold grunted. “Mrs Studebaker was paying him enough, he thought it was worth it to get the shots she wanted.”

“These wouldn’t be enough for the divorce case, though,” said Mangiamele. “He needed to get something more explicit.”

They skimmed through the next few prints. Evans must have bribed the train conductor to let him into Studebaker’s first class compartment. First class was pretty good on a sleeper train, but the luxury was limited by necessity. There were shots of the folded-down single beds – the train was too small for a double bed – then some of the interiors of some of the drawers, one showing frilly underwear.

Arnold laughed. “Studebaker would have trouble explaining those to his wife!”

Mangiamele smiled too. “Maybe he could claim they were his? Mind you, that would probably be grounds for divorce too, hey?”

“Nah, I don’t see a court buying that, not for such a big profile case as that would be. What do Evans’ notes say?”

Mangiamele shrugged, leafing through the little notebook. “Sounds as if Evans was pretty frustrated on the train trip over here. No opportunity to get the kind of shot he needed. So he planned to wait until they got to L.A. and track Studebaker to his hotel. Which, of course, is what he did, poor sap.”

The next few prints were indeed in the city. Some trailing shots, some showing the couple embracing as they came out of a restaurant. One showed them kissing.

Arnold tapped that one with his forefinger. “This one might have done the trick.”

“Yeah,” agreed Mangiamele, “but Evans was a pro. He would have wanted a clincher.” He leafed through the next couple of prints. “Oh, oh!”

“What?”

Mangiamele spun the print over to Arnold. “I’d say this is where Studebaker started to cotton on that he was being followed.”

The photo had been taken in a restaurant, and like the previous one showed Studebaker and his girlfriend at a table. But in this one, Studebaker was glaring at the camera, half-risen from his seat, his fist raised.

“Yeah,” said Arnold, “that’s an important one. It’ll go to the heart of his defence. Could show evidence for premeditation.”

“Explains why Studebaker had the gun handy, anyway. Do you think he’ll get away with saying it was self-defence?”

“Dunno, he’ll have some high-powered lawyers backing him. But I hear Mrs Studebaker is offering her money and resources to help the D.A.”

And so they came to the final print. Evans must have bribed a hotel cleaner to give him a master key to the hotel bedrooms. Mangiamele reflected that Evans must have been pretty desperate to get a shot of the couple in bed together. Pretty risky, you’d only get one chance as you threw the door open. And what if the flash didn’t go off? But it had, after all.

Arnold and Mangiamele both stared at the last photo. There were some patches of light spoiling the edges, but it was very clear, a great action shot, really.

After a while, Arnold nodded in satisfaction. “Yep, this is the shot that’ll send him to the chair. Studebaker must have had time to recognize Evans and his camera.”

Evans’ final picture showed Studebaker, naked, sitting up on the bed, his girlfriend with her hands half-raised to try to cover her breasts. And in Studebaker’s right hand, its barrel clearly pointing at the photographer, was the gun which had killed Evans a half-second later.

Mangiamele looked at the twisted remains of the little camera, its flash reflector flattened, its lens shattered.

When the hotel security had arrived, Studebaker had been trying to smash it to pieces under his naked heel, having been unable to quickly figure out how to get the back open to expose the reel of film inside. If he’d been wearing shoes he might have succeeded.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R. Grigg. All rights reserved

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 26 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Lesley Scott.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Night Before…

As Mummy tucked Katie into bed that night, she repeated yet again: “Now go to sleep, darling. If you lie awake he might not come, and then think how disappointed we would all be in the morning.”

“Yes, Mummy,” said Katie sleepily. But she had her fingers crossed, so it didn’t really count, did it?

She did go to sleep for a while, she really did, but when she heard the gentle clatter of hoofs on the roof, she woke up immediately and clambered out of bed, being ever so quiet so as not to wake her baby brother Billy. Then she snuck out of her bedroom door and tip-toed down the hallway. When she got near to the stairs, she knelt down and then started to crawl, gently, gently, until she could just see through into the kitchen.

When they had moved into this new house, just a year ago, Katie had been really upset, and her Mummy had asked her why. “There’s no chimney in this house, how will he get in?” Katie had bawled. But her Mummy had explained to her that they would leave the kitchen window open just a squeak, and he would be able to get in there.

Now Katie crawled forward a little more to look between the bars of the handrail on the landing. She couldn’t quite see the kitchen window from here, but she could see the table, all loaded up.

There! There was a creaking sound, and moments later, she gave a gasp. There he was – the tall, fat figure looming over the table! She couldn’t quite see him perfectly, but it was him, it really was! She had to put her hand over her mouth to stop a squeal of excitement. He mustn’t know that she was here, or else he might go away without doing the presents.

The red-robed figure began to eat what had been left out for him. It was no wonder he was so fat, Katie thought, as he ate into all of the left-over turkey and ham, gulping it down greedily. Then it was the turn of the bowl of half-eaten trifle. Gulp! Gulp! It all vanished in moments. She gave a little giggle. If she ate like that, Daddy would growl at her so bad!

Then, at last, he came into the lounge room, and Katie crawled just a little further to see better, keeping as quiet as a mouse. As a very, very quiet mouse.

He strode into the lounge room, carrying a big sack swung over his back. She could see him better now, and he looked every bit as he did in all of the storybooks – the big, fat man in his bright red costume, with the black fur trimming his hood and sleeves, and his long black beard flowing down his chest.

He loomed over the presents all laid out under the tree. “Oh, oh, oh!” he said in a deep, booming voice. “What have we here?”

Then he pulled out a long list and consulted it. Oh, please, please, please, Katie thought, I’ve been ever so good!.

He bent down and picked up the awful purple sweater that Auntie Jessica had bought for her, and popped it into his sack. Yes! thought Katie in delight. Then the tacky plastic ironing set that came from Grandma. Into the sack, as Katie giggled and hugged herself. Then it was all the extra clothing that Billy had been given – all those endless jump-suits and little cardigans and booties. Into the sack!

Then it was Mummy and Daddy’s turn. The big fat man seemed to be chuckling as he picked up the book that would never be read, the CD of music which Daddy didn’t like, several pairs of socks, the badly-smelling perfume, the scented bath-bombs, the ugly vase Auntie Flora had made, the digital photo-frames. Into the sack with it all! Katie clapped her hands with joy.

At that the big man looked up and gave her a wink, hefted his loaded sack onto his back, and then he was gone, in two strides into the kitchen and out of the window.

Katie gave a contented sigh and crept back to bed, happy.

At last, she had really seen him. The Anti-Claus.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R.Grigg. All rights reserved.

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 25 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Kat Folland.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Slow Dawn

Gasping for breath, Paul bent over to rest his hands on his knees, allowing him a reprieve from the weight of his backpack for a precious moment or two. He looked upward at the slope ahead of him.

He was starting to think that coming on this bushwalk with the others had been a big mistake. He wasn’t as fit as he had thought he was, and it was hot, hot, too damned hot. Sweat was dripping from his head and running into his eyes. He pulled out his water bottle and took a sip. There wasn’t much left. Shane and Berndt said that there was probably – probably! – a water tank in the hut at the top of the mountain.

Mount Dreadful wasn’t all that high, Paul supposed. Not much of a mountain at all by international standards. It had looked OK on the map Shane had shown him. Mind you, he hadn’t thought to count the contour lines or see how closely packed they were. As it was, ever since leaving the cars parked at the foot of the slope just after lunch, they had been walking up a continuous slope. Paul had lost all sense of how far up they had come, or how far they still had to go. Surrounded by trees, there was no way to get a bearing, even if his map-reading skills had been more than rudimentary.

Sighing, he set off again, trying to push the pace just a little in order to catch up.

Around the next corner the path was blocked by the thick trunk of a gum tree which must have fallen recently. Leaning against the trunk, waiting for him, was Marina.

Marina was Shane’s girlfriend. She was also the secret reason that Paul had agreed to come on this bushwalk. His heart gave a painful twang when he saw her, and at the same time he felt a wave of self-disgust. How feeble I must seem to her, he thought.

“Come on, Paul!” Marina said cheerfully. “You can do it.”

Paul forced his eyes away from Marina and looked up the slope. “How far ahead..?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve given up trying to catch them. Shane and Berndt are trying to out-do each other. And Berndt has this rotten habit of sprinting ahead, then waiting for you to catch up, and then heading off again just as you get there. Do you want a drink?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got my own water bottle.” He shook it, and it was obvious that there wasn’t much left.

“Have some of mine. It’s a bigger bottle than yours, and I haven’t been drinking so much.”

“No…” He didn’t want to feel too indebted to her.

“Come on, you’ll relieve me of the weight. And if you don’t drink, you’ll never make it to the top.”

So he took her bottle gratefully and drank a big swig of water. Handing it back, he said “Can we get around this tree?”

“Nope, it’s wedged in here, and the bush is too dense to get around. It’s not too hard to climb up and across, though.” And she demonstrated. Paul looked at her lithe brown legs as she climbed and sighed inwardly yet again.

He followed, and for a long while they toiled up the slope together, not speaking. But he took some comfort from the temporary feeling of companionship with her. So close, but so out of reach.

They both had to stop several times to rest. Paul emptied his water bottle, and accepted another gulp from Marina’s, under protest. “Drink!” she commanded. Then they went on again.

Finally, the tree cover started to diminish as they reached what would be the snow line in winter. Then there were no trees at all and soon they were walking along a bare dusty trail which started to level off as they reached the peak.

They saw the fire-spotter’s tower first. A tall framework tower with a narrow ladder leading up to an enclosed platform at the top. Then, as they came closer, they saw the old rustic shepherd’s hut which had been repaired and expanded over the years by the rangers of the Parks Service, for the benefit of bushwalkers like themselves.

Shane and Berndt were sitting on the verandah of the hut, waiting for them. Berndt had been born in Germany, and on bushwalks he donned the same outfit he would wear back in Europe. He looked the part of an Alpine shepherd, in leather pants and suspenders, right out of The Sound of Music. You expected him to be quaffing beer out of a pottery stein. But there was no beer.

“Is there water?” Paul croaked out. Shane nodded. “Tank’s full,” said.

Paul knocked on the side of the corrugated-iron water tank which collected rainwater. It rang with a heavy, full sound. The best sound in the world. Worth a million dollars to Paul right then. Gratefully he found the tap and filled up his water bottle, drank most of it down, then filled it again. He sat down in contentment. Well, as much contentment as he could manage, given that Shane and Marina were now sitting cuddling on the verandah.

There was some debate about their plans. Berndt wanted to push on, down the other side of the mountain and along a river trail, but it was now late afternoon, mostly due to how long it had taken Paul and Marina to reach the top. Marina objected, to Paul’s relief, and insisted that it would be far more sensible to stay the night in the hut. Shane seemed indifferent, and after some grumbling Berndt agreed.

There were a couple of small rooms in the hut. Shane and Marina claimed one of the rooms where they could lay down their sleeping bags, which were designed to allow them to be zipped together into a double bag. Paul shied away from thinking about that and put his own sleeping bag down in the other room.

Berndt, the iron man, declared that he would sleep out on the verandah. Paul half-expected him to declare that he would do it without a sleeping bag, naked.

They made a fire in an established stone-ringed fireplace outside the hut – it was still outside the formal bushfire season and as yet there was no fire ban. They cooked the food they had brought with them – in Berndt’s case some actual steak, now looking just a little green from the heat of the day, but cooking up well enough after a rinse in tank water. Shane and Marina shared a package of tuna and noodles. Paul reconstituted some dehydrated vegetable soup.

The truth was, Paul thought, that he hadn’t been at all well prepared for this walk. It was his first real bushwalk, in fact, and he had just cobbled together what equipment and supplies he could. The others had all been walking together before. While Paul had been on short day-walks before with Shane, it had been over relatively level ground, nothing like the terrible endless slope they had endured today.

And so to bed. He lay awake for a time, dreading hearing sounds of love-making from the room next door, but in fact there was silence.

He spent an uncomfortable, cold night. His cheap sleeping bag wasn’t very efficient, and didn’t keep him warm against the freezing mountain air. He did catch some snatches of sleep, though, and woke to hear Berndt putting on his boots out on the verandah. Curious, Paul shrugged out of his bag and went to look.

There was the barest glimmer of light in the east. Berndt looked up and said “I’m going off to do a side-walk down the little valley down there. I’ll be back for breakfast in an hour or two.”

“OK,” Paul said. Nothing on earth would have induced him to do any extra walking. His calves and thighs were stiff and painful from the previous day’s walk.

As Berndt marched off into the semi-darkness, Paul sat down on the verandah and sat watching the slow brightening in the eastern sky. There was a cloud-bank, and slowly the clouds began to light up from underneath in colours of salmon and orange.

He heard a sound from behind him, and looked up in surprise to see Marina. “Shane’s snoring,” she said, “so I thought I would get up to see the dawn.” She sat down beside Paul and they watched the progressive illumination of the sky, which became a spectacular blaze of red and orange with hints of purple.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

“So are you,” Paul said without thinking.

Then he realised what he had let out and slapped his palm across his mouth in horror. “Oh, God! I’m sorry, I…”

She looked at him with a beatific smile. “It’s OK,” she said. “Thanks.”

Paul’s heart was still dropping within him, it seemed like it was sinking into the depths. “I shouldn’t have… I… you’re with Shane.”

“Yes,” she said firmly, standing up, but still smiling. “I am.” She turned to go back into the hut, then stopped and gave Paul an amused look. “But who knows, I might not always be.” And winked, and was gone.

Paul looked back at the spectacular dawn, a slow glimmer of hope rising in him along with the sun.

A new day began.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R. Grigg. All rights reserved

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.

The book is called A Torrent of Story, or How I wrote an original short story every day for a month, and how you can too. It’s available at a very modest price either from my website  or from the Amazon Kindle Store .

This is my contribution for Day 24 of the G+ Flash Fiction Project event organized by Becky Raymond which challenges writers to write a short piece of fiction each day during November 2011, based on a stimulus photograph or image.

Today’s image was provided by Amy Gabriel.

This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Trick? Or Treat?

In retrospect, Mary-Jean Broadbent realised that the trouble must have started at number 10.

It was so hard, and rather dispiriting, to try to organize a proper trick-or-treat night here in Australia. Australians didn’t seem to quite get Halloween, though some kids did try to participate in a half-hearted way. Too many households, though, just weren’t prepared for the kids’ arrival. And you just couldn’t get the right kind of pumpkins here to make proper  jack-o-lanterns.

Mary-Jean didn’t usually miss America so much. She liked living in Australia, she really did, but times like Halloween and Thanksgiving were the most difficult to bear and made her feel very homesick.

Her three boys were so very enthusiastic to go out trick-or-treating, though. They were all dressed as ninjas, they looked just the cutest things. There was a big revival here of the old Samurai TV series, a remake by the Japanese, and ninjas and samurai were the big thing now. So nothing would do for the boys but that they go dressed as ninjas. They did look great, she thought admiiringly as she left home with them. She wasn’t prepared to let them go walking around the neighbourhood by themselves, not when they had been here less than a year and she didn’t really know the neighbours all that well.

Tagging along with the boys was little Jemima from next door, dressed in pink with wings, a glittery crown and a silver wand.

Their first stop was Mrs Stavropolous at number 8. A nice old lady, living by herself now that her husband had died, just a few months ago. She didn’t quite understand the trick-or-treat thing, nor did she understand what the boys were dressed as, though she understood Jemima’s fairy costume well enough. After a long search, hunting through drawers, she found some candy and handed it out gravely to the four children.

“Thanks so much,” said Mary-Jean, and went on to number 10. Afterwards, she thought to herself that she should have been less naive, but then, how was she to know?

The couple living at number 10 were in their late fifties, but didn’t behave much like people of their age.  Mary-Jean had heard that during the 1960s – or whenever that counter-culture thing had been – they had both been hippies.  Fair enough for those times, she supposed, but neither of them seemed to have realised that time had moved on.

The door was opened by Galadriel – surely that couldn’t be her real name? A buxom woman, dressed in a loose Indian floral-print dress, and wearing a bead necklace. She was delighted to see Mary-Jean and the kids, and welcomed them into her cramped kitchen.

“Oh, so cute! What are you dressed as, dears? Ninjas? And a fairy! How lovely. How wonderful that you should come today!” Galadriel exclaimed. “I’ve been cooking! Here you go, children. These are called Carob Delights. Yummy!” And, in an aside to Mary-Jean: “No sugar, you know, dear, it’s poisonous for young children, quite poisonous!”

The children, eyeing the brown lumps, looked as though ‘yummy’ was the last word in the English language they would have applied to these treats.

“Now,” said Galadriel to Mary-Jean, “you must have a spot of sherry. I’m very partial to it myself. Let’s just have one while the children are enjoying their carob.”

Mary-Jean felt it impolite to refuse, so she gulped down the sweet sherry and then she made their excuses and went on.

There was no-one at home at number 12. At number 14 lived a young couple with two children of their own, a boy and a girl, who came to the door with their mother. “Trick or treat?” the mother repeated. “What if I ask for the trick?” Mary-Jean’s sons had obligingly spun rubber throwing-stars at the lady, who laughed and handed over prepared bags of candy. Now this was more like it.

It was as they approached number 16 that Mary-Jean started to feel a little odd.

For a while, just for a little while, she could swear that she saw little Jemima flap her fairy wings and lift up from the sidewalk.

No one home at number 16, but she had to keep calling the boys back into order. They kept doing extraordinary things like leaping backwards up onto the roof of a house, or into a tree. Jemima was definitely floating up higher and higher, and Mary-Jean had to grab hold of her hand to make sure she didn’t just plain float away.

Mr Tanaka lived at number 18, but Mary-Jean didn’t think he would understand the Halloween tradition at all. Or would he? Did the Japanese celebrate Halloween? Perhaps they did. She didn’t seem to be able to remember. They did play baseball, she knew that, so maybe it would be all right.

They knocked and almost immediately the door opened. Mr Tanaka stood there, impossibly tall and filling the doorway. Dressed in full Samurai uniform, helmet, grim leather mask and all. He came out, swinging his katana swords and the boys started casting their throwing stars, which hit with solid metal thunks, knocking off sparks.  They all whipped out long knives she was sure they hadn’t had before, and slashed at Mr Tanaka. Even Jemima, somehow taller now, was casting huge fireballs from her wand, which burst against Mr Tanaka’s chest.

Despite these attacks, Mr Tanaka thundered out and rushed towards Mary-Jean, his twin swords flashing in the street-light. He swung… and cut Mary-Jean’s head right off. She gave a gasp and stumbled back. Somehow she remained conscious.  She looked down and could see her head just sitting there on the ground, looking startled and rather offended.

Then everything went dark for a time.

“Mrs Broadbent, are you all right, ma’am?” Little Mr Tanaka, dressed in a perfectly ordinary sweater and dark pants, was bending over her as she sat with her back to a tree in his front yard.

“Mom, mom, are you OK?” asked the boys in concert. Jemima was crying and demanding to be taken home.

Though she still felt a little woozy, Mary-Jean was indeed recovering. “Just a dizzy spell,” she said. “Something I drank, I think.”

Next year, she thought, we won’t do Halloween.

by David Grigg

(C) Copyright 2011 David R.Grigg. All rights reserved.

If you liked this story, please visit my author page on Amazon to find more of my fiction.