The Hungry Child

This is a flash fiction failure; it runs just over a thousand words. The prompt is #80 from 101 Paranormal Romance Story Starters, and it very much spoils my ending :-(. If you choose to write to this prompt, please put a link in my comments so I can see what you've done.

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Your hero sees a little girl drain the blood of a homeless person and leave the body in an alley. What happens next?

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The Hungry Child

She looked six or eight, but was probably older. Blond, emaciated, clad in filthy rags, she came out of the alley between a strip club and a smoke shop which was adorned with a life-sized neon rabbit that was puffing on a pipe. Granted, it was the middle of the day and the club hadn't opened yet, but the girl still had no business in that area. Hoyt took a few quick steps and caught up to her.

"Hi," he said.

"I don't blow no kisses," she growled.

"That's good," Hoyt said.

It was, although it was disturbing enough that a child of this age knew the street term for oral sex.

"Leave me alone," she told him, and started to walk away.

"I can't," said Hoyt.

"You'll wish you had," she said over her shoulder.

That was surprising. Hoyt sometimes got responses like that from older children, but never before from the one of the little ones. He followed her down the sidewalk.

"Do you know what day it is?" Hoyt asked.

She stopped and turned back toward him.

"Tuesday the twelfth of November. It's ten AM, and I ain't got time for this."

"Do you know where kids are supposed to be on a Tuesday morning?"

"What's it to you?"

"I'm a truant officer," he said, "and you ought to be in school. What's your name? Who takes care of you?"

"Like I said, what's it to you?"

She just did not give up.

"Stay there," Hoyt said.

The girl shrugged, put her hands in her pockets and watched as Hoyt stepped away and fished out his cell phone.

"Hoyt Beaudry," he said to the Children's Services officer. "I work attendance violation. I have a child, sevenish, probably female, appears to be living rough in the red light district. No caregiver in evidence, and she's not answering questions. Right, I'll wait for you."

"Bad plan," said the child.

"That's enough of that," said Hoyt. "Trust me, you'll be way better off where they take you."

"I'm still hungry," she said.

Hoyt looked around for any place that might sell food, but there weren't even any street vendors.

"We'll get you something when Children's Services gets here," he said.

The girl started to reply, but a police car rolled around the corner and stopped beside them, and the window rolled down a couple of inches, revealing blue eyes and blond hair sleeked back into a tight bun.

"Beaudry?" asked the officer.

"Yeah, what can I do for you?"

"We're supposed to investigate the possible abuse of the minor child."

"You got here quick."

"Had a complaint about screams around the corner. Is that the kid?"

"Yeah, but she's not talking."

Both officers got out of the car. The partner was a hulking black man with a scar ripped down one cheek, so muscular that he looked like he might burst out of his immaculately pressed police uniform at any time. He grinned at Hoyt, exhibiting a gold upper left incisor.

"I don't fit the stereotype, do I?" he asked in a cultured accent.

"Just worried how the little one will react," Hoyt said.

"Why don't we let Trace talk to her, then? Did you see where the kid came from?"

Hoyt pointed and said, "That alley."

The man nodded and trotted toward the alley's mouth. His partner was hunkered down next to the girl.

"Where do you live?" the woman asked.

"Around."

"And who takes care of you?"

The girl never got the chance to refuse to answer. The male officer exploded from the alley's mouth.

"Tracey!" he called. "We've got a dead guy in here!"

His partner ran toward him. Hoyt really wasn't surprised. Homeless people did freeze to death from time to time, or simply die from any of a number of causes.

Then he was surprised. The child rushed past him, racing toward the police. Hoyt chased her, but it was the male officer who caught her up in his arms.

"No, no, no," he said. "You don't want to see what's down there."

Hoyt caught up and looked down the alley, then wished he hadn't. The dead man hadn't frozen to death. He had been shredded from his chin halfway down his chest, and his long beard was matted in the clotting blood. Hoyt closed his eyes, then opened them and turned to the officer.

"Give me the kid," he said. "She doesn't need to be around that."

"She's a material witness," said the man. "We're going to have to take her to the station for a while."

Hoyt's day was becoming desperately complicated.

"Why don't you take her in, Joe?" said the woman. "I'll wait for CSU and the detectives."

"Trying to look good for promotion? Don't get ahead of yourself. You don't even know that you passed the sergeant's exam yet."

"You want to stand on the hard sidewalk in the cold wind and wait...?"

"I'm gone, I'm gone. I'll see you at the precinct. You'll probably have made detective by then."

As the male officer carried the child toward the police car, his partner looked at Hoyt and blinked.

"I'll hang around for a few minutes," he told her. "It looks like you have enough to do without explaining to Children's Services what became of the little girl they were supposed to pick up."

"Okay, great," she said. "Can you just, like, keep people out of the alley while I walk down and make sure there's no way in or out the other...."

She was interrupted by the blare of a horn. It went on, and on, and on. She shook her head and walked toward it, following in her partner's footsteps, but after a yard or so she started to run.

The horn belonged to the police car. Her partner was slumped over the steering wheel. Hoyt ran after her, worried for the child. When he got to the car, there was no sign of the kid. The male officer didn't move as his partner opened the door. When she grasped his shoulder and leaned him back, his head lolled to one side, exposing the bloody tatters that had been his throat.

Hoyt stepped back, and noticed that child-sized footprints led away up the sidewalk--bloody footprints.

The blond woman stood up and looked at him.

"She told me she was hungry," he said.

This is prompt #65 from 1000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More. The prompts are long enough to make flash fiction difficult, but I hope anyone who decides to have a go will put a link in my comments so I can see the result.

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His parents were always worried about how he'd fit in. He was much bigger than his classmates throughout school and he had failed three grades along the way, leaving him behind the intelligence level of most of his peers. It wasn't until he got a gig as a goon for a crime syndicate that he found his true calling. They were scared that he'd get arrested and that they'd have to bail him out, but he seemed to really enjoy his job and more than anything else, he loved being valued. What are some of his best skills as an extremely strong goon for a less than reputable employer?

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Depend on Me

"Sonny? Where you going?"

He should have been more careful, but it might not have helped. Mama could hear a cockroach three floors up. No way Sonny's three hundred pounds of muscle got out the door without her noticing.

"I got a job," he said.

"For Morris Whitaker?" she asked, although she had to know the answer.

"Who else?"

"Well, I hope it's nothing illegal. You know we don't have what it takes to bail you out."

"Yes, Mama." Sonny knew. He also knew that Mr. Whitaker would take care of him. Mr. Whitaker appreciated loyalty. Hadn't he trusted Sonny with an important job tonight? As important as they came, disposing of a troublemaker. Sonny had the note the boss had sent, right in his pocket.

Sonny wasted no time. He took the subway to Mikey's pool hall and marched directly to the back, and when he found the wrong guy there like he had been told, he picked the scumbag up and twisted his neck till it popped.

"Sonny!"

Mikey stood in the door, and his eyes were as wide as store windows.

"Sonny," he continued, "what are you doing?"

"What I'm supposed to," Sonny said. "Taking care of the boss's problems."

He showed Mikey the note.

"Sonny, you idiot! Whitaker don't write nothing like that on paper!"

"But...."

"But that guy was a Federal agent, going through our books! They are gonna land on us like... like a landslide, and it's all your fault! The boss is gonna kill you!"

Sonny worked through it all in his mind as the sound of sirens drew closer, and somehow he knew that Mikey's final conclusion was not a figure of speech.

This prompt comes from 101 Writing Prompts for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers, Volume 1. Yes, I bought both volumes. For 99¢ each, why not? Anyway, this is prompt #98 on page 46 of the copy on my Kindle. As always, if you choose to write your own flash fiction based on the prompt, please stick a link in the comments here so I can marvel at your genius.

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Your character is a henchman for an evil queen. Tonight she plans to sacrifice a child in a ritual that will give her immortality. One problem: your character has just lost the baby. What happens next?

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Mistress's Child

Arguk tried not to gibber as he scrambled along the path toward the river bridge with the screaming baby in his arms. Mistress did not like it when he gibbered, and tonight, Mistress would be very, very pleased with him. Mistress had given him a spell of transformation, so that he could look like one of the humans, but he had not had to use it. He had snatched the infant while its older sister earned a bit of coin from a lusty guardsman. Mistress would be delighted when Arguk not only gave her the child she needed for her immortality spell, but returned her precious scroll as well.

Or perhaps he would not give it back. What mistress did not know would do her no harm, and Arguk might someday find a use of his own for a transformation spell. His broad feet thudded on the bridge planking as his head filled with dreams. He could be the image of the king and pay back the uppity serving women who would have no part of Arguk. He could even kiss the quee….

At this point, Arguk’s right foot landed in a pile of horse manure and slid. Arguk landed on his backside, picking up not a few splinters, as the infant flew up out of his arms and… and over the parapet.

Arguk howled, and scrambled to the parapet just in time to see the bridge ogre come out from underneath and catch the child.

“Oh, thank you, kind sir!” Arguk shouted. “Now please just toss him back up here!”

The ogre’s mouth spread into a grin. Then it spread even larger, and the ogre tossed the child in and swallowed it whole. With another grin and a wave at Arguk, the ogre vanished beneath the bridge.

“Well,” came a voice from behind Arguk, “that was absolutely brilliant!”

It was that young human wizard that had been panting after Mistress, the skinny one with the deep green eyes. Mistress didn’t trust him, of course. She was just being polite. Mistress only trusted Arguk. She had trusted him to get her the baby, hadn’t she?

Which was something of a problem, actually.

“Arguk go back,” he said. “Arguk get another baby. Get better baby.”

“Go ahead, you silly goblin!” said the wizard. “Don’t you see what’s coming back there?”

And now, of course, Arguk did see the mob of villagers rushing in his direction with their torches and their scythes and forks and their huge slavering dogs on chains.

“So just what are you going to do now?” said the wizard with a laugh.

“Use what mistress give me,” said Arguk.

Much later, Arguk relaxed in his den, the new bag of gold from his grateful mistress safely buried under his wood box. She had been very pleased with the scrawny human infant with the deep green eyes. He had been perfect for her spell. He had had an enormous affinity for magic, or so Mistress had said.

Sorry for the interruption. My Internet was down.

Today’s prompt comes from 101 Prompts for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers. This is #47, at location 204 in the copy on my Kindle.

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A woman enters the bedchamber she shares with her husband, only to find the head of her lover pickled in a jar and staring at her from the mantle.

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The Errant Spouse

“Well done,” the Duke told the assassin as he set the object on the mantle. “Now, be at hand. I do not wish her to have to wonder for long as to her fate.”

Alexander bowed and stepped into the necessary, then contemplated the view down the hole. It was far wider than necessary, wide enough to be hazardous. They said that a previous Duke had dropped one newborn daughter after another into the moat far below before he finally fathered a son. The loo would make a perfect way to dispose of a body, particularly if it seemed the body contained a great deal of alcohol and lost its balance while discharging some of it. He peeked back into the Duke’s bedchamber and saw his master gazing at the jar on the mantel while sipping some of the duchy’s fragrant white wine. A second cup sat on the table beside the bottle. Perfect.

The assassin ducked back as the door to the hallway opened. He heard the swish of the Duchess’s silk skirts, and then… not a scream, exactly, not even a true squeal… he heard what he would always after describe as a squeak.

“Do you like my new ornament, my dear?” asked the Duke.

Another squeak.

“It does render one speechless, does it not?” he continued. “I was told, though, that you particularly appreciated…items of this appearance.”

Finally the Duchess found her voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I think you do, my dear,” her husband said, and knocked on the privy door. “Perhaps,” he said, turning back toward her, “you would care to explain it to Alexander.”

The assassin emerged behind the duke as his wife began to stammer something incoherent. She squeaked again as Alexander swung his truncheon against the top of her husband’s head. The Duke emitted a choking gurgle and a small amount of blood, then fell forward on his face.

“How do you think we are going to get away with that?” the Duchess hissed.

“Dump him down the jakes,” Alexander said. “It’ll look like he fell through while he was taking a whizz.”

Alexander sat the Duke up and emptied his glass down the front of the man’s coat, then hefted the body over his shoulder and stepped back into the garderobe.

“And whose head is this in the jar?”

Alexander dumped the Duke and turned back to the new widow.

“New guardsman that got over-insistent with my sister Rose a while back. Rose does not take anything from any man.”

He leaned down and kissed the Duchess on the lips.

“And neither do you, my love, not anymore. Now clean up that smear of blood while you give me time to get clear, and then scream like anything, all right?”

“All right.”

She kissed him again, reaching around him to squeeze his backside, and then found a cloth to wipe up the blood as he slipped out the secret passage.

Today’s prompt comes from Inklings: 300 Starts, Plots and Challenges to Inspire Your Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories. It’s on page 6 of the copy on my Kindle.

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The rubber ducky may have been yellow, but it was no coward.

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Au Pair Work

The rubber ducky may have been yellow, but it was no coward. It quacked furious duck curses as it rode the whirlpool down toward the drain, where the water level had fallen to the point that the massive snapping fangs were visible. Chloris hung on my neck in terror, dripping bath water all over my good green polo shirt, but Coral scrambled after her endangered toy. I barely managed to snatch her away without dunking myself and her twin into the murderous bathtub.

The drain gave one especially vicious snap, and the rubber duck vanished with a surprised squawk. Chloris sobbed, Coral howled in anger, and the telephone rang. I tucked a naked, soapy twin under each arm and barreled down the hall. Who says high school football doesn’t give you job skills? However, Coach had never said anything about what to do if your smart phone was in your coat pocket and your arms were full of squalling toddlers.

Somehow I draped the little girls both over one arm long enough to dig out my phone and answer it.

“John!” my employer said. “I just wanted to check in and find out how your first day is going! Do you think you’ll like being our nanny?”

“Mrs. Matheson,” I said, and then had to pause because Chloris had decided to tie knots in her sister’s hair and I had to separate them. “Mrs. Matheson,” I began again, “is there anything you maybe forgot to tell me about your bathroom?”

“Why, no,” she said, “I don’t think so. It’s just like any other wizard’s bathroom pretty much anywhere, except… oh, did I forget to tell you to give the bathtub a treat before you bathed the twins? Well, I suppose I thought you’d just know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, “I guess I should have. Anyway, I have to go now. It sounds like the teakettle is trying to kill the cat.”

“All right, dear,” she said. “Have a nice day, now!”

Today's prompt is from 1000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, by Bryan Cohen. This is prompt #99, near location 250.

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Ring-a-ling! It's the glorious Pavlov-dog effect of the ice cream man. Write about your ice cream man experiences.

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The Ice Cream Man

"Hi!" Reeves said for the seven million and thirty-eighth time that summer afternoon. He stuck the photograph in the woman's freckled face, and then showed it to her children. "Anybody know him?" he asked.

"No, officer," said the woman. "Why? Is he... missing?"

Reeves winced, and glanced down at the children.

"Not anymore," he said.

Now she looked at her children, and pulled them closer to her.

"Have they caught...?"

"Not yet," Reeves told her, "but soon."

She hustled the children away, and Reeves moved on to the next soccer mom retrieving her children from Ballard Elementary School. She didn't know Ricky Rasmussen either. For a kid who had attended this school, he had apparently managed to meet very few of his classmates.

The next batch of children rushed past Reeves before he could speak. He heard the familiar ring-a-ding sound, and turned to find an ice cream truck parking at the side of the road. What kind of parent let their child buy ice cream from a stranger when a little boy at the same school had been kidnapped and brutally murdered?

Two women pushed by Reeves as well, intent on the children. Okay, so maybe they knew what they were doing. Still, Reeves didn't understand the department letting the guy operate in this area. It was a recipe for misunderstanding and confrontation.

Reeves waited until all the customers had been served, and showed the grandfatherly ice cream man the picture. He shook his head, like everyone else. Reeves went back to the parade of students and parents down the sidewalk, until he heard the truck making a strange noise, not continually like something mechanically wrong, but intermittently, like someone stomping around, or banging.

"Oh my God! Where's Alice?"

Reeves was with the distraught man immediately.

"Alice?" he asked.

"My stepdaughter. She's nine. She's about so tall and skinny and really dark, and she has her hair in cornrows and she's wearing a green tank and shorts and white sneakers with green pompoms!"

"Okay, I'm calling it in."

As Reeves thumbed his radio, he saw the ice cream truck turn a corner, and noticed for the first time something hanging out of one of the aluminum side panels that he had assumed covered refrigeration machinery. The something looked very much like a green pompom hanging from a shoelace.

This one comes from 150 Prompts for Fantasy Writers by Elizabeth Huff. It’s on page 226 of my Kindle edition.

As always, if you write to this prompt, please put a link to the results in the comments below, so I can marvel at your genius.

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What happens when a soul gets lost inside a mirror and can’t find its way out?

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Thérèse

I pretended I was still asleep and watched Thérèse in the mirror. She moved with a system along my chamber’s wall, pressing each with her flat hands and then tracing around its edge with two fingers before moving on to the next panel.

She was searching for a secret compartment.

So much for love at first sight. She had obviously latched on to me last night just to get into this room.

But what was she looking for? Why would anyone put a secret compartment in a guest’s bedchamber? Why hide anything where an outsider might find it?

Perhaps it wasn’t something hidden. Perhaps it was a passage, a secret way from one part of the palace to another.

Perhaps it was meant for spying on guests. My stomach turned. What had they seen last night, when Alain was here? What had they heard?

Enough of this. I sprang up, blanket covering my vulnerable nakedness as if the traitorous Thérèse hadn’t already seen everything, and turned to face her.

She wasn’t there.

I looked at the mirror, in which Thérèse continued her probing of the reflected wall. At the real wall, however, at the exactly corresponding position, was… nothing. But in the mirror….

“Thérèse?”

There was no response, neither from the mirror nor the real chamber. I lurched forward, dropping the blanket, and waved my arms where Thérèse should be standing. I felt nothing. Back to the mirror. I called out again and knocked on its surface, but got no response.

Thérèse was in the mirror. Somehow she had been caught….

Or… was I the one who was caught? Had Thérèse wakened to an empty bed, and was she now searching for me?

I rushed to the chamber door, and reached to open it.