Death and Derek by Lou Treleaven - February Femmes Fatales

Lou Treleaven is back in the February Femmes Fatales basement ready to tease us with her unerring humour and the continuation of the Derek saga.

Although Death and Derek stands alone, may I recommend you take a quick peek at the first episode from 2011, Fun With Derek to fully set the scene. I defy you not to giggle.

Lou has a wonderfully quirky view of life, which makes her an ideal author of children's books. She really gets inside kids' heads and has them laughing, and preferably screaming too - but not too much. Try Lou's very handy tips for dealing with useless parents and school bullies on the Horrible Hints page of her blog. Wish I'd thought of them!

Here we have the lighter side of horror, and it's a side I simply love.

DEATH AND DEREK

“So lovely to see you, Rachel!” Derek’s mother crooned, embracing me tightly. A rather inappropriate greeting, I thought, as this was her son’s funeral and I had killed him, but then she wasn’t to know that.

“Sorry for your loss.”

“Oh, you too darling. We were all sure you’d get back together and even get married. I feel I’ve lost a daughter as well as a son.”

“Mmmm, well.” I tried to pass her into the church but she grasped my arm. “You must sit with the family. At the front.”

“Love to.” I grimaced and took a deep breath before making my way to the front of the church, where I was soon pressed up between Derek’s Auntie Sandra and his Uncle Bernard.

“Tragic,” Auntie Sandra whispered to me, breathing heavily in my ear.

“Terrible,” Uncle Bernard agreed, putting his hand on my knee and leaving it there.

They were right – it had been tragic. I could still see Derek’s green and brown jumper soaked with his surprisingly vivid red blood. My favourite silver dagger had taken ages to clean. My chaise longue had taken a real beating, but I had managed to get the worst out of it with a liberal application of Dr Daemon’s Gore-Be-Gone.

To my surprise I featured heavily in the funeral service, which was interlaced with speeches from Derek’s family about their dashed hopes for the future, and the now impossible prospect of the patter of tiny Dereks courtesy of yours truly’s womb, which quite frankly was locked and bolted with no chance of Derek or anyone else, dead or alive, breaching those defences thank you. (I was working on a booby trap that would cause considerable personal intimate damage, but it was still in beta.) Occasionally the vicar would get a word or two in, something about tragic death, sorely missed, ashes, dust and so on, but mostly it was just Derek’s family droning on while Uncle Bernard’s hand crept further up my lap.

I was relieved when Derek’s mother interrupted the vicar’s final summing up to invite us all for canapés at her lovely home. A glass of wine and a handful of twiglets and it would all be over.

“Tell us what happened again,” Auntie Sandra crooned, squeezing herself into my chintzy armchair and trapping me.

“Well, I did toy with him for a while, but in the end I went for the heart and put him out of his misery,” I confessed, taking a swig of wine.

“Oh darling, she doesn’t mean how you broke up. She’s talking about the terrible murder of my sweet boy.” Derek’s mother pressed a ritz cracker into my hand. “We don’t know who did it, Sandra, but the police are saying it was a crime of passion.”

“Absolutely not,” I insisted. “It was just the way the evening was going.”

“Come and sit on my lap,” Uncle Bernard suggested, patting his beige slacks.

It was time to go.

***

As I drove back to Unhallowed Acres my mind whirled. Had I done the right thing? I knew I’d done the right thing ending Derek – no one who kept used tissues up their sleeves deserved to live – but should I have confessed? I’d tried to tell them the truth but nobody wanted to listen.

The road turned into a track and soon I was entering familiar territory. The sky went dark, bats flitted overhead and pairs of red eyes blinked through the sinister shapes of bare trees. Home sweet home. What worried me was that I was becoming happier here than I was in the ‘normal’ world.

My phone suddenly gave a manic laugh, my text message signal to tell me there was another undead creature waiting for my attention. I began to relax again.

After a long evening’s work – a banshee trapped in an airing cupboard, the killing of a vampire who’d been hosting a late night television arts review show, and yet another exorcism at my local, the Hangman’s Noose, I returned home tired but happy. The menacing statues that normally stood around my house in ghastly tableaux had shifted about and wittily spelled out Welcome Back with the entrails of dead animals, and I heard the ghosts in the attic clanking out a supportive rhythm with their chains as I unlocked the door with its huge rusty iron key.

“Well?” The ghost of Derek drifted down the hall towards me, looking emotional.

“It was fine. They all waxed lyrical about you.”

“But what did they say? Who cried the most? Did Mollie Bishop from school turn up? I know she secretly fancied me for years –“

It had been a long day. I reached into the kitchen cupboard, turned swiftly and sprayed Derek with Dr Daemon’s Ectoplasm Repellent. It would break him up for a few hours and by the time he drifted back together again he’d be exhausted.

Okay, so I hadn’t got rid of Derek entirely, but now he was dead he was so much easier to manage. And, even better, the patter of tiny feet was going to be absolutely impossible now.

With a sigh of satisfaction I went to my display cabinet to make room for Uncle Bernard’s severed hand.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Lou has written this piece as a sequel to her 2011 Femme Fatale entry, Fun with Derek.  She calculates she will finish the story if February Femme Fatales continues for another 80 years.

You can find her at www.loutreleaven.wordpress.com.

Whispering Sweet Nothings by Icy Sedgwick - February Femmes Fatales

This is Icy Sedgwick's maiden sojourn here at The Feardom, and I am mightily pleased to welcome her to the February Femmes Fatales showcase. As she and I share tweets on the very important topics of corsets, bodices and boots I do believe she will feel quite at home with all the Femmes Fatales.

Icy is a queen of pulp fiction, indeed her first novel - The Guns of Retribution, a Western - is published by Pulp Press. If you want to read more of her work do take the time to visit her blog where she shares and opines. In the meantime I just know you're going to enjoy the magical...

WHISPERING SWEET NOTHINGS

I sat in the car, twisting the key in the ignition and thumping the steering wheel. It worked in the movies, but not in reality. Instead of flaring into life, the engine sputtered, wheezed, and died.

“Oh for the love of – I haven’t got the patience for this!”

Pounded the wheel one last time for good measure, I threw open the car door. I wasn’t exactly running late for a pressing appointment but shopping needed to be done ahead of my date that evening, and no desire to use the bus. I slammed the car door shut and stomped back up the path to my house, heading for the spare room.

The curtains stay closed to keep the room dim – can’t have my pretties being exposed to sunlight. I flipped the switch and the electric glare cut through the dancing dust motes spinning about the room. Wide shelves set into the wall opposite the window held rows of large glass jars. Each one bore a handwritten label, and each one contained a heart.

I stood on my tiptoes and scanned the labels of the jars. I knew it was there somewhere; I just had to find it. The light fell on the label of a jar near the back. The delicate black script spelled out the name Gary McKillock. Success! Pulling the jar free from its neighbours, I tapped on the glass, watching the heart shudder in its viscous fluid. It belonged to Gary McKillock, a mechanic who lived three streets away. I snared his heart but I still dreaded running into him at the shops, due to his fondness for meandering stories and overpowering aftershave. Still, on this occasion, I could do with a favour, and needs must when the Devil offers a hot date.

I unstoppered the jar and dipped my hand inside. It’s amazing how cold that liquid gets when it’s just sitting in the dark. Balancing the heart in the palm of my hand, I drew a sigil in the air above it. A corresponding sigil lit up on the right ventricle, glowing in pale green.

“You will feel needed. You will get an overwhelming urge to call me, and you will call me right now,” I whispered. The sigil faded, and I slid the heart back into the jar.

My pocket vibrated and a square of light shone through the material of my jacket. I fished out my phone – I didn’t even need to read the name on screen to know who was calling.

“Hello?”

“Diane? Is that you?” That nasal tone was unmistakable.

“Hi, Gary! What a wonderful surprise!”

“How are you? Just realised it was a while since I’d heard from you...thought I’d call to see how you are.” I shuddered at the faint trace of hope in his voice.

“I’m fine, sweetie, just fine. Well, all except for my silly car.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Ah, there’s that tone. Curiosity.

“I don’t know, it just won’t start.”

“That’s no good. Listen, I don’t need to go to the garage for another hour, do you want me to pop round to take a look at it?

“Oh, would you? Only if it’s absolutely no trouble to you.”

“No trouble at all. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

I said my goodbyes and slipped the phone back into my pocket. Gary’s jar slid back into its slot among the other jars on the bottom shelf. Another name, this time on a jar at the front of the shelf, caught my eye. Heston Crater. How could I forget Heston? He owned La Coquille, a seafood restaurant on the high street. Memorable less for his cuisine and more for his bad teeth and penchant for mismatched socks, I couldn’t stand his mindless prattle but he never let me pay when he invited me to drop by for lunch.

Seconds later, his heart was in my hand, and I was whispering sweet nothings to his left atrium. I smiled, already tasting the squid in lemongrass broth, and returned his heart to the jar.

My phone rang.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Icy Sedgwick is based in the North East of England. She has been writing for over ten years, and contributes articles to Write Anything and Fuel Your Writing, and is working on a PhD in Film Studies.

Icy has also had her first book, The Guns of Retribution, published through Pulp Press.

Will You Walk With Me A Way? by Dorothy Davies - February Femmes Fatales

Dorothy has entertained, terrified and intrigued us many times this month. Here she chills us to our jangling bones.

Take care as you read this, best look over your shoulder - it's cold and wet out there...

WILL YOU WALK WITH ME A WAY?

Will you walk with me a way?

Not far, just to the end of this road.

I am...empty inside and need a few moments of interaction with someone. Oh my, that sounds so formal, doesn’t it? In truth, though, to ask you for a few moments of idle chatter, or gossip would be nonsensical. Especially with what I have in mind.

You look wet, is it raining? Oh I see; it’s that fine drizzle that no umbrella can ward off, so you didn’t bother. Me? No, I don’t get wet. Call it a shield if you like, rain tends to avoid me.

Tell me, how are things at the nursing home these days? Does the garden bloom as fine in spring and summer as it used to? I recall the days of sitting out there, listening to the birds that would be singing as if their lives depended on it, the insects buzzing and flitting hither and thither as if their lives depended on it … come to think of it, they did. But us, the static ones, we stayed where we were, in our wheelchairs or sun loungers or wherever the staff had put us, there to bake in the heat until they took us back into the coolness of the home once more. Not a word of complaint from any of us, you know that, but oh the longing at times for shadow, cool water and rest from unremitting sunshine was overwhelming. But it was life and despite its many, many drawbacks, we clung to it tenaciously. Why? I wonder now why I did not just give up and drift away.

The big problem really, for all of us, is memories.

They hurt.

‘Sometimes memories walk a little hard.’ The wisest words I ever heard, from the most wonderful person I ever knew, my maternal grandmother. Oh she was right! How hard do the memories walk when your means of perambulation is either wheels or a walker? You recall the times when three strides would take you to the door, the cupboard, the TV, whatever/wherever. You recall the way you could walk freely down the road, wander round the shops, visit restaurants and museums, libraries and stately homes. Can you even begin to imagine not walking?

Of course not.

It doesn’t come to all of us but enough … oh yes, enough.

But look at me now. Do I not walk well? Proud, tall and easy? Not so much as an ache in the hip joints or knees, the ankles flex and move as they should. Ah, the joy of it.

You? You are too young still, in terms of experience, to fully understand the joy I feel at being free to walk again.

I have to ask … do you not remember me? The old cantankerous lady who sat in her wheelchair in the garden and demanded cool drinks and ice cream and got neither? Do you not recall how I asked for shade and had none offered to me? Do you not know the suffering you put me through, you who were paid to care and didn’t?

Well, I got you to walk with me a way. And look, here we are, right by the cemetery which is now my home. Oh, you will not escape me this time! Now I see the horror on your face as I cast off the mask of humanity and show you what I am. A skeleton.

Bony hands can grip harder than flesh covered ones, can’t they?

Will you walk with me a way? Let me show you where I lie, here in the cold earth, with not so much as a snowdrop to lighten the darkness of the earth. No one cared, did they … and you, you were one of the worst. Did I not see you laughing behind closed doors at those who pleaded for respite from sun and thirst and were ignored?

Oh, you did not know, did you, that after I left your side of life I returned, over and over again, to watch, to record, to – all right, stalk you if you like.

Here we are. This is my narrow bed.

Will you share it with me for a while?

Like, eternity?

_________ The End _________

Bio: Dorothy Davies lives and works on the Isle of Wight, the haunted island which surely inspires most if not all of her writing.

She is a devoted Predictioneer.

He Lies Beneath by Marissa Farrar - February Femmes Fatales

So wonderful to be able to welcome such a talented author as Marissa Farrar back to February Femmes Fatales. I'm not the only one to have read the first in her Serenity series ALONE - a powerful vampire paranormal romance - this year. The sequel, BURIED is smouldering away on my Kindle waiting to be read.

I urge readers to visit Marissa's blog to discover her work; I can assure you - you won't be disappointed. He Lies Beneath is proof of that.

HE LIES BENEATH

Image (c) Marissa Farrar

The warmth of his steady breath attracted her. Like smoke, she dissipated and slipped through the open crack of his window. Inside, she reformed in her feminine guise; eyes so large and black, should any man wake to see her, he’d glimpse only holes in her head.

She hovered above this one and smiled with pleasure. Still young, perhaps only in his late twenties, he slept on his back, a white sheet draped across his narrow waist. His well-defined arms rested either side of his head, his lips parted. Long, dark eyelashes lay upon his cheek and stubble shadowed his cut jaw.

“Aaah...” she sighed, her breath frosting the night air. The sight of his naked torso pleased her and a shiver of excitement trembled through her form.

She dipped lower and pressed her cold, pale lips against his. His head twisted slightly, sensing her. She kissed him, insistent and, even in sleep, he responded. Her black, pointed tongue flicked into his mouth, dancing, tracing the inside of his lips and teeth. His lips moved against hers and she tasted the faint hint of mint.

Suspended above him, she moved from his mouth, planting feather-light kisses across his jaw and down his neck. His pulse beat steadily just beneath the delicate skin of his throat. The warm scent of copper filled her nostrils, but it wasn’t blood she was after.

Her lips worked down his body, stopping at the tight buds of his nipples to grate her teeth over the erect, sensitive flesh. Her slick, black tongue laved the peak in lascivious circles.

The beautiful man squirmed beneath her and lower down she felt him begin to rise, tenting the sheet.

Focusing her energy, she willed the offending material away. It slid from his body and dropped to the floor beside the bed. His naked body exposed, she slid her fingers down to circle his expanding girth. She squeezed him tight, eliciting a moan.

The blood-tipped nails of her other hand scratched down his chest and across the ridges of his abdominals, leaving five red lines in their wake. His head thrashed from side to side, his lips moving, muttering in his sleep.

He grew hard beneath her caresses and the response made her smile; a wicked expression. Her long, slim fingers worked his length and he uttered a groan. Moving lower still, she brushed her cheek against his manhood, like a cat nudging an owner’s leg. His skin felt like silk and she marvelled at the combination of hard and soft. Holding him at his base, she brushed her lips against him, sneaking out her tongue to leave a trail of wet saliva along his length.

She took him between her lips, stretching her jaw to accommodate his size. She tasted musk, his scent filling her senses. She swirled her blackened tongue over the head, drinking in the salty droplet she found there.

Closing her lips around him, she bobbed lower. He swelled in her mouth as she moved up and down, keeping a regular pace, her tongue swirling across his smooth skin.

His eyes shot open and in the dim moonlight filtering between the curtains, he caught sight of her. She knew her high cheekbones appeared skeletal, her eyes gaping holes, her skin white. His mouth stretched in a scream, but even as he shrieked, his hips jerked. Hot seed spilled down her throat and she sucked and swallowed, draining him dry. He cried out with both the force of his orgasm and the horror of what he’d woken to. But despite his turmoil, he couldn’t run; her dark magic kept him pinned to the bed.

Overwhelmed, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell slack against the mattress.

She lifted her head and licked her lips.

In the morning he would only remember a dream of contrasts—of pleasure and pain, of terror and lust. Exhausted, he’d blame the nightmare, and in some ways he’d be right. Though it wouldn’t be the lack of sleep that had affected him but the energy she’d stolen.

Perhaps she would return to this one. She moved up his body and stroked his cheek. He flinched in his sleep. Yes, he pleased her. His restless nights and exhausted days would continue...

_________ The End _________

Bio: Marissa Farrar was born in Devon, England, where she now resides with her husband and two children. She is the author of the dark vampire novels, The Serenity Series, and several stand-alone horror and fantasy books.

If you want to know more about Marissa, please visit her facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/marissa.farrar.author

The Firewood Collector by A J Humpage - February Femmes Fatales

If you've read AJ Humpage you'll already know how she can take the fiercest of human behaviour - love, lust, hate - and lay it bare. She will scrape your face with it, tear out your soul with it... and break your heart with it.

Ally's ability to describe atrocity with the poetry of senses is unique. Read The Firewood Collector and just tell me it doesn't touch and chill you to the bone...

THE FIREWOOD COLLECTOR

Green over umber; these colours filled Reuben’s vision, vibrant and deep, reminding him of childhood summers spent in the Rhine valley. Childhood aside, he had lived and worked in Berlin most of his life, until the war began, and now everything had changed - his life and his world had transformed immeasurably.

Sweet smelling moss and pine laced the mist around him as he followed the soldier along the path. The sky had turned grey, as though drenched and degraded by an unwelcome fear. Another soldier followed behind; soft steps, deceptive.

Reuben collected firewood every day for the camp, had done so for three years. It was a hard task, finding enough to stoke the furnaces and power the machinery. He dragged along a large cart which he had to fill with wood. Sometimes he made two or three collections during the day, which left him exhausted at night, although not as exhausted as some of the younger men in the camp.

Exhaustion meant he slept well, cocooned from the nightmares.

They moved further up the hill.

Mist clung to the trees like a cloak and veiled the crows hiding among the branches, but Reuben knew they were there, he could hear them. The air was still, damp and somehow heavy, and each crunch underfoot seemed to carry across the forest.

He looked out from the hillside, saw the camp below. Square shaped huts dotted his vision, the darkened roofs reflecting the rain which must have fallen during the night. A large funnel of grey smoke billowed from the chimney of a nearby building, the smoke stack rising high into the air. The stench from the smoke stack didn’t reach the hillside, and instead it drifted across the forest to the east, drenching the surroundings with a chalky coloured powder, slightly sticky to the touch. Reuben was glad he couldn’t smell it. He knew what they burned to make it so nauseous. Some days it left a greasy residue in the lining of everyone’s noses and throats, and the thought of what laced their tongues made some of the men physically sick.

He looked to his right, saw the railway track leading up to the gates of the camp. The forest was silent today, but tomorrow there would be more people arriving, crammed into the dark wooden carriages. More men and women, more children. More misery.

He had seen the neglected flesh and bones, the sunken faces, the twisted piles of humanity forming a mire of decay. He had seen grown men wet themselves with unimaginable fear, he’d seen the aftermath of soldiers rounding on the women. Tears and semen formed a milky dew on pale, deathly skin, while the unborn stagnated in their mothers’ dead wombs.

Movement brought Reuben to.

The soldier in front stopped, lit a cigarette. He exhaled slowly and grey smoke swirled around his face like a serpent.

Reuben’s brow drooped. Lines in his once fresh face deepened. He pointed. ‘There’s no wood here. We have to go up to the clearing to get the best wood.’

The soldier smoked, shook his head. ‘No, here is fine.’

Reuben rubbed soiled hands down his striped clothes. ‘But...there’s no wood here...’

The soldier smoked, watched Reuben carefully with retentive blue eyes. Reuben’s grey expression slowly turned dark. Afraid. He knew that look; he had seen it so many times. Behind him, he heard the other soldier moving about and it made him turn, the sensation of fear scuttling across his skin.

The other soldier stood near a muddy patch of ground, his foot resting on a large boulder, his rifle slung around his shoulder. He stared at Reuben with dark, almost black, cloudy eyes, as though they had lost sheen and no light could penetrate them.

Reuben shuddered, turned to the soldier in front. The clouds in the distance undulated and churned, it looked like more rain was coming.

‘There’s no need for you to collect firewood anymore, Reuben,’ the soldier said. The soldier lifted his rifle. ‘I’m afraid you’ve outgrown your use.’

Reuben shook his head. ‘But I don’t understand...’

The soldier coughed as though he had grit stuck at the back of his throat. ‘I have my orders.’

Reuben’s insides contracted with fear. ‘No...I’ve been a good worker, I’ve broken no rules.’

‘We know that,’ the other solider said from behind Reuben.

Reuben looked at him. ‘You need me. Who else is going to collect the firewood?’

‘The boys will do it,’ the soldier replied, indifferent.

The little boys, all without mothers, who picked around the camp, clearing up the detritus and the dead. There were always more of them coming in every other day.

‘But I know all the best places for wood,’ Reuben said.

The soldier pointed the gun at Reuben’s head. ‘The boys will find new places.’

‘No, please...I’ll do anything you want...’

‘We don’t need tired old men,’ the other soldier muttered.

Reuben stared at the young soldier; saw the man’s knuckle turn white as he gripped the trigger, poised. Wonderful memories shot through his mind - family dinners and parties, evenings around the piano, going to work alongside his father at the furniture factory on the outskirts of Berlin, getting married, having children...but then the dark memories rose up and smothered him; memories he had fought hard to forget, like losing his wife the day the soldiers came for them, losing his children. All three boys murdered on the blood-sullied streets of Berlin, cut down by a shower of bullets. All these elements, all that he was, all that he knew, had gone.

He blinked at the shale coloured surrounds of the cold austere forest that enveloped Auschwitz.

Memories frittered.

The shot scattered crows skyward; filling the greyness like a black vapour.

Reuben slumped to his knees and fell forward, his shattered face buried in the moss, red over green.

‘Shame,’ the German soldier said, nonchalant. He flicked his cigarette. ‘I liked him. Still, he was a Jew nevertheless.’

_________ The End _________

Bio: A J Humpage has short stories and poetry published in anthologies like 6 Sentences, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement and many e-zines, and has completed her second novel.

She offers writing advice at http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.com.

Her work can be found at http://ajhumpage.blogspot.com and you can find her on Twitter: AJHumpage

Lily's Friday Prediction

I'm having a Banshee moment. I caught something on BBC4 about Siouxsie Sioux and have been thrown into a whipped-up sea of reminiscence.

I can't count how many times I saw this extraordinary woman perform. I love everything about her - her look, her voice and lyrics but perhaps most of all her determination to be herself in a very greedy and narrow-minded music business. Hail Siouxsie Sioux!

(Oh and I'll always remember getting thrown out of a friend's parents' snooty Golf Club dinner/dance for my personal performance of Mad-Eyed Screamer back in Siouxsie's Creatures days. It made my, and the DJ's night.)

Talking of highly-talented women, please don't forget to read the incredible dark fiction in this month's FEBRUARY FEMMES FATALES showcase. Several Predictioneers are sharing their work and would love your feedback.

And Gentlemen, just because the showcase pieces are written by women it doesn't mean the stories are only for women - please dip in and support your fellow writers. You can flip back through the posts here on the Feardom, or go to the FFF page where the posts are listed in date order as they go live.

Thank you!

Winner of Last Week's Prediction Challenge

A healthy pot-load of Prediction entries last week despite that 'mangle' word! We have one - my hubby uses it for print-making.

I've read and re-read your wonderful words - even with fewer entries than the previous weeks it doesn't make it any easier to chooser a winner. But the job is done:

My winner is Jack Holt with the atmospheric and intriguing vignette Fallout. This strange nameless woman and the even stranger location stayed in my mind for days. Is this a derelict casino? And what is she about to do? Do tell. Oh, and congratulations!

Runner-up, with Big Boys Don't Cry is AJ Humpage. The vivid description of this horrendous accident is so powerful you can smell the carnage. Well done AJ.

Words for 10 February 2012

I've rambled on for England so I'll make this quick...

This week's words are:

• Conserve 
• Hare
• Crucify

(All verb and noun forms accepted on the first and last words).

Good luck!

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have until 9pm UK time on Thursday 16th February 2012 to enter.

The winner will be announced on Friday 17th February. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it. Do give feedback to your fellow Predictioneers - we all appreciate it.

Slide down your Helter Skelter and finger some great fiction. I want to be left Spellbound...

___________________________________

Party Guest, and I Cling Inside the Border-Wall by Amber Taitague - February Femmes Fatales

Amber Taitague is new to the February Femmes Fatales feast. Regular readers and contributors to my weekly Friday Fiction Prediction challenge will better know Amber as MuckieDuckie.

Amber's writing delivers naughty wickedness, a dark and dangerous outlook that makes you smile - in guilt. Here she revisits two of her Prediction challenge pieces. They are well-chosen and present her intriguing style so well.

Little dabbles with delicious drabbles. Read on...

PARTY GUEST

Balloons drift limply to the floor; the party decorations hanging haphazard throughout the house. A dazed girl in a torn party dress wanders about, wincing at the loud music. She ignores a platter of congealed London broil on the dining table, making her way to the front door.

Her head cocks in puzzlement at the bottleneck she finds. Bodies with empty eye sockets that glare red are piled about like pillow shams.

Softly singing Portishead’s “All Mine” she grabs a jar off the floor, smiling at the eyeballs it contains.

Marie is a collector and she has only just begun.

_________ The End _________

I CLING INSIDE THE BORDER-WALL

When love’s rotation gyrates on fear’s axis, the strain of years doesn’t strengthen the glue of you. The toll bears down heavy.

The cracking you hear is not of bones breaking but of self shattering.

His angry face is on again. He shouts the words that show the border between us and little pitchers hear; small eyes shimmer soft as the television tries to hypnotize.

I’m ice to his flame, no more moved by his rages.

The border-wall recedes, but the space between us is different. We’re half-remembered strangers or half-forgotten friends, but I cling.

Cling to keep us whole.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Amber Taitague has been writing since she was a child, dabbling with short stories and poetry. She recently fell into flash fiction and has been working many years on a novel, however she's guilty of procrastination. She can be seen in 5x5 Issue Four: Smoke.