Untitled Story Posts are fun!

A longer story, tonight. My good friend Tony provided the basis for this one with a 50-word he wrote, so everything between the two ** is his. Enjoy!

 

The newly risen sun shone through the green curtains casting emerald light throughout the room. Someone was singing in the kitchen; a light and cheerful tune. The air was rich with the smell of coffee. I sighed and rolled out of bed, not wanting to bother sitting up first. I landed on the floor with a solid ‘thunk’ and reached under the mattress for my pistol and holster. I yawned and stood up, stretched, put on my pants and shirt, slipped the holster over my shoulders, stumbled into the hallway, and stopped dead in my tracks.

“Hello, Jonathan.” he said, cheerfully. The armpits of his shirt were already soaked through. He was nervous, which was a good sign. He knew that I knew.

**”Don’t make me do this,” I said. “Good to see you, too,” he replied. We drew our guns simultaneously and were now in a stand-off. It was just a matter of which one of us would shoot first. “You boys alright?” The voice came from the kitchen. “We’re fine, mom.”**

After a few tense moments, I slowly and openly brought my left hand up to my holster, as a signal. He did the same, and we each calmly holstered our weapons, loudly snapping the buttons closed.

“Um… coffee?” I suggested., desperately needing a subject change. “Er…. please. Yeah, coffee sounds good.” he sighed, seeming relieved, yet he still chose to back out of the hallway rather than turn his back to me. We walked side-by-side to the kitchen and mom poured us each a cup of coffee, commenting on how it was nice to be making breakfast for her boys again. “The crazy old bat,” I thought, “You never used to make us breakfast.”

“I think I saw a newspaper on the lawn. Do you get a newspaper Jonny?” she asked me. I nodded over my coffee. “Only the local, though. For a proper paper you’ll have to go down to the corner.” I suggested, eager to have Jeff to myself for a while. She took the advice and happily strode through the front door, closing it behind her.

Once again, we were at a stand-off. He made one mistake, however; this was my house. I slowly moved my foot across the floor, never breaking eye-contact with him, and kicked the weak leg of his chair sharply, causing it to break away. His improvised weapon splashed in his face as he hastily tried to catch himself and I used the opportunity to draw my gun, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. As much as I wanted him to stop being my brother I knew that it would never happen.

I jumped up and dashed around the table only to be greeted by a barrel aimed at my chest. He was still rubbing coffee from his eyes so I knew it was just a bluff. As he turned to glare at me I called him on it and spun, clockwise and ducking, to duck under his right arm and bringing the weight of my weapon heavily into the base of his skull. He went down like a box of books, smashing his chin on the table en-route.

Mom asked me when she got back why I didn’t kill him for what he did. I just shrugged. “Maybe next time.”

 

-Hobbs

Greetings!

Let’s begin with a large pile of 50-word stories.

**********

Something about his lips repulsed her. A slight taste of something familiar; so commonplace that when in a different setting it becomes unplacable. He was nice enough, but it seemed that he knew more than he should. That and he made her thoughts wander to horrible things. That taste. Sulfur?

**

The corpse pulsed with potential. It called to the young man.

“Take me,” it said.

“Use me,” it cried.

“I can aid you in your quest.”

The young man tried to resist. “This is wrong,” he thought. “Someone might see.”

“…what happens in Vegas… stays in Vegas.” said the corpse.

**

 “Think we lost ‘em?” Mike said to the old man. “Huh? Oh, I don’t know,” was his reply.

Mike continued, “I knocked over a garbage can to block their path…”

The old man turned to Mike and looked him in the eye. “Wait a moment…who the hell are you?”

**

His stomach sank into his shoes when he saw what she was holding. She found his stash.

He had told her that he stopped, but it was just so hard. Instead, he cut back to three a day and never around her. “Comics,” he thought, “are ink-and-paper crack.”

**

Her beautiful dark hair had been pulled back in a loose ponytail. “Well? What do you think?” she said, turning back to the house.

“I love it,” I said. “I’ll get started on a fence.”

“Wait.. we need to buy it first.” she chuckled as he walked away. “Honey? HONEY!”

**

He didn’t want to lose her this way; cast aside like an old pair of pants that, though once were favorites, no longer fit properly. If she was going to dump him, it would be on his terms. At least when he sold her dog she’d have a real reason.

**

He emptied the clip into the slowly advancing mob, unaware of the irony of the situation. He had been in torpor for a little over a decade, so there was no way for him to know that he was not, in fact, killing zombies. Emo-kids really should count, though.

**

Thomas rolled the unconscious man onto his back. “Hey,” he shouted, “this guy doesn’t look too shabby, think he’ll do?”

The amorphous entity to which he was speaking drifted over. “No,” it intoned. “His nose is too large… we must find another. Think more ‘Michael Jackson’ and less ‘Dustin Hoffman’.”

**

“Duck… duck… duck…” Shirley said, skipping. “Duck… GOOSE!” she laughed, patting Nick on the head. As she spun to run away, he was standing in front of her, scowling, the  golden mist surrounding him already beginning to dissipate. “We run clockwise, here.” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly… “Now…. run.”

**

There was too much oxygen on this planet, but that wasn’t so bad if he didn’t breathe too often. Worse than that, though, was figuring out what was normal and what wasn’t. So he didn’t tell the police his car was stolen. Or his insurance company. He told his cats.

**

“Well, obviously you didn’t check the possible side effects!” the man in the lab coat shouted. Enraged, I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. “Your pills,” I screamed, punching him in the side. “Turned my son,” another punch. “Into a lemur!” The scientist sighed. “Really?”

**

“Turn left at next stop.” said a pleasant, monotone, female’s voice. I turned, as instructed, slightly annoyed. “Continue for two-hundred-yards.” the voice continued. I started to grumble. “Turn right at ne…,” it started, just as I screamed “Knock it off or you’re walking!” The hitchhiker frowned, feeling dejected.

*****

-Hobbs