Author Archives: James Pyles

Tangency and Darkness

dracula

Promotional image for “Theatre68 presents Dracula”

Jessica had no way of knowing that her relationship with Everett was a moment of tangency and thus was doomed to end as abruptly as it began.

She always met him on the veranda behind her Father’s house. Summer nights in Georgia were sultry and each moment that passed as she waited for the sun to set was as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. Jessica could feel drops of sweat describe tiny rivulets across the tops of her mocha breasts and then down her cleavage. She held her thighs close together and swayed slightly with a warm breeze as the final rays of daylight succumbed to the rule of the kings of darkness.

Then he appeared on the far side of the manicured lawn and yet she could hear his voice as if he were whispering in her ear. “Come.”

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Thy Kingdom Come on Earth

thunderstorm

Our Father who art in Zion
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom come on earth
Thine will be done on earth
Hallowed be Thy name

From “Our Father in Zion”
Performed by Buju Banton
Songwriters: Donovan Germain / Mark Anthony Myrie (1997)

Brian Phelps stood on his back patio and looked out over the fence at the elementary school. It was a Friday and the kids were all tearing around the playground during recess. Being self-employed meant he didn’t have to punch a clock or commute to work beyond taking a fresh cup of coffee from the kitchen into his office and then sitting down at his computer and working on the next chapter of his novel.

Today, he didn’t feel like writing. Well, that was a lie. He always felt like writing, but he didn’t know how to write this one. A few days ago, yet another shooting happened at a public school. Seventeen people died, most of them students. Brian looked at the children happily playing on the school grounds. “It could just as easily have been you.”

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Lot 476

no tresspassing

© Sascha Darlington

It had been five years since the Collier Xenogenics Lab had been shut down. It still sits vacant and the government is even afraid to demolish it, not convinced that it’s been completely sterilized. Fifty-seven men and women and several hundred lab animals from chimps to mice all died when the genetically engineered virus named Lot 476 escaped into the main complex through a faulty seal. Fortunately, 476 could survive in an open atmosphere only thirteen minutes but it only took four minutes to kill.

Joseph Morgan stood outside the abandoned parking lot looking at the “No Trespassing” sign and seeing the locked gate. He shuddered at the memory of those Fifty-seven bodies bleeding out on the floors of the three labs in the building as he regained consciousness. In a panic, he ran not considering the consequences of opening the outside security doors. Why should he? His wife was just showing him around where she worked.

But that was after 476 itself had died. No one knew Joseph was the only survivor of the accident. However, he knew that the cancer that was killing him five years ago had completely vanished and he hadn’t aged a day since.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge for February 18th 2018. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for creating a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 196.

Last night, I watched the 2011 film Contagion for the first time. It has what is referred to as “an all-star cast” and actually the writing was really good. I looked at a few reviews and its technical accuracy while not flawless, is better than most medical thrillers.

With that in mind, I decided to create my own little medical disaster, one that killed fifty-seven people and cured one.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Curse of Huo Yao

firelance

Ancient Chinese Firelance

The Emperor Dezong of Tang had Zhu Ci and his assistants dragged before his throne. First though, he had ordered them beaten and all but a small sample of huo yao and one fire lance utterly destroyed. The samples were placed on the dais at the great Emperor’s feet.

Zhu Ci would have stood and bowed if he had the strength, but he had never been a well man and the beatings of the Emperor’s elite guards had left him without the slightest vigor. At least they had the decency to wash the blood from his body and bind his wounds before bringing him and his comrades into the throne room.

“Great…great Emperor, Zhu Ci gasped. “What have we done to offend you so?”

“Offend me? Offend me? You created this abomination and you think I am merely offended? It is only because of my tremendous desire for mercy and justice that you are still alive, monstrous cur.”

“But my liege. What have we done to inspire such punishment?”

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No More Tears in Heaven

tears in heaven

Promotional art for Eric Clapton’s 1991 chart, “Tears in Heaven.”

“I don’t care what you do with it, I just want it gone,” Alex said, pointing at the dollhouse.

Beth was on her knees, her arms around Nicole’s favorite plaything. “Oh please, Alex. We gave it to her for her seventh birthday. She loved it more than anything else. Don’t make me throw it away.”

He stood defiantly at the threshold to Nicole’s bedroom. “Then give it away, a children’s hospital, the Goodwill, whatever, but I need it gone. I’m going to work now. When I get home, the dollhouse better not be here.” Then he spun and almost ran down the hall. He seemed so furious but Beth knew he was terrified. She should have been too, but she missed Nicole so much, she’d take her back anyway she came, even as a ghost.

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What Lies Beneath the Lateran?

arch of titus

Roman Triumphal arch panel copy from Beth Hatefutsoth, showing spoils of Jerusalem temple – From Wikimedia Commons

They were finally gone, sent away empty handed and believing the Priests of the Holy Roman Catholic Church were not latter-day thieves of their oh so precious Jewish artifacts.

Cardinals Angelo Vincenti and Francis Curia were not young men, but still strong enough to assist the eighty-four year old Pope down into the lowest levels of the Lateran, the residence of his Holiness. The party from the Israel Antiquities Authority were granted admittance even here in order to satisfy their suspicious curiosity. Of course none of the artifacts they sought were present. The Church was once again forced to feign friendship and good will to the nation of Israel in defiance of the law of Christ, but it was necessary for now. Once the Lord Jesus Christ returned from Heaven and the Church took full possession of both Rome and Jerusalem, the entire truth would be known. However premature knowledge of the true plan of the Popes spanning back to St. Peter himself would ruin everything.

They now faced a blank stone wall, presumably hiding nothing but tons of rock. “Cardinal Vincenti, if you would.”

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Forgotten Hero

ute petraglyph trail

© gjhikes.com – available for non-commercial use.

The explosion at the house he rented in Cascade would keep the cops off his back long enough for him to hike up Palisade Rim Trail. He told the locals he wanted to study the Ute petroglyphs when there weren’t any tourists around. It was an easy trail and just about anyone who wanted to see them could. That was the beauty of it all. No one suspected the secret.

Wasn’t dawn yet and damned cold but he made it. Large number of petroglyphs probably meant this was a frequent camping area. The real reason the Utes visited here often didn’t survive into the modern age. He’d failed this time. The Sun Lords weren’t in this version of reality. Richard Hunter activated the time gate using the Moreira device and stepped back into 1959 to try again. He and the Forgotten Heroes had to find them before they conquered the multiverse.

I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to take a Google maps location and image and use them to inspire the creation of a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.

Today the Pegman takes us to Palisade Rim/Ute Petroglyph Trail, Colorado. I had a tough time with this one. Seems like a nice place to visit, but where’s the action?

The trailhead is just a few miles away from Cascade, Colorado but while the area has a few interesting stories, none of them grabbed me. I tried looking up current news articles for Cascade, but the closest thing I found was a house explosion in Colorado Springs.

I looked up the trail itself and found a couple of reviews including one from GJHikes.com and another from Colorado West Outdoors. Finally, I tried to find out how old the petroglyphs were.

I had some sort of time travel story in mind and at first, I was just going to use one of the character names from the original Rip Hunter, Time Master comic book which first appeared in issue 20 of Showcase in May 1959. Then while reading the history of the character, I decided to adopt some of the elements from the mid-1980s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” story arc.

The “Moreira” device is named for Ruben Moreira, the original “Rip Hunter” artist in 1959.

I know it’s ridiculous but it’s the best I could come up with, especially when I haven’t had breakfast yet (as I write this).

Since I read the trail ends at a high cliff, my only other idea was a suicide, but that seemed pretty grim.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Liar!

robot and woman

Credit: Willyam Bradberry – Shutterstock

“I know you lie…’cause your lips are movin’…talking circles with your tongue…”

“I love you, Amelia. I have always loved you and I will always love you.”

“I wish I could believe that, Nick.”

“But, why can’t you?”

All of her friends thought Amelia was being totally unfair to Nick. They’d been seeing each other only for a couple of months, but he seemed like the perfect man. He was handsome, charming, successful, and very romantic, but not so much that he seemed creepy.

However, Amelia knew a lot more about Nicholas Tucker than any of them could possibly imagine.

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The Goddess Blesses

wildflowers

© Sue Vincent

Hadad took Ellil’s hand as they walked down the trail flanked by great fields of yellow wildflowers.

“It’s so pretty here, don’t you think, Hadad?” She squeezed his hand as she looked up at him. He turned his head and she could see his large, deep brown eyes. They looked so beautiful, so romantic.

“Yes, it’s very nice here.” He didn’t always know what to say to her although he was known as a “smooth operator” at school, or at least that’s what his friend Utu called him. He said he got the term from one of those old movies they show on TV late at night. Hadad thought Utu secretly pretended to be an American gangster from the 1940s instead of a fifteen-year-old culture geek too shy to even look at a girl.

He could hear the “crunch” of their footsteps on the gravel and sand as they walked nearer to the copse of trees ahead. Spring had begun only hours ago, but thanks to the Goddess, the world around them was green and growing with life.

“Did you really see them? I mean, you’re not just making it up, are you Hadad?”

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The Goddess Rises

persephone

© Severine Pineaux – Found at khabar-news.net

The twelve beautiful nude virgins danced joyously around the only tree in the field that was bearing leaves and blossoms. They had been appearing at the base of the tree for the past thirty days each dawn to dance, and then vanished each evening with the last rays of the sun.

The valley where the tree has always grown was forbidden to everyone in the land during this time, and yet young boys and men were known to slyly hide in the low peaks at the valley’s edge to watch, at first with crude telescopes and more recently with binoculars, gazing with lust at the alluring maidens.

Their only attire were the wreathes of wildflowers they wore in their hair, fresh every morning. They were seen neither to eat nor drink and never paused to rest for even a moment, but constantly maintained their dance as if it were their passion and religion.

“What do you think it means, Hadad?”

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