From Justin Timberlake -Tunnel Vision
If you haven’t done so yet, please read Tunnel Vision before continuing here.
“I was against Ellis informing you this way, dear Brian, but he was insistant. He felt telling you of the family inheritance before he passed away would make you rather skeptical.”
“That’s putting it mildly, Aunt Sharon. If Uncle Ellis had told me I’d be having visions of dead people beforehand, I’d have thought he’d lost his mind. I’m not even sure that I haven’t lost my mind.”
© Google Maps – July 2016
Kal Thompson knew he was very unpopular with the passengers and crew of the cruise ship Norwegian Gem. It couldn’t be helped.
Another gorgeous Summer day in Nassau, but the yellow crime scene tape wasn’t part of the tourist attraction. It prevented the contamination of his murder investigation. The murderer had to be on board.
The victim had been a young local women. The manner of her death was particularly gruesome. She was cut in half at the waist and her body was totally drained of blood. She was found nude, posed with her hands above her head, and the corners of her mouth literally sliced ear to ear.
He had read about a case such as her’s but it couldn’t be the same killer could it? After all, the Black Dahlia had been murdered in Los Angeles in 1947. How could the killer strike again seventy years later?
I wrote this in response to J. Hardy Carroll’s What Pegman Saw photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the Google Maps image above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. Mine is exactly 148.
To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.
When I looked around the Google Maps image, I saw the yellow tape and imagined a crime scene, but I needed something unusual. I looked up famous unsolved murders, and the mystery of the Black Dahlia became my template.
Found at InternetMedicine.com
Friday, September 2, 2016, 6:15 p.m.
Stupid old woman! Why didn’t she use the elixir on herself? She was damn near a hundred. She’d have died of old age soon if I hadn’t killed her.
I don’t understand. Ever since I first heard the rumors, investigated, tracked down obscure sources, and finally found her, she continually refused to share any of it, even when I offered her the most obscene amounts of money. I could have made her rich. I’d have given her half my wealth for the stuff.
She kept saying, “It’s too dangerous” and “It’s a curse, not a blessing,” and nonsense like that.
Well instead of getting rich, she got dead, and I’ve got the cure for everything. I’d better. I have stage four liver cancer and I’m eighty-one. Not much time left.
Image: mookychick.co.uk
From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker
This is an open police investigation, so why am I involved? Because my boss, private detective Aidan Burke is paying me to be involved. More to the point, Conrad Grey, a wealthy commercial real estate tycoon, hired Burke to find his only granddaughter, thirteen-year-old Marianne. The kid went missing almost two weeks ago. LAPD thinks she’s a runaway. Grey thinks she’s been abducted. That’s why I’m walking the streets, contacting my informants, trying to get a lead.
Oh, by the way, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.
Officially, I can’t be licensed as a private detective because I’m dead. I work as Burke’s assistant by night, and sleep in his spare bedroom by day.
Being a vampire, I can cultivate information sources the police would never get close to. A few are other vampires like me, some with legit night jobs, others living on the edge of society, making it anyway they can.
© J. Hardy Carroll
“This is junk, Sydney.”
“You’re an idiot Jerry. It’s treasure, not junk. You know how much these old bottles and trinkets are worth on eBay?”
“A buck ninety-five?”
“How did I get such a lunkhead for a brother?” Sydney regarded her twin with disdain.
“Okay, If you say they’re worth big bucks, they’re worth big bucks. Now what?”
“Now we take them, but carefully. Don’t break anything, Jer.”
“Good thing the old geezer left plenty of boxes and bubble wrap, eh Syd?”
“Shut up and get to work.”
“You don’t have to be so mean about it.”
Sydney ignored Jerry’s whining. They’d acted just in time. The makeshift sign next to the shelves indicated their Grandpa was going to sell this stuff, probably for a fraction of their value. He didn’t care. He was rich.
But when Sydney and Jerry were arrested again, this time for assault and theft, he told them and their parents he was writing them all out of his will.
The only way the twins could recoup part of their losses was to smother the old man in his sleep and sell off any tangible objects he owned for as much as they could get.
Written in response to Sunday Photo Fiction – February 5th 2017 flash fiction challenge. The goal is to write a story of no more than 200 words based on the photo prompt above. My submission is exactly 200 words.
To read more stories based on this week’s prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
Image: BlokeSupport.com.au
Won’t she ever shut up? She keeps going on and on and on about the most inane topics. I’m losing my mind. I’ve done everything I can to put up with her, but she keeps running her mouth and I think I’m going to die.
There she is, lying at my feet, her throat opened literally from ear to ear. Her blood’s pooling under her. I’m sure it’ll ruin the kitchen’s hardwood floor but I don’t care, do you hear me? I don’t care. Just to add punctuation, I take the knife I killed her with and throw it on the floor as hard as I can. It makes a nice dent and adds more blood splatter to the floor and cabinets.
I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’ve done everything I can, but I can still hear her in my head. That incessant nag, nag, nag. It won’t go away. She’s dead and her endless monologue still won’t go away.
I walk over to the knife, stepping in her blood and tracking it across the floor. I pick it up, hold the blade to my throat, and do the only thing I can think of to make her voice stop forever.
When Andy found the abandoned time machine, he immediately decided to save his sister’s life.
Ten years ago, Julie had been 15 and he had been 10. He adored his sister, which seemed pretty unusual because at his age, most boys hated their older sisters, but not Andy.
Mom had died when he was a baby and Dad did his best, but Dad’s idea of parenting was working hard at his job so he could pay the bills. He really didn’t know how to comfort him when he skinned his knee at age 3 or to praise him when he came home with two A’s and three B’s on his first grade report card.
Julie knew how, even though she was so young herself. Julie and Andy only had each other and for a long time, that was enough.
Image: From the 1933 film The Invisible Man
When Charlie Rainier realized he could turn invisible, he was absolutely giddy. From his point of view, nothing had changed. He could still see his reflection in a mirror, he cast a shadow, he didn’t have to take his clothes off like in the old movies, and he could still see. But no one else could see him.
If invisibility worked by causing light to pass directly through a person or to curve around him, he should be blind. To see, light enters the eyes through the pupil. The iris changes the size of the pupil depending on how bright the light is. Then the lens focuses that light onto the retina at the back of the eye. Light has to stop after hitting the retina.
If light curved around the invisible person, it would never reach the eye and the invisible person would be blind. If light went right through him, it wouldn’t stop at the retina but pass right through it, and again the person would be blind.
Fortunately for Charlie, he found a way around that problem.
Image: jimharold.com
“Rafe Johnson.”
At first, Rafe thought he was dreaming. He rolled over in bed, grabbed his mobile, and looked at the time: 2:31 a.m.
“Rafe Johnson.”
He sat bolt upright in bed. It was no dream. He looked around the darkened room in the basement of his Mom’s house and saw no one.
“Who’s there?”
A shape slowly coalesced near the foot of the bed. It was a shadow, then it was a man.
“Do you remember me, Rafe?”
“What the fu…”
“If you kill a man, you should at least remember what he looked like.”
Image: greatest.com
It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I’m exhausted. The holidays wipe me out, especially when I have to spend them with family.
I really wasn’t looking forward to that flight from Chicago to Oakland. Couldn’t get a direct one of course since I waited until the last minute, so the whole trip took nearly seven hours.
I really hoped Mom would have just accepted my excuse that I had too much work to do to take the time off, but she knows how to get her way. She’s always known how to manipulate me. She uses guilt, that’s a favorite. What about my ailing father? What about my sister and her obnoxious husband who never get to see me? What about all the snotty-nosed nieces and nephews who miss their Uncle Jerry.
