Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors

by Hugh Howey

  Determined to enjoy at least thirty minutes of his day from hell, Jack made a bee line to the fridge for two cold ones and then to the counter to scoop up a book with a well-worn spine. He headed to the patio and popped open the first can as he sat down in a lounger. Leaning back, he took a long draw of beer, then another. He’d never drank when Margaret had lived here, never had the time to read. Maybe things were finally looking up. He opened The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Great book if you didn’t try to rationalize the premise. C’mon, like someone would blow up a planet just to make way for an intergalactic highway. Even with the luck he’d been having, that wasn’t going to happen.

  He alternated between reading and glugging beer, both a welcome distraction. He was partly into Chapter Three when the sun disappeared behind a shadow. Strange, he stared blankly at the sky for several seconds. There hadn’t been anything about an upcoming solar eclipse in the paper. Shrugging, he cracked open the next beer and kept on reading.

  Several minutes later, Jack frowned. He looked up and realized why this eclipse was taking so long. A shadow didn’t block the sun. Something entirely different was in the way of his sunlight and was growing bigger by the second. Little rain drops fell, and the wind picked up.

  He glanced down at the book in his hands and then back up at the sky. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  No one was kidding because right then something flashed its headlights and drove right through the earth and blasted Jack’s patio and the rest of the planet into a zillion cosmic pieces.

  Rachel Aukes

  is the bestselling author of 100 Days in Deadland, which was named one of the best books of 2013 by Suspense Magazine and one of the best zombie books by the Huffington Post. Rachel lives in the Midwest United States with her husband and an incredibly spoiled sixty-pound lap dog. When not writing, she can be found flying old airplanes and trying (not so successfully) to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. Learn more at her website.

  Rachel Aukes’ Website

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  Horror

  Another Point of View

  Anya Allyn

  “The only problem with the dead is making damned sure they stay dead,” Astrid mused.

  Simon snatched his gaze away from her sheer black top—in her day job as a clairvoyant, she always wore black. “Mother’s eighty-two. She’s got one foot in the grave already.”

  “She’s a Capricorn, right? They don’t let go easily.”

  “Yeah, Capricorn. But I’ll make sure the job gets done. So, what d’you sense as being the best way—drowning, overdose, accidental poisoning?”

  Her frown reached all the way from her forehead to her freckled nose. “All I’m sensing is something awful happening to you—at the hands of a Gemini.”

  He thought. “Don’t really know any Geminis. Unless you include my twins—they’re six today. May twenty-eighth.”

  He cracked a smile, but she didn’t return it. “Be very careful.”

  The yacht rocked beneath them. Moored to the jetty at the front of his mother’s Rose Bay estate, it provided a hiding place to lie about with Astrid and dream. Inside the yacht, no one could see them—not even his weasel-eyed wife. They floated like clouds, making love and plans. Sydney city was a mere stone’s throw away, yet here the world was so hushed you could barely hear the brittle rustle of old money and the jingle of Chinese coin.

  They peeked over the bow like naughty schoolchildren. His mother’s estate stretched like some recurring dream. Two acres of neatly clipped lawn—tennis court, swimming pool, fountains. And a seventy-year-old mansion that looked out on the broad ocean. His children’s sixth birthday party was in progress. Small, shouty children scrambled everywhere like wood roaches did when you lifted an old log. Simon’s wife sat sunning herself as usual. Simon and Astrid partially ducked when his tow-headed twins looked their way.

  Astrid sucked in a gasp of air. Simon’s frail mother was out on the top balcony of the house, crawling onto the overhanging branches of the Moreton Bay Fig.

  “There’s a nest of eggs in the tree,” he told her. “Mama magpie got shredded by a cat. My mother made it her duty to keep the eggs warm. They hatched this morning.” Then it hit him. While his mother was tending the birds, the lightest tap would send her careening. She wouldn’t survive the fall. The perfect plan. First, he needed to convince the old witch to change her will. She’d cut out her only child—him—when he was twenty-four.

  Leaving his city accountancy business, Simon hurried to his usual lunch-time destination—Astrid’s tiny clairvoyant shop. He’d first blundered into Madame Astrid’s in a state of terror. His stock market portfolio was going to shit and his property investments were hungry lions devouring him piece by piece. He’d had to suffer the indignity of losing his home and having to bring the wife and kids to come and live with a mother he’d barely seen in two decades.

  Tell me it’s going to get better, he’d begged Astrid—tell me what to do.

  You just need a different perspective, she’d told him, and taken him to her bed, which was just a set of scratchy cushions in a back room. Afterwards, they’d lounged with naked bodies entwined like mating snakes, watching TV. An ad had screened: a group of serene-faced women showering outdoors with moisturising body wash. The women reminded him of the girls at the parties he used to attend with his parents. Girls with daddies that were even richer than his. Girls he wasn’t good enough for. Soon, they’d all wish they’d married him instead. Deep down, women were all the same. Always trying to grab as much as they could. Why did they always need so much damned moisturising? Because they were crocodiles, with crocodile skin. They had Gucci crocodile-leather hearts and they cried crocodile tears.

  Dusk settled darkly over the ocean as his mother carefully fed each of her damned magpies. After a month of wearing her down, she’d finally called her attorney and changed her will. He’d sent his wife and twins away for the week—at big expense—he couldn’t have any little Geminis messing up his plans.

  Mother turned, her eyes bright and watery. “They’ve reached the age where they need to be put on the ground to learn to forage for food themselves.”

  A chill cemented itself along his spine. Once the birds were gone, she’d have no reason to climb out there anymore. The time was now.

  He stole over the balcony and onto the branch. Grabbing hold of her thin shoulders, he shoved her. With a croaking cry, she hurtled away—her night dress like a bed sheet blowing in the wind. It was done. She was dead.

  A figure dressed in black stepped onto the balcony—Astrid.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.” He needed a cigarette badly.

  She took a set of rolled up papers from her pocket. “Says here I should.”

  Confusion turned to rage as he read her name instead of his on his mother’s last will and testament.

  She nodded. “I’ve been coming here each morning and giving her psychic readings. Your mother was very interested in our last conversation, where we chatted about how she’d imprint on the baby birds and live on through them. She had a terminal disease—only weeks to live. If you had been closer to her, you’d know that. I assured her I’d care for her birds after she was gone.”

  He turned his head sharply. Five sets of black eyes studied him from the nest. Gemini eyes. The birds rose all at once, as though by an order he couldn’t hear. They cawed as they wheeled in the air, one diving and spearing him through the eye. He was sent flailing downwards — landing beside his mother. Both had their arms outstretched towards each other — the scene resembled a tragic accident, as though one of them had fallen trying to catch the other. Unless analysed from another viewpoint.

  Anya Allyn

  currently writes Young Adult Gothic horror. She thought she’d branch out (pun intended) for this anthology with this non-YA mild horror story.

  Anya Allyn’s Website

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e Register

  Romance

  Mab

  Zelah Meyer

  Mab scrubbed the plates clean in the stream, the cool water running over her hands. She cast a glance back to where the others sat around the campfire. She couldn’t wait to get back to her caravan and shut herself in for the evening. Away from him.

  She had known that lot would be trouble when she’d met them back in Haroldbridge. Not many people set a performing troupe up from scratch. They normally formed organically from someone with a bit of experience. This bunch were green. It was like a game to them, except it wasn’t, they had all been so serious.

  Still, a troupe was a troupe, and Mab had been stuck in Haroldbridge for months trying to eke out a living since Reg had thrown a tantrum and kicked out the whole cast. The locals had looked out for their own, so a stranger in town was the last resort when someone needed a housemaid, or an extra hand in the kitchen for a big event.

  Therefore, against her better instincts, Mab had joined them. Ignoring the pull she felt toward Frederick, with his floppy hair and earnest expression. Drat the man! She just wanted to act and put food on the table. But there he was, gazing at her, and behaving as if he was courting her.

  Over the sound of the stream she heard footsteps and knew without looking that it would be him.

  “I … came to see if you needed any help …?”

  “No.”

  “Mab, please … won’t you tell me what I have done to offend you?”

  The bewilderment in his voice sent a lump to her throat.

  “If you must have it … bothering me with pretty sounding lies.”

  “Lies? Mab, I’m not lying when I tell you how I feel about you. I love you!”

  She threw both dish and dishcloth down and rose to her feet. “Oh, do you? Do you really? I was born to this life. I know better than to ask questions, but nothing you can say will convince me you’re anything other than a gentleman born and bred. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that gentlemen are trouble. You may be on the stage with me rather than in the audience, but it doesn’t change what you are, or how you see me.”

  “How do you think I see you?” Frederick asked, looking puzzled.

  “As a pleasant diversion, to court with pretty lies and then cast off once you’ve succeeded.”

  “I would never do that!”

  “That’s what you say but I’ve learned to my cost never to trust a gentleman.” He looked struck and she swallowed down the lump in her throat before continuing, “What’s the matter? Has the pursuit lost some of its appeal now that you know that some other man managed to fool me first?”

  “No …” he said, a little awkwardly. “You’re a woman, not a girl. I never assumed that you’d remained—”

  “Oh, you assumed that I was a harlot like those other two useless pieces you’ve hired did you? Well, thank you very much for the compliment!” Tears started to fill her eyes despite herself.

  “No! No I didn’t assume that, or think it for even a second! You are …. The way you are … how you behave … I’ve never thought of you as anything less than respectable and worthy of respect. And I still don’t! Mab, please believe me. I don’t care about your past except for the fact that someone has hurt you. Maybe several someones.”

  “Just the one someone thank you very much! Once was enough to teach me what I am to the likes of you.” And now she wanted, wanted so very badly, to be convinced otherwise. Perhaps she hadn’t learned so much after all.

  “Whatever I’ve had in the past—now, I have nothing—and all I want is you.” He paced around a little, running anxious fingers through his hair. “And you’re all I’ll ever want. And I don’t know how to convince you of that. Even if I can … I have nothing to offer you, except myself. No security to offer you, except my love. My name … I cannot even lay claim to that at present, or I would offer that to you.”

  Her heart gave a skip and she found herself starting to believe.

  “I’ve never told anyone … the other fellows would …. Please, you mustn’t tell anyone I have spoken of this, especially not the others. But, you’ve shared your secret with me, the least I can do is share something of my own with you. There’s a man … who wants me dead, wants all of us dead. A bad, and powerful man.”

  “Dead?” Suddenly, she realized how much she wanted him to be alive.

  “Yes. Mab, you’re my hope for the future. For that day when, maybe … maybe, I’ll be able to offer you more than just myself. Until then … I should be keeping my distance. I know I should. But … I can’t help myself. I could die any day if he finds us. I love you. I knew that almost the moment we met. I don’t want to die with you thinking that I don’t mean it—because I do. And I wish that you felt the same.”

  “I do,” she replied. It was almost a whisper, but he heard it, and caught her up in his arms. “I feel it too, but it’s madness.”

  “Because of the danger?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t want to be hurt again.”

  Zelah Meyer

  is a British author, improviser, and all-round arty-crafty type. She studied Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, but doesn’t recommend that anyone else do the same! She credits books and narrative improvisation with teaching her everything she knows about writing. She loves to learn new things, and could potentially paper at least one wall with certificates in everything from hypnotherapy to health and safety on a rail track. She currently lives in Southeast England with her husband and their son.

  Mab, the story you’ve just read, is a stand alone Romantic Short Story featuring characters from A Play for the Castle.

  Zelah Meyer’s Website

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  Urban Fantasy

  Buttrock

  Nicolas Wilson

  I’m filled with anticipation, standing on Devi’s private stage — but not the kind she usually fosters. That may be because she’s wearing a cinched-up trench coat, leaving everything to my overworked imagination. “It’s going to take a lot of juice,” she says, “and I’m already squeezed dry this month.”

  “And I don’t think I’ve got another marathon in me,” I say. “Will this cover it?” I hold out a purple stone, and she sees the glow inside and reaches for it. “I wouldn’t touch it.”

  “You are,” she says.

  “I’m the one who fished it out of a dead guy’s rectum — just figured you deserved fair warning.”

  “Anyone else held an assgem out to me, bouncer would drag him out on his ear.” But her disgust turns to curiosity. “Why stash it in his butt? They don’t look for magic batteries at the border.”

  “Well, Bishop has three theories,” I start. “He was dumb, and didn’t know that. He was sick, and knew that but wanted to put the stone in his tailpipe anyway. Most likely, he was hiding it from someone. Probably not me — what are the odds of me searching him for it? Likely the guy who killed him.”

  “I thought a mage was allowed to carry energy around.” She’s defensive, because we both know just how much energy she stores here when she isn’t divining for an investigation.

  “I don’t care if a mage is walking around with enough for personal use, and it’s between a man and his insurance carrier how much he stores in his home — or her place of business.” Most of the defiance drains from her face. “But that isn’t a small amount. You transfer that energy into fire and it’s a bomb — the kind that would take out an apartment or even a small home.”

  “But there’s a better than likely chance he wasn’t so much hiding it from this other guy; he was withholding it until he got paid.”

  “Probably.”

  “So let me guess. You want me to use the stored magic in his buttrock to track his killer, who more likely than not was also the person he was transporting said contraband for. Cool.”

  “Cool?”

  “There’s a certain karmic equilibrium to the idea — it completes
the circle.”

  “How long is it going to take?”

  “I can prioritize it. You know it’s going to be costly, right? Degradation-wise.”

  “You’re used to handling sex magicks instead, I know. But shy of gathering several dozen men for you to seduce and then send away with blued balls, we aren’t going to come by the kind of heka you’ll need for the spell. I don’t care about getting any back.”

  “Oh, you won’t,” she says. “I’m just worried about it being enough.” She looks grave, but it wouldn’t be the first time she could only point me in a direction, rather than get me a suspect. I’ve got to earn my keep, too. “Might want to get yourself something to eat. Just don’t go far.”

  I drive to a Sherry’s and sit down. I think I was craving something meaty when I walked through the door, but when I look at the menu I realize why. The body was burnt, flayed; it smelled like a slightly overdone burger wrapped in bacon. Making that connection means I sure as hell am not eating red meat tonight.

  That leaves me with fewer options for my meal. I figure chicken fingers are a distant enough cousin that they won’t set off my gag reflex, so I order that, and a hell of a lot of coffee. It’s going to be a long night — and I can tell the waitress shares my sentiments, since the restaurant’s open 24 hours a day.

  I stay long enough for the meal and a piece of pie, then get to spend an hour going back and forth on whether or not I have room for an Oreo shake, waiting for Devi. I’m just tipping toward gluttony when my phone starts to vibrate.

  It’s a text from her, an address. I drive to an apartment building near to Portland State University, which means cheap, crappy student housing — though not necessarily that it’s occupied by students.