alt natasha

Short story: Hostage

“Define this!? DEFINE THIS!? Are you kidding me?”
Madden struggled underneath the tightly knotted ropes that wrapped him around the stealthy oak chair.
“I’m trying to refine you. Teach you a little something about the game, my friend.” Hans replied slowly, squeezing the gauze around his right hand. Blood seeping through the top layer and dripping onto the dark pavement.
A lingering stench came from below the opened grave. Two men staggered at each end, pulling out nets full of gold pots and sparkling belts. The moon was full but waning. Waning like Madden’s spirit.
“I’m thinking. Two, three months? You’ll get this soon enough. On my territory, we don’t take prisoners. We …eat…them.” Hans continued. 6 foot 3. Wide shoulders and silver blond hair soaked around the edges of his beaten face. He was dressed from head to combat boot in army green, with leather straps across his legs holding crude weapons and devices. Madden’s red button front shirt, ripped and soaking in other men’s blood. He’d had enough of this ‘game’. Lingering stench..that smell.
“I’ll give you 5 minutes to make up your mind. Either join our side, or…you can be breakfast tomorrow. Don’t really matter to me at this point. I owed it to your father-“
“You owe my father, alright. Let me go and I don’t have to invoke the Black Legion.” Madden gasped, a smirk slowly growing on his face.
Hans shivered, eyes widened and jerked his injured hand into the air. The two men dragged themselves over for the next order as Hans starred at Madden in silent horror. Sweat dripping down his blackened face.
“What did you say? You don’t have this-“
Madden interrupted, “oh yea? Yes, I’m like my father. You didn’t know this?” He began to chuckle wildly. “You failed to remember this is passed down to the firstborn son. You’re funny. Let me go.”
Hans hesitated, his eyes darting to Madden’s neck, then to his hands. He walked around the chair and starred at his wrapped hands.
“Let him go.”
The men grumbled. “LET HIM GO BEFORE WE ALL DIE! BEFORE WE DISSAPEAR!”
Posted June 23, 2010 at 1:03 pm

Short story: Amnesia

She was speechless.

The lavendar satin box, wrapped in soft turquoise ribbon lay strewn about the floor beneath her. Inside was an antique music box, which she found inside. Intricate tarnished copper designs wrapped around the polished mahogany casing. A deep black burn ran across the right side but only gave the box more depth. A tattered beauty.

Anya turned the burnished skeleton key until she heard a resonating click. The top popped open to a burgundy velvet covered interior. A small copper statuette of a couple danced inside, her gasp swallowed by the twinkling harmonies that began. He stepped closer to Anya, waiting for her response. She investigated the bottom of the music box, finding a tattered note taped to the underside. It covered a marking that read a date and the maker. 1854 Jonathan Weston. Anya’s eyes lit up in shock.  She placed the box carefully upon the night desk and unwrapped the piece of paper with hesitation. The note read, “This was your’s. Remember when the man hands you this.” Anya’s breathing became hurried and fluttery.

“I can’t. Take this. Please take this back.” Her eyes filled with tears, her face now a beet red.

“I don’t understand.”, Mark hesitated. “I was told this was supposed to help you remember something. What does this mean?”

Anya’s hurried breathing turned into hyperventilating and the weight of the room became unbearable. She fell to the floor, blacking out. Mark jumped to pick her up, setting her against the counter, running to the sink to pour water on her face. “Anya, wake up! Anya! Come back, darling. Anya!!”

Her face flushed, she awakened in horror. “IT WAS HIM IT WAS HIM WHERE IS HE?” Her blood curtling screams defeaning his assuring responses. Anya jolted to the living room door and jumped off the balcony. Mark, confused and distressed ran after her. The icy air bit at his skin. It was below zero outside and the snow froze over with a crusty layer that cracked as they ran. Anya’s attempts to continue down the road were stopped by a ice patched that broke under her weight. She buckled over, tripping on her left foot as it caught in the sheet of ice. Anya cried profusely.

“Anya! Get in the house. Honey let’s go! What the hell!?”
“It was..him. That bastard. HOW! Why?” She cried incessantly. Nothing could calm her. Mark lifted her shaking body out of the puddle, bent down and lifted her up from her hips, her grey sweatpants soaking from the knees down, her sheepskin boots heavy and icing from the air. “Anya, you forgot there is something else in that box. You have to see the item inside.” he insisted softly. Her hyperventilating calming down to a soft, defeated pattern.

Mark closed the oak door behind them, laying Anya on the loveseat near the fire. Picking up the box, he cracked it open and pulled out a glimmering piece of copper. It was a locket, it’s casing of silver, with an etching on the back of the cochabon that read, “My dear Anya. I am your’s.” Anya’s eyes opened up more, as she gazed upon Mark opening the locket and gasped slightly. And inside it was there. It was a ruby lined case with two pictures. One of Anya, aged 12, her blonde hair in pigtails. Her face was an innocent lively ruddy red. The other picture, a young man in his late teens. Beautiful and dark. Those odd deep set eyes. It was Mark’s eyes. It was Mark.

“Now does this remind you of anything. Do you remember anything? Do you remember….me?” Mark’s eyes were reddened and weak. His love for her swelled as his tears began to flood down his ice cold face. The fire that almost killed them, almost took her away. But he found her. He forced the memories to reawaken. She remembered she tried to leave him that night. She remembered the awful argument that took place, and then the accidental fire. Her lover. Her husband. She had ran off that night and tried to find a hotel, calm down and figure out what they’d do. That was the night that man found her…

Short story: The Signal

She drifted back and forth in consciousness, her eyes heavy laden. Her mouth dry and cracked. Everything in the room spun at a repulsive rate. The glow in her brown doe eyes withering away with every struggling blink. 
He stood above her, half naked. Fork in one hand. A 1985 radio in the other. His misshapen head hidden only slightly by the overgrown nest of hair. His face, a grotesque scene.
Her every breath, hurried and fought for. Every lingering thought, Mona battled inside to save. He had overcome her. Chemical and blood mingling around her teeth. The bruising and fire in her belly. Pain. Mona barely holding on. Ryan’s eyes grew wider and anticipating. His mind on one thing and one thing alone.
The signal. 
She bent over slightly, eyeing the tattered map lying on the edge of the fold-up chair. The light swinging up high above distorting her view. Mona began to feel herself coming to and her gaze slow still. The man and his radio now stepped closer. Every step was a step towards the inevitable. What he would do with that fork. What he thought she’d do for the radio.
———————
This is a series of short stories written by myself as a creative challenge. The idea: Take one glimmer of an idea at that moment and write it out, non-stop, no editing for at least 10 minutes. Whatever comes out from the process is what comes out. So far, I seem to be writing some pretty weird %$&$#.

Short story: Manus the black

“Oh, isn’t that fetching….” Andrea tied a knot to Tammy’s little leg as she reluctantly sliced down her calf with the razorblade. Thick red soaked her green shorts and folded white lace sock. It dripped down Tammy’s right bare foot.
“It’s not going to work this time, sister. How is it going to work? “, Tammy winced. Her voice trailed off as she bent over to look into the water.
Andrea pulled herself up from the swampland and brushed off her salmon colored skirt. Her black tights were tearing down one side, her brown Doc Martens caked in mud. She was visibly shaken, her hands ice cold and sore. Her face a hallow empty expression.
“I’m going to say that by sunrise, we will get a bite. Promise. Okay?”, Andrea replied. 
“It won’t be like last time?”, little Tammy asked.
“It won’t be like last time”, Andrea answered calmly.
A knot in her stomach buckled Andrea over into a coughing fit. Black wasps were hovering around the willow tree and the shivering girls. The sun set slowly into the amber painted sky. A hollow emptiness overwhelmed Tammy, her eyes turning up to stare at whispy clouds floating past. Emptiness that were only quenched with pain, and the promise of what was below. The black trees, leave-less, loomed over them like tidal waves of darkness. It reminded her of the scenes in scary stories her brother would read to her. 
“Did you bring the matches, sister?”
“Yes, I brought a few packs. Just in case you can’t —- burn.”, Andrea whispered.
Tammy bent her head to her right to see Andrea leaning against the dark willow. Those same branches they used to swing on. It was that tree they used to climb. Her hideaway place when papa got angry. Her play house when the summer heat died down. The place where Manus the Black met her. The horror of her mother that day. 
“Mama”, she choked out under sobs. Tammy swallowed the piercing cries rising through her throat and rested her disheveled head into her dirty hands, which were cuffed. “I can’t bear this no more, sister. No more. I can’t suffer this no more.”  
Through the blackness under her feet, she could hear Andrea’s muffled cries. And the pain was searing through her hips and into her shoulders. The pulsations of pain made her shudder and come back and to. Her head reeling in pain as the moon was lit from behind her. The crackling of fall leaves, like a roaring forest fire ripped through her tiny head. Tammy bent herself back and opened her eyes. She rocked back and forth now, humming quietly a lullaby her mother once sung to her.
“Tammy, I tried. I really tried. Tried to get you out of this. Tried to convince Manus this wasn’t the way to help anyone. He told us this is the only way. Manus said it’s for both of our own good, so you can go to heaven. So you don’t have to suffer for this. This awful —-oh my god…”, Andrea sobbed.  
Tammy stared at her big sister’ blonde tresses shimmering against the moonlight growing. Andrea was now standing above Tammy, her hair, covered in leaves brushing against her soft forehead.
“Papa can’t hurt us anymore, Tammy. He won’t be able to hurt you no more. He won’t hurt mama no more. He won’t hurt me no more. It will be complete. He will be gone. It’s okay now, Tammy.” And then her sister began to say in sing song:
“He won’t find you no more, my beautiful sister.
Like ash you will go, into the swamps you will be made something new.
A feast for the water devil your body shall be but your soul will be free.
Your soul will be free.”
And after she finished holding the shaking Tammy, covering herself in the trickling red, she lit the match. And there, the one, the Black stood….
———————
This is a series of short stories written by myself as a creative challenge. The idea: Take one glimmer of an idea at that moment and write it out, non-stop, no editing for at least 10 minutes.Whatever comes out from the process is what comes out. So far, I seem to be writing some pretty weird %$&$#.

Short story: Electric

It was a cold, December Thursday night. Ryanne stepped out of the taxi, onto the snow blanketed street. Golden twinkle lights dotted along the top of the brick corporate buildings in front of her, and decor wrapping around the canopy of the lower level stores. An old, run down pizza shop was still open. Half past 2 am. Ryanne was getting back home from a dinner party at her friend Jack and Susan’s. They lived on the nicer side of town. Doctors and business men. Ryanne’s friends were ad execs and art directors. Her college roommates and childhood friends. Ryanne, however, was a secretary in the bottom of the food chain at her company. She lived on the eastside in a little apartment, with two cats named Simon and Lizzy.
She was tired, but wanting something. She brushed off the crumbs from the homemade oatmeal cookie Susan had handed to her on the way out. “We won’t be able to eat all these goodies, sweetie.” she’d said. Ryanne was content with the delicious evening but after a few drinks, she really craved a slice next door. 
Ryanne handed the stuffy driver a ten, picked up her red leather purse and tightened up her grey peacoat before stepping her left patent leather covered foot into the wet ground. 
And there he was. 5’ 9”. Dark, wavy brown hair with a purple wool knit scarf wrapped around his strong neck. Also wearing a worn, green army jacket. Just his eyes. Lips to haunt her. Energy that was electric. He walked towards her, his brown leather boots softly shuffling the snow off the sidewalk. She couldn’t let go of his eyes as they continued to meet her’s. And then everything was electric. He stopped in his tracks as they were about to cross eachother. 
“Hey. Have we…have we…”
She opened her mouth to reply.
“Have we met before?”
Ryanne, with butterflies in her stomach and shaking wrists tried to mouth the words “I don’t know.” when he drew closer to her. The sweet smell of Dolce & Gabbana, firewood and warm skin was intoxicating. And his face, so familiar. His eyes, so warm and electric. His breath, she wanted so much to consume. She didn’t have a reason for why she felt so drawn. Like they’d known eachother their whole existence. And she sensed his longing. His battle to grasp her. His desire to envelope her. So violent and profound. He stood almost against her now, his breath warming her cheeks.
“I want to say that we have but maybe we haven’t”, Ryanne whispered. They stood there for what felt like a minute but that moment was awakened by a loud crashing thunder. She jumped. 
“Oh my god! faakdgad!?”
Ryanne froze, motionless and horrified, to find the man was no longer there but on the ground. Dark red seeped from the inside of his left side, pouring slowly and silently onto the white ground underneath him. Staining the snow. Creeping slowly, melting the snow right up to her feet. 
Her soulmate. On the snow. Shot upon impact. Ryanne scrambled to the ground, wrapped around him, looking into his eyes.
——-
This is a series of short stories written by myself as a creative challenge. The idea: Take one glimmer of an idea at that moment and write it out, non-stop, no editing for at least 10 minutes.Whatever comes out from the process is what comes out. So far, I seem to be writing some pretty weird %$&$#.