Into the woods

  

Mondays Finish the Story

This is a flash fiction site where you finish the story!

Welcome to Mondays Finish the Story!
Mondays Finish the StoryThis is a unique flash fiction challenge where we provide you with a new photo each week, and the first sentence of a story. Your challenge is to finish the story using 100-150 words, not including the sentence provided. Don’t forget to use the opening sentence… This challenge runs from Monday to Sunday! Get creative and have fun finishing the story!
Please include the photo with your bit of flash and a link back to this post. Do not forget to click on the blue frog and add your link so that others can enjoy your story too! Now let’s have some fun!
© 2015, Barbara W. Beacham

Finish the story begins with: “Not knowing what to expect, he made his way into the dark of the forest.

Not knowing what to expect, he made his way into the dark of the forest. There were sounds, noises, things that just didn’t sound proper.  The wind blew sparatically as he approached the opening.  The slight angle hide the true path into darkness.  Rustling leaves bristled high in the air. The sound below was still.  Then the noises would come, sounds crawling through the the underbrush.  There pace was methodical, there tempo ruthlessly quick.

Roger surveyed the entrance. The tall pines looked like the branches gave out. Maples and oaks mixed heights, traded lights for darks. Beneath their diced landscape,rhodendians and sumac, hide the ground from whence they came. Pathways cut into the growing darkness.  Bright lines squashed by shadows suddenly.  Vision seems to become sublime.

Ten feet becomes twenty feet in.  The path that could hold three wide is now close for the solo adventurer.  The trees overhead engulf him in natures version of twilight.  Shadows that may never have been dance in the peripheral vision.  The chase beams of light glowing above his head.  Wind stirs the shimmering leaves. The light flashes around the thick forest floor.  A twig snaps in front of him.  The foot in motion isn’t his. His heart races, his foot frozen in place.  The ears reach for any sound.  The eyes try to pry a vision from the dimly twist world.

He jumps as his leg makes contact.  Roger would scream if he could.  His throat would breathe if it could.

Rex barks twice.  His tail bouncing off his leg.

“Rex, you go in alone from now on!”  

Witch Which?

From her small balcony, the witch watched the world go by.  Her hand would rise and cast a spell. Sometimes she would float.  Side to side.  Her green plastic face would open. Cackles would fill the air.  

It was known among the boys.   It was coolest decoration.   Halloween was coming. 

“Ok, Clyde.  Here’s what were gonna do.   After dark. We sneak up the side.   You unplug it. I run with it.  Your too slow.  They catch us for sure!”

“Billie.   I’m fast then you’ll ever be.   But if the witch inside sees us, were done. man!  No fooling.”

They waited on bikes.   A park, a block away.  Time crawled as the Sun went to sleep.

“Clyde, be really quite.   Wave. I’ll grab it. Got it? ”

At the top of the stair, the witch stirs.   The cackle starts.  The boys disappeared.

The next morning, two toads hop toward a pair of bikes.
.

DEAD End

Part of a challenge of Monday Finish the Story. This is a unique flash fiction challenge where we provide you with a new photo each week, and the first sentence of a story. Your challenge is to finish the story using 100-150 words, not including the sentence provided. Don’t forget to use the opening sentence… This challenge runs from Monday to Sunday! Get creative and have fun finishing the story!

Please include the photo with your bit of flash and a link back to this post. Do not forget to click on the blue frog and add your link so that others can enjoy your story too! Now let’s have some fun!

Photo credits © 2015, Barbara W. Beacham

The cemetery spread along the area known as Devils Abode.   The ground is full of hatred.  A spirit can not rest there.   And seldom do.   It’s historic maker a trap.   Spider web from hell is all that lies in the Devils Abode.

The painted boards from trees dead a century,  haunt you with names.   Colorful names of choosing, not given names.  Their disembodied souls wait an eternity for a opening.  They fight over attaching themselves to the selfie taker.  Like they stole from the living, so it is in the dead.

The legend of the Abode told by an old worn out barn plank.

“Here lies Lester Moore, four slugs from a 44, No Les No More.”    

*******
Inscription from Tombstone, AZ lovely town cemetery.

Eye See

I see absolutely everything.

The words are everywhere.   The cameras are everywhere.   The buzz and mechanical clicks of their motion resonates.   No one sees them.  We aren’t really sure who “them” are anymore.

The shadows have become endangered.   Bright lights fill the building.   The eyes are watching.   The secure feeling was the first casualty of home security policies.   Any hand that goes unseen is resolved.   The spies relay a message. The questions are asked.   The whole operation slows.  Everyone else states when you return.  

The buzz and clicking of the cameras.   The eye sees absolutely everything.

“Ok,  sir go ahead with your order” outside a speaker crackles unaware the eye sees absolutely everything.
Part of Monday’s Finish the Story, http://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com

Gone

“Where did they go?”  The words hung in the air.

The sentence repeats everyday.   The voice changes.  It mixes with the bristling sagebrush and weeds.  The desert is not quick to answer any of them.

Wapataki lay still.  Hundreds gather into slow line heading North toward the river.  It’s three days. The temperatures of summer harden the ground earlier.  Crops have failed to produce the last two years, and this year is the water has gone early again.

Pakitowa land back against the wall watching his people leave the community generations deep in history.   His gods choose their home.   The stars fell to this spot.  He holds the glossy silver stone in his hands.  It was last night, the stone seeped.  The sign to move couldn’t be any clearer.

His heart still.  His breath held fast.  He is the last to leave.  His people occasionally look back.  He can not.  The proud leader is reduced to a divining rod.  Their fate cast toward the promise of water.  The dream is the gods know where they can live in peace.

An hour in a bright light baths the tribe.  The orange glow brighter than a million sunsets.  They have returned the stone that fell back to the sky.

“Where did they go?”

The Noble Weed

The team employed the use of Nightshade to get the information they wanted from their captive. Surprising enough crushing seeds, and a vodka bottle later, the mind cried out for assistance. Its toxins racing through open veins with flames erupting at every joint in the body. It was just a crystal bottle marked vodka, placed with water next to it. They always went for the vodka.

Joseph looked a the paper. Shrugged and returned a distaining glance at the Prosecutor.

“What would you like us to do? Let them go back to the rat’s shit hole. When they come back with bigger deadlier explosives maybe they have your address instead. Bleeding hearts. You want to be safe. But don’t like the price of business!”

Jackel

He thought he found the perfect hiding spot.

Jackel was waiting.   He heard the car approach.   A couple frantic seconds spent circling the room.  The perfect spot was most important.  An ambush is only as good as the place it comes from. 

The new curtains hasn’t even been climbed yet.   Their sheer material would be idea to hide his intentions.   Three feet from the from the door.   Tactical position was perfect. If only the paws could fit behind it.

Thud of a car door comes through the air. Jackel twitches his tail.  His hips lift off the ground.   Another twitch from his tail.  The outside door creaks open.  The curtain pushes forward slightly.   Jackel has front paws underneath him ready to launch. The front door swings wide open.   A second before the leg comes into view.

“Oh, shit! That damn cat of yours!” Riley tries to shake Jackel of his leg.   Jackel has ten claws securely imbedded and a set of canine teeth too.   His hands full and walking with an attached cat.  “Get!  Get your damn claws off me. ”

A grocery bag hiqs Jackel and he goes back to hide.  Through the curtain, glowing green eyes show.   A purring cat sits and waits.

“He is the sweetest cat.   Jackel just didn’t like you! ” Michelle goes comfort her cat.

The Star People

The petroglyphs told the story of an unusual event. The elders had pasted the figures on to every generation. The stars held the past. The Star people would provide a start to their world. The promise of return was not all the good things as seen on tv. Fire what they hid out of the reach of man until that knowledge could be respected.

Beneath picture rock, the newly anointed Logan Cochise Wallace sits wafting the smoke of his smudge stick. The figures from days past captures his concentration. His first attempt at a vision quest. The lack of training compensated by reading and watching everything he could find on the Star People. Make like his sage and cedar smoke, it make a poor imitation of traditional ways.

Image from Wikipedia

Logan feels the resonance of the desert. He follows the wishes of his grandfather. The Elder’s blessing for his trip to the Blythe Intaglios is a must. The new moon will provide him with best view of their return. The Star people come at certain astrological times says the legend.

The Elder Joseph tells “Young man, dress warm. The sky and darkness steal the desert’s heat quickly.” He collects a fee and lets Logan pass.

The Sun crawls behind the mountains. The vast dessert plain grows as the light shrinks into the darkness. A strange light hovers on the horizon…. it stares coldly back at Logan. It seems to grow very slightly. Its light becoming more intense.

Birthday Flights of Fancy

Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy. The way to the field would be a problem.  But it was her chance to fly.  Her little princess bike would take an half hour to get there.

Dad left to get something.   So she had to hurry.  It will be so neat.  She’s a big girl, now.
Three streets away she meets up with Paula. 

“I’m going to fly my dad’s plane.   You want to come.   You have to be like an adult.   They’re serious at the field.   We can’t ride every ppb the side.  I’ll show you.” Delphine explains her plan.

“I’m afraid of heights! You won’t get me in a plane!  They won’t let you in anyway.   Your still a kid, until your like 16.”  Paula is dismissing the whole thing.

“Fine, I’ll wave to you as I fly over your house. I’m going! ”

Byers Field is a long street away.   Delphine pushes her bike uphill.   Her mission is almost complete.   Only the gate is in her way!

“Hello, little girl!” Reggie, Security man greets her.

“My dad is waiting for me!  He’s gonna fly me for my birthday, Reggie.  I’ll get to pilot it, too.  He said so.”  Delphine knows he’ll let her go.

“Darling, your daddy is right over there.  Have fun!”  Reggie points out the family car.

“Daddy!” She yells.  “You forgot the keys! “

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Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy. The way to the field would be a problem.  But it was her chance to fly.  Her little princess bike would take an half hour to get there.

Dad left to get something.   So she had to hurry.  It will be so neat.  She’s a big girl, now.
Three streets away she meets up with Paula. 

“I’m going to fly my dad’s plane.   You want to come.   You have to be like an adult.   They’re serious at the field.   We can’t ride every ppb the side.  I’ll show you.” Delphine explains her plan.

“I’m afraid of heights! You won’t get me in a plane!  They won’t let you in anyway.   Your still a kid, until your like 16.”  Paula is dismissing the whole thing.

“Fine, I’ll wave to you as I fly over your house. I’m going! ”

Byers Field is a long street away.   Delphine pushes her bike uphill.   Her mission is almost complete.   Only the gate is in her way!

“Hello, little girl!” Reggie, Security man greets her.

“My dad is waiting for me!  He’s gonna fly me for my birthday, Reggie.  I’ll get to pilot it, too.  He said so.”  Delphine knows he’ll let her go.

“Darling, your daddy is right over there.  Have fun!”  Reggie points out the family car.

“Daddy!” She yells.  “You forgot the keys! “