Welcome to the forty-sixth Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Tom from Footnote, and it’s The Pit.
Twelve stories were submitted this week.
One rookie joined in… yay!
And, once again, some disturbing madness from Planet Z.
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s a packet containing at least 1 refrigerator magnet and a CD with the archive of the entire 100 word stories podcast. (Well, minus promos and junk)
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
The full text of each story:
Z
My name’s Drake.
Welcome to the Iron Fortress.
Behave yourself.
Because, if you’re bad, they throw you in Solitary.
If you’ve been really bad, they throw you into The Pit.
This prison was built over… something.
A gateway to Hell? We’re not sure.
All I know is that guys come back from Solitary, but they don’t come back from The Pit.
Well, not in one piece.
Sometimes, you find a bone or a few fillings around the hole.
The warden doesn’t like it when that happens, because that means despite all the spells and seals, things can still get out.
CHRIS
Gerald ran frantically into Starbucks, right back to the corner booth he had just vacated. There, tucked in between the creases of the vinyl seat, was his journal.
“Whew!” he said.
Gerald often worried someone would read what he wrote in his journal and think he was some sort of psycho. People tend to think that only teenage girls and serial killers write in journals. Luckily, Gerald was neither.
He did keep a woman in a pit in his basement, but he had no plans to kill her. Just as long as she kept telling him that he was pretty.
K-NINE
Darkness was always descending. His soul screamed out
in abysmal loneliness. Hate, fear, loathing and
despair plucked at his very being.
The war had been terrible, brutal and metamorphic.
The destruction had been beyond belief on both sides.
The rebellion had failed and failed miserably.
He gripped his chest and hyperventilated, trying to
regain control of his sanity. Heaven was but a memory
lost. Hell was an eternal constant.
He had been beautiful once. He had been the fairest
among all the multitudes. Beauty, however, is only
skin deep. Evil is unfathomable and eternal. Lucifer
was alone in the pit.
PATTI
“Mama, you know how in the Bible, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son?”
“Yes, Rachel.”
“What if God told you to kill me. Would you?”
“Rachel, you know we must all do as God commands.”
The little girl’s eyes filled with tears. “But -”
“We are Christians, Rachel, and there are no ‘buts’ when it comes to God. If we don’t obey Him, we will end up in eternal Hell, a pit of fire with the devil and the rest of the sinners.”
Mother tucked Rachel’s covers in, kissed her daughter and turned off the light. “Sleep tight, dear.”
TOM
Danny was lost.
The only landmark was the sideways head and those broken legs.
When Dan got close to the stone king’s head he started laughing.
“That’s not despair,” boomed a disembodied voice.
“Why should I despair?” replied Danny to the talking head.
“Well, you got a choice.
“It could be ironic or literal, depends on your point of view.”
“From my point of view you just look like a joke.”
“A joke, how’s bout the one about the guy standing over a pit?”
“How does it go?”
“In about 3 seconds.”
“wwwwwwwwwwhhhaaaaaaaaat?”
[snnniif]
“Smells like teen spirit to me”
to4m
It was the Pits. This grease pit was a pit of hell. I was up to my
pits in work. My boss with his forehead pitted with chicken pox scars
was always trying to pit us against each other to get as much out of
us as he could; like a pit viper without the venom. The place felt
like a mosh pit. I’d rather be picking peach pits or even cherry pits
for a pie. Or work in the orchestra pit. Or sweaty pitted, a hot day
in the Indy 500 pits chasing pit bulls. … hate these pits.
ANDREW
I felt something in the pit of my stomach as I stood. This site would
be Dante-esque to those who pondered that sort of thing. The humming
of all the computers filled the air in a sort of high-tech cacophony.
A short man accompanied me, “welcome to the guts. We have over 500
firms already: from data farmers to game designers to
cyber-entrepeneurs. Some stay for a few days at a time, others have
never left.”
The entire island, baring the heliport and boat ramp, was covered by
this great building.
I’d reached heaven. “I’ll take one.” I said.
LAIEANNA
“There! This one’s perfect. No one knows his business like I do. I
should venture out to new locations for selling my service. In this
day and age, I am invaluable. Bloody hell! Do you mind? I’m not
done working down here. Can’t that all wait? Maybe I’ll head east
after this job. Surely there are kingdoms there that could benefit
from my abilities. Just need proof of my expertise. Oh! Excuse me
sir, could you sign this testimonial about the quality and pain
inflicted from my skillfully crafted stakes? It’ll really help put
Pits and Sticks on the map.”
TED
In all my years on the job, I never thought I’d come up against something so awful. So disgusting. This thing.. “The Pit” as it would become known in the journals, held many horrible secrets. I had already retrieved two hubcaps, and a boat anchor. God knows what I would find next.
Elbow deep, I felt something familiar. Yes. A human hand. The cold dead flesh was unmistakable. What happened? How could such an awful thing come to pass? As I gently pulled it toward daylight, I kept asking myself one question. “Why did I have to become a proctologist?”
LISA
War-painted faces and blood-curling howls were seen and heard by the prisoners in “the pit”. Bodies were flying everywhere. Filthy and covered in sweat, she tried to ignore the screeching and the stench.
Some of the “pit-prisoners” were there because of devotion, others out of some misguided sense of duty. She was one who had regretted enlisting herself for this “tour”.
She didn’t belong here, she longed to be safe back at home.
Why had she let herself be talked into this?
A date with Kevin O’Connor was NOT worth the experience of the mosh pit at a Korn concert.
ELISSON
Harry knew Monday was going to be rough; he felt it in the pit of his stomach when he woke up.
At the bus stop, a pit bull grabbed his ankle: man pitted against beast. Fortunately, Harry won, albeit with a torn trouser leg.
On the bus, he remembered that he had neglected his deodorant. A quick armpit-whiff confirmed it. He scowled.
Working an open-pit coal mine was no picnic. After a brutal morning, Harry broke for lunch. Hummus on pita bread. A pit in his cherry pie cracked a molar.
Crap, he thought. Some days are just the pits.
TABITHA
The pit was massive. Zoe and Jayne watched as Mal descended into it using a system of ropes Kaylee, engineer extraordinary, put together.
“Cap’n?”
“Shiny Zoe, nothing to fret.” Mal, sounded more hopeful then he felt.
At the bottom of it was his trusty pistol. He couldn’t expect to leave this moon without it.
“The gun can be replaced.” Zoe called down. Jayne snarled. “No it can’t!”
Zoe’s withering stare didn’t stop Jayne from asserting, “Guns over people.”
“Some got a shovel?” Mal called up. “Think that steaming heap from last week is down here.”
TERRENCE
The flames burned and the screams echoed. After talking with his
brother he thought that he might have been a bit harsh on the
podcaster. He walked up to a man with black burnt skin flaking off of
him. Raoul didn’t know if it was good or bad that the man couldn’t
die again.
“Damn people can’t record their own stories,” the man muttered, “and
where is that damn midget.”
“He’ll be joining you soon enough,” Raoul said to him, “and apology
accepted.” Raoul paused. “You did know that you would end up in the
pits of hell eventually, right?”
Thanks to everyone for sending in their stories, and I look forward to what you’ve got to write (and say) next week.
The theme for next week’s Weekly Challenge will be posted shortly.
(In case you’re interested, I’ve settled on “Clair de Lune” as the opening music and “Moonshine” by Michael Oldfield from the Tubular Bells II album… but new theme music is coming from Guy David)