The village’s Lord Ghost Talker lay in the church for three days.
People paying their respects, tapping the old man’s forehead with their thumb, as the tradition.
One by one, they closed their eyes, whispered his name, and waited.
Until, finally, someone heard him.
It was the girl from the Martin farm, the pretty one.
She went to the Ghost Talker’s vault, standing at the wooden crate full of keys.
“It’s this one, he says.” picking up the key the old man had shown her.
And she opened the lock.
The town elders began preparations for a parade and feast.
Weekly Challenge #862 – What happens next?
LISA
The Split
Me and Paula were great together. I got the card details, I could play people, got them practically handing me their wallets. She’d call them straight after pretending to be from the bank’s fraud squad, this blocked the line so they couldn’t report anything. Meanwhile I’d go and spend, spend, spend. Expensive stuff we listed immediately on eBay. We were the perfect partnership, divided everything equally.
No one could see what would come next, someone conned me Nan, honestly it split me in two. I couldn’t do it after then.
Then Paula left. Apparently she loved the money, not me.
RICHARD
Your choice
I decided to write one of those ‘choose your own plot’ novels. You know the kind: Every time a plot-changing decision comes along, you decide which choice to take, and everyone’s story will turn out differently.
So, let’s give it a try!
What happens next? Did I finish the story in one hundred words, or not?
Yes, or no?
If you chose ‘no’, then read on. If not, skip to the last line.
So, you chose ‘No’, and as you predicted, I didn’t get to one hundred words… Only ninety-one!
And, since you chose ‘yes’… Of course I did!
LIZZIE
It was damn dark.
She unblocked the phone with his finger.
“The cheating bastard. That bitch will never get the jewels.”
She buried his hand. The rest of the body was somewhere out there, floating in the cold river.
So, what happens next, she thought.
“Get the damn jewelry box, that’s what happens next.”
Total silence.
“Fancy house, he bought her.”
She roamed about in the bedroom.
“Ah, here it is.”
When she opened the jewelry box, she gasped. A bullet?
When she turned around, it was too late.
Damn, it was dark and she had killed the wrong twin.
SERENDIPIDY
So, what happens next?
I think we both know the answer to that.
First, I’ll torture you in ways that can barely be imagined, then I’ll kill you and dispose of your body. Your remains will never be found.
Maybe, they’ll catch me; So what?
I’ll be famous. Newspapers will carry front-page spreads with my picture, books will be written about me, and – who knows – perhaps Netflix will serialise my life?
They may even make a blockbuster movie, about me.
And you?
You’ll just be a blurry photo; a location; a date.
Mostly forgotten. Just another of my victims.
NORVAL JOE
They stepped under the overhang near their classroom as the rainstorm increased in intensity.
Billbert nodded toward Sabrina. “Sabrina is a weather witch. She can control the weather.”
Linoliamanda sniffed. “So, what happens next, lightning and thunder?”
Sabrina shrugged. “If you want.”
With a flash and a boom a bolt of lightning stuck behind the school close to the football field.
Linoliamanda rolled her eyes. “Let me see you hit the flagpole.”
A second later, lightning struck the pole.
“Wait,” Sabrina said. “You said you believe I’m a witch.”
“I do,” Linoliamanda said. “I just wanted to see some magic.”
PLANET Z
While performing trials of the latest cancer drug on mice, Mindy observed that half of the mice turned blue while the other half exploded.
She ran the trial multiple times, and the results were the same.
Half blue, half exploded.
She handed the results to her supervisor, and he tore them up.
“Nonsense!”
Two hours later, watching blue mice scurry from the exploded carcasses of their fellow mice, he wasn’t so dismissive.
“Have you tried this on an odd number of mice?” He asked.
Mindy filled a syringe with serum, injected it into a mouse, and they watched and waited.
Wanted, one piano
I bought a piano.
But it was haunted.
The ghost of a little girl played it at night.
And played it badly.
I hired the ghost of a piano teacher to give her lessons.
She got better, but the piano was out of tune.
So, I hired the ghost of a piano tuner to tune the piano.
“You need a living piano tuner,” said the ghost.
And he billed me for his time.
I refused to pay the bill.
The ghost of a collection agent kept calling me, over and over.
I hired an exorcist, and sold the damn piano.
Take it on the road
Elise does a pole act with ghosts.
They were the ghosts of strippers who worked at the club when it burned down a few years ago.
It’s really popular, gets lots of headlines, lots of tips.
But it’s not like Elise can take the act on the road.
The ghosts can’t travel. They’re focused on the location where they died.
The owner rebuilt the club so that the new main stage is where the old dressing room was.
Where the girls died, locked in there.
Don’t tell them what happened. They might want revenge.
Or worse yet, refuse to perform.
Murder mystery games
Janey loved murder mystery games.
She bought every set in the world.
Every weekend, she was roping her friends and family into them.
She got a side hustle as a playtester and reviewer.
“Maybe you should write one?” said her friends.
So, she looked over all the games she’s run and wrote her own murder mystery game.
She sent out invitations, put together the setting, and…
The guests arrived to find Janey dead on the floor.
When the game was over, the guests gave it rave reviews.
Publishers bought the rights. A best-seller.
Even if Janey didn’t write a follow-up.
Halloween eternal
Every Halloween, Michael Meyers walks around the neighborhood in a William Shatner mask and brutally murders people.
The neighbors gather together and form a mob and burn his house down.
Or they set a trap, which goes wrong, and ends up killing most of them.
Someone clever, like Jamie Lee Curtis, ends up catching Meyers and wounding him or killing him.
But, somehow, he comes back the next Halloween.
All the while, William Shatner goes around in a Michael Meyers mask, killing people.
But nobody stops him.
Not even Jamie Lee Curtis.
Or someone in a Jamie Lee Curtis mask.
The lei murders
The Lei Strangler left a lei around their victims’ necks.
Which would have made sense in Hawaii.
But this was Vermont. In Winter.
These weren’t cheap plastic lei.
These were handmade lei with real flowers and string.
No, they didn’t strangle the victims with lei.
The strings were too fragile. they’d break easily.
And the lei were draped over the victims’ necks post-mortem.
Because the flowers were so fragile.
There were a dozen murders over the course of a month.
And then they stopped.
The police never solved the crime.
Or all the weird maple syrup murders in Hawaii, either.
Murderpiece
Charlie’s parents warned him about getting an art degree.
But he didn’t care. He grabbed top honors, and he joined the police force.
Charlie’s specialty was drawing chalk outlines around victims.
“Wow,” said a detective. “The pastels bring out the tragedy.”
Charlie’s outlines were so good, rich people arranged murders in their mansions to get an original Charlie.
The local art museum planned an exhibition by massacring two dozen of its patrons in a gala.
A New York art critic wrote a glowing review, and Charlie moved to Manhattan.
I hear Law and Order is planning a series around him.
Weekly Challenge #861: Remote
LISA
A Sunday Drive
I was up front next to Dad.
It wasn’t a treat to be there, there was just no room in the back. My head juddered against the car window as I stared out, wondering what my friends were doing with their weekend. The city with its lights, traffic and bustle turned into country lanes full of so much green and sky. I felt I never wanted to blink again.
We stopped. It felt remote. Rabbits ran across a field full of little yellow flowers. Dad shouted at me to help drag the mattress out the van.
Then we went home.
RICHARD
Halloween
Putting aside the remote, and futile hope Halloween might be cancelled this year, he resigned himself to the annual onslaught of irritating kids, traipsing over his lawn to demand sweets, with dire warnings of repercussions, should he fail to deliver.
Grimly, he mused that any other night of the year, or if the rules were reversed and he was the one making threats to children, the authorities would, no doubt, take a dim view of such behaviour.
Halloween… He hated it.
Still, he’d get his own back on them at Christmas.
Santa grinned nastily, and poured himself another Jack Daniels.
LIZZIE
“The remote is not working. I cannot change the colors. What? We always change the colors. Summer, Autumn, Wint… Why not? But we just need a new remote. Well, you’re the Creator. That’s your job! Mine is to change the colors. OK, whatever.”
No Autumn this year.
Then, he sneered.
“No help from above?! OK, then. I’ll be God for a season!”
He painted all the houses red. The fences became bright orange and the stones of the pathways golden.
People smiled, amused.
He spread his wings, waved and smiled back, proud of the village he was in charge of.
SERENDIPIDY
There’s no Internet, no mains power or gas, and a septic tank collection, once a month.
The only access is a dirt track, and the nearest settlement is two hours’ drive. I’m well off the beaten track, away from prying eyes.
People wonder how I can live in such a remote location, and honestly, it’s not that easy. I struggle with loneliness and the nights are long and dark. I’ve frequently considered moving back to civilisation and friendly faces.
If I could, I would. But, I can’t.
I have to live out here, because otherwise, people would hear the screams.
NORVAL JOE
Linoliamanda folded her arms and frowned. “Yes. It is coincidence that my father opened a store in this remote, out of the way town at the same time you claim someone is plotting to capture Billbert. Anyway. I think you’re just making that up.”
Billbert laughed and rolled his eyes. “Really Linoliamanda, believe her. It’s the Knights of the Roundtable, or something.”
Fire could have flashed from Sabrina’s eyes. “It’s the Dark Knights and they’re really dangerous.”
Linoliamanda’s eyes went wide. “The Dark Knight? You mean, like, Batman?”
Sabrina’s face turned dark and fat raindrops began to splatter around them.
PLANET Z
A remote is useful if there’s more than an arm’s length between you and a device.
Televisions, cable boxes, ceiling fans.
That kind of thing.
My Dyson fan on the nightstand by the bed has a remote.
So, you’d think the remote would be useless, since I can turn on and off the fan directly.
The problem is, you have to use the remote for oscillation and speed
And the timer, which I never use.
Problem is, the remote is tiny, and easy to lose.
So I replaced the Dyson with a cheap normal fan.
And it works just fine.
Mr. Goldie
Mindy hated her new pet goldfish.
Her parents put the bowl in her room, saying “Goldie will watch you while you sleep. Say good night to Goldie, Mindy.”
And she did. And went to bed.
The next morning, Goldie’s fluttering fins looked different.
Mindy was trembling. “Why is Mr. Goldie…”
“Different?” interrupted her mother. “Goldfish do that naturally.”
Her mother had checked on the sleeping Mindy. And Goldie.
The fish was floating, dead.
So, her mother replaced Goldie.
Why was Goldie dead?
Not naturally.
No, Mindy had killed the hated Goldie.
Left his corpse floating.
AND NOW HE’S ALIVE AGAIN!