Astonished

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Nobody was astonished when Missy Johnson ended up in prison.
She was the black sheep of the family, the first kid to be sent to reform school kindergarten.
When other children were learning to count and watching Sesame Street, she was running guns to Belize and ruled the city’s drug lords with an iron fist.
In between Nap Times, of course.
Pretty soon, all organized crime in the world was under Missy’s thumb, and her babysitters became her lieutenants, helping her run a global prostitution ring.
And then, prison.
She turned herself in voluntarily.
Safer behind bars, opulent accommodations nonetheless.

Creative Juices

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We let the children play with their toys and draw with crayons for an hour.
Then, the valves open and knockout gas puts them to sleep.
Nap time.
When they wake up, they have no memory of our hooking up the spinal shunts and draining them of their creative juices.
Looking around the room, they pick up the crayons and stick them in their mouths or put them up their noses.
The toys are used to smash other toys or hit other kids.
Eventually, they learn to play and draw again.
And we are ready to harvest more creative juices.

Where do babies come from?

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Where do babies come from?
After the Cobalt War, they come from The Baby Factory.
Deep underground, shielded from the radiation and toxins in the air and soil, geneticists assemble the next generation.
Or, if we can’t remove enough of the contaminants, the last generation.
This time, the scientists are working on adding thick hides, culled from rhinoceros genes.
The babysitters have a high suicide rate, watching wave after wave of monsters come from the labs, dying from horrifying diseases and tissue rejections.
The ants crawl over their tiny, broken corpses.
“Looks like it’s your turn now,” I tell them.

The Gliders

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Observer gliders soar through the clouds, spreading the latest batch of chemicals cooked up by the Weather Division.
“Rain will be purple today,” they said.
The chemicals are meant to turn the rain purple, but the rain is more pink than purple.
And when we catch it on our tongues, it burns.
Everybody runs for cover, and we watch the streets sizzle with acidic fury.
Then, the storm passes, and we wander the pock-marked streets stained with the melted-off paint from cars.
The Weather Division promises orange rain tomorrow morning.
We put on our gas masks and go to sleep.

Vagrant

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Of all of Zeus’ guises, he enjoyed taking the form of a vagrant the most.
There was something strange about having a body, but still being invisible to everyone around him.
Nobody sees what they don’t want to see.
People would pass him by, only noticing him if he were in their way, blocking their progress through their pointless mortal lives.
“Get out of my way, you bum!” growled a merchant. “Can’t you see I’m busy shopping for my wife?”
Leda, isn’t it? thought Zeus.
He smiled a rakish smile and took the form of a swan.
A well-endowed swan.

Weekly Challenge #222 – Two

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Twenty-two, 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… was…. um…
It’s Two!
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Caleb
Steven
Zackmann
Ishtar
Norval Joe
TJ
Justin
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

Caleb

“This town aint small enough for the two of us” Bart yelled at the Sheriff from the window of the other starbucks. “We got two saloons, two whorehouses, two Apple stores and I got no excuse to call you out you somebitch. Your kids go to the other school, your wife goes to the other church, you go to the other Chinese acupuncturist, and I can’t take it no more.
“What about the art school?” suggested the sheriff.
“There’s two of them too”
“Yeah but mine’s better”
“Oh, you think so huh?”
“Oh I know so.”
“Okay then, Sheriff. Draw!”

Steven

Contrary to written records, Noah’s family did most of the species
gathering. The animals milled in pens all around Noah’s farm while he
finished the ark.
“Advanced degree in genetics,” Noah said, “and the Lord has me sawing
wood. You’d think He likes carpenters or something.”
Upon finishing, Noah realized how little space was inside the ark.
“Lord,” he said as the rain began to fall, “there’s only room for two
of each animal. The genetic bottleneck will -”
The flash and boom of an atomic explosion echoed from the distance.
“Don’t worry about it,” said the Lord. “There’ll be mutations.”

Zackmann

Two. Two. Why did I write two people dead. Justin dead.Poor Justin, I wrote him such a gruesome death, so fitting for Pseudopod, or maybe not it was the first time they posted a file with the Squick tag. And Lovecraft scholars said you could not write a description more gruesome than someone could imagine. I do not understand because Nothing happened to Gary Leeland in real life when Scott Sigler killed him off in Infected. Since there were two stories, I just pray that if Clarkesworld buys my other story Lawrence Simon never tours a dog food factory.

Ishtar

One shot is all it takes. The lights, the sounds, the world as we knew it ends.
I wasn’t there but I was blamed. I was the patsy, the fall guy. What did I do you ask?
Hahaha. All I did was speak up. Tell the truth. No one else
would tell of their dirty deeds. Is this really how it ends.
I shouldn’t have involved you in this. But I had to tell someone. I have to hang up
the phone now. There right outside the door. Remember this. One shot started it all. The second
will end it.

Norval Joe

I woke to a high-pitched, horrifying screetch, and knew it could only be one thing; the vampire moth. I threw up my hands to block its attack. The two psuedo-eyes of its wings appeared to flicker as the malevolent creature fluttered toward me. Often confused for its diurnal and harmless cousin, the blood-sucking butterfly, the moth paralyzes its prey with a unique mesmerizing whistle.
Its antenae transformed into hollow tubes and stretched toward my unprotected neck.
I screamed out in my sleep and woke my two children in the tent with me.
“Dad,” they said, “you’re having a bad dream.”

Salvador Los Dos was born a twin, in Mineapolis, Minisota, during a blue moon. Shortly after birth, his brother died from an infection, secondary to a minor surgery on the proximal inter phalangeal joint of his index finger, and the family moved to St. Paul.
Though he never knew his brother, Sal felt duality throughout his life. As a child he insisted his mother set a second plate for the missing sibling and had his father buy bunkbeds for his room.
As a teen he developed bi-polar depression, dual personality disorder, and was admitted to the second life psychiatric hospital.

TJ

It was like a mirror. A scary ass mirror.
Alerted only moments before to the breakout, I felt my eyes looking at
me before I really saw myself. But there I was, striding across the
xeriscape garden, a psychopathic glint in my eye.
I turned to run as I smashed my front window and pursued myself down the
hallway, machete gleaming in my hand, coming for me.
And who could blame me? Created and treated like they were, where did we
get the idea that our donor clones would be friendly?
“My turn,” I said, and chopped myself in two.

Justin

Arthur’s wife, Yvon, had the zombie infection. The greening skin made it impossible to hide, but it could be slowed. They abstained from physical contact. The scientists working on the cure didn’t know why, but this slowed the spread of the infection in the body. Even a small touch accelerated it by days. Arthur watched his wife slowly emaciate and wither and he could not give her the comfort of his arms. She would not attack him, she would just diminish in body, then in mind. When Arthur became infected, it didn’t matter anymore. They made love one last time.

Marty dug through the locker, cringing. Ever since the station started falling apart, everyone hogged the suits in case of accident. Now when Marty needed a suit for EVA, he struggled to find one his size. He found one though. Marty looked at it and frowned. This one had a nametag. Senior staff got priority. Their suits couldn’t be used without permission, unless… Marty sighed. Sure, Barney was dead, but he had stunk. A quick whiff confirmed the suit carried on the legacy. A klaxon blared. Floating outside, ejected through the hull breach, he considered seeing if space smelled better.

Planet Z

The first grave of Ezekiel Piersonstein is on Chapel Hill.
The other is down by the road.
Same dates, born and died.
Why the late Mr. Piersonstein has two graves has been a mystery, as all the town’s records were lost in a church fire centuries ago.
I researched this, and I now have the answer: there were two Ezekiel Piersonstein.
Born on the same day to sisters fighting over a vast family fortune. They named their children after their father to win his favor.
They were raised as bitter rivals.
On their eighteenth year, they dueled.
Both were slain.

the Needle

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I prefer analog to digital displays.
There’s just something about watching a needle pulse inside a dial, crawling slowly up the scale into the red.
You don’t get the same sense of urgency when you see a bunch of numbers laid out on a console. Or a set of colored LEDs, lighting up in series.
The needle throbs and twitches, like it’s alive.
You forget it’s just a measuring device, wired through miles of circuitry.
That’s what happened to me and the temperature indicator in my capsule.
Down…
Down…
Down…
How could you betray me, needle?
You were my friend.

The Music Man

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Don Music was a puppet on a children’s show who’d get so frustrated trying to compose a song, he’d bash his head against the piano keys and give up.
Sadly, some children got the crazy idea that the proper response to frustration is to bash your head repeatedly against it.
These kids would bash their heads against their desks, balefully moaning “I CAN’T DO IT!”
One was the son of a florist, and after school he’d help out in the shop.
No matter what he tried, he never could keep a cactus alive, so he-
On second thought, don’t ask.

Beating

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My stomach is growling.
But I just ate.
I just ate a dog. And the dog is growling.
It’s a small dog, so I could still be hungry.
And if my stomach is growling because I am still hungry, the dog might be growling back at my stomach.
I will beat it with a hammer until it stops growling.
(The dog, not my stomach)
(Although if I beat the dog, I beat my stomach, since it is inside my stomach.)
I should never have eaten the dog.
But I was hungry and my stomach was growling.
Like it is now.

Troll

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Every time I need to cross the river, I look forward to crossing the troll’s bridge.
He does a fine job of keeping the bridge maintained, and has recently strengthened it for heavier cart traffic.
Commerce and trade are booming now.
Today, I’m delivering kegs to his tavern.
“More ale!” cheers the troll.
Every patron stands up and raises their flagons in respect to the host.
Hungry? His wife bakes the most excellent pies. Sometimes I come here just for the pie.
We unload the kegs and unhitch three goat from the front of the cart.
Love those goat-meat pies.