Weekly Challenge #319 – 100 Miles

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Nineteen, 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 100 Miles.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Thomas
Serendipity Haven
Tura
Tom
Lizzie Gudkov
TJ
Chris Munroe
Tom
Zackmann
Steven the Nuclear Man
Cliff
Logan Berry
Guy David
Norval Joe
RedGoddess
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

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THOMAS

The 100 mile race began in downtown Sequim and trailed up through the foothills. It was the annual EZ electric, shopping cart race, sponsored by Safeway and Kroger’s. Local retirees entered every year, some succumbing to the excitement and temperature, pushing 65. Last year, Monica Smithereen won, but it was later discovered that she had juiced, so the 2nd place winner, Horace Morris took the prize money and trophy home. No one discovered the plasticizers in his urine, as a result of Mrs. Morris hooking up her IV to Horace before the race and pumping him with B12 and amphetamine.

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The first 100 miles of the southern border with Canada had ultimately been sealed with high walls of wire and concrete. It was hastily built to keep out the hordes of Chinese Yuppies, sneaking into the states near Vancouver to buy foreclosed homes, vacated restaurants, Hummer dealerships and real estate offices in Washington. Xenophobes panicked and rushed to their druggists and psychic counselors. The border was policed with air and sea drones cobbled together by local computer and RC hackers…among them J. Gordon, who built his armed drone out of recycled foam board and parts from his uncle’s weed whacker.

SERENDIPIDY

With legs horribly bruised and bleeding, he dragged himself across the finish line. Quite an achievement:100 miles, crawling on hands and knees, but where were the cheering crowds, the welcoming committee and smiling sponsors?

Coming to think of it, where the hell had any of them been throughout the whole, laborious route?

Throwing his rucksack to the floor in disgust, he watched as his trusty compass bounced across the tarmac.

That was odd.

He picked it up; shook it – the needle never moved.

In horror, realisation dawned… he’d successfully crawled 100 miles, but only in the wrong blasted direction!

TURA

Kate and I start together, but we’re both going at our own pace, so we separate fairly soon. First refreshment point at 20 miles. I drink some water, stop a minute, then carry on.

East Anglia is supposed to be flat, but on a bike it seems to be made of hills. Halfway point at 50. Food, water, and press on.

Sheringham, Cromer, Happisburgh, Horsey Mill. 75 mile stop, ten minutes.

At 80, I’m counting down the miles left. 90. Kate catches me up and we ride the rest together. Counting half miles now.

100 miles! Free water! Free BEER!

TOM

Badger and Bolin weren’t the smartest tools in the shed. What they lacked
in brainpower they made up in steadfast loyalty. Even though Bolin was
heisted to make the 100-mile trek through Grubber’s Swamp he matched
Badger’s led right into the pit of Unending Suck. “Well I guess this is
the end,” sighed Badger. “No my end is at the bottom of the pit,”
countered Bolin. “Then we’re saved,” cry Badger and scrabbled up Bolin’s
shoulders. Pulling his friend to safety, they lay exhausted on the ground.
“Maybe 100 miles is a bad idea, lets do rocky road instead.”

LIZZIE

The bright orange sun hid in the horizon as a light breeze unsettled the weary soul foretelling the storm. Politicians, millionaires, artists, common people looking for oil or peace all tried to buy their land. “Why do you need it? It’s just sand.” They didn’t know about the trap door behind the house, the tunnel, and the living thing in there. One day, it would travel the 100 mile long tunnel back to the surface and rule the world. They just had to feed it till then. They always wondered why no one ever noticed all those missing nosey visitors.

TJ

SIGHTING

Flickering images of drunken celebrations, couples rehearsing their
passionate intentions and lonelier hotel guests texting to absent
friends whizzed through the lobby and hallways in the security feeds I’d
loaded to my thumb drives. There was otherwise nothing remarkable until
about halfway through the third one. Karen let out a gasp to see her
missing daughter, Laurie, swimming in the hotel pool. The time stamp
said she’d been there from about 10:57 to 11:23, at which point a young
man appeared, tall and blond, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. They chatted
for about 20 minutes, and disappeared from our view.

PURSUIT

Karen’s face was hard to read. Her 15-year-old daughter had disappeared.
She had, however, been spotted. She’d not been kidnapped, locked in a
stranger’s windowless van and already 100 miles away down the highway.
She’d just met a boy and gone off with him, willingly. Was probably
still in the hotel. Mom, however, wasn’t entirely relieved by this turn
of events either. We did, of course, have an image of the boy she’d met.
And it was now after 6 a.m. So we made our way to the front desk to see
if the desk clerk was back on duty.

MUNSI

Within 100 miles of here is a place I’d love.

Maybe a restaurant that serves cuisine from a country I’ve never visited, or a club playing music I’m unfamiliar with but would dig if I gave it a chance…

The specifics aren’t relevant, the point is it’s the perfect place for me, it’s within 100 miles of here, and I’d love it there if I ever went.

I might never find this place.

I get too trapped by routine to really look.

But it exists.

Can you say for certain there isn’t a similar place within 100 miles of you?

ZACKMANN

“It is a great day for a walk” exclaimed Joe
Mike replied “We still have over 26 miles to go. Like a marathon. Who do you think I am, Charlie White?”
“The car manual said charge will last 100 miles.”said Joe.
“I don’t suppose you read the fine print about using Air Conditioning or driving highway speeds.” taunted Mike
“Yes , but I still thought it would go farther than this. Maybe I should have bought a plugin hybrid but appeal of not having to do an emissions test was too hard to resist”
“Time to call the auto club”

STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

Shane sighed in the backseat and tried to get his parent’s attention.

“How far is it to Grandma’s?”

“It’s a while yet, honey.”

“How far is that, Mom?”

Her sigh echoed his own. “A hundred more miles. Shush so Daddy can concentrate on driving.”

Shane looked out the window. Even an irritating sibling wouldn’t be boring.

“Mom, how far now?”

“Shane, just read one of your books.”

She’d used the “Mom” voice, so he stopped asking and looked out the window again.

When the first zombie shambled from the woods, he smiled.

It wouldn’t be a boring trip after all.

CLIFF

Marvin was a lazy monk. Marvin belonged to an unusual order. They believed that, since Jesus walked everywhere to deliver his message, then they had to walk to earn the right to tell their stories. Words were earned by walking. One mile equaled one word. A powerful sermon could involve a pilgrimage from Virginia to Oregon and back again. Marvin only made it from Philadelphia to Baltimore before sitting down to write. One hundred miles means one hundred words for Marvin. The Abbot was furious. After all, who would want to read a story that’s only one hundred words long?

LOGAN

The sky is the same color as the sand, a luminous Photoshop-layered, grainy, noisy, soft-focused, glowing, diffused, warm, creamy, grey-and-yellow. There is no safe horizon to guide me on my journey, no compass, only the feel of unreliable sand beneath my feet and the sure knowledge that I must move, or die. I am halfway there. I smell my own stale, dry, hot, recycled breath through the scarf wrapped like bandages around my nose and mouth. Move, or die. Finally, finally, I am there. I have travelled the 100 miles. I have travelled the 100 words.

GUY

It was a long but fruitful walk. Every word was a mile, and there where always 100 of them, but he pushed on, walking, stubbornly advancing word by word. He just had to. Everything depended on it. Laurence fought off the evils of procrastination, the monsters of the writer block, managing to release a new story every day for 7 years, accompanied by the ever loyal midget, the man from planet Z and an ever increasing army of cats, the Mariner robot pressed on to conquer the world, 100 words at a time, and thus the next 7 years began.

NORVAL JOE

The walls of the house appeared to bow inward as the intensity of the demon’s screams continued to climb.
“Farmer. Do you have a cellar?” Shareeka asked.
“Yes,” he said, “You stand on the trap door.”
The company and farmer crowded into the cellar and linked their arms, forming a circle. Shareeka chanted. Instantly, all was dark.
“What happened?” Owen asked.
“I moved us 20 feet north of the farmer’s cellar,” Shareeka said.
“Great,” Traveler said, “Do that for another 29 leagues and we’ll be at the mines.”
“I’m sorry,” She said, “Moving that much earth is beyond my ability.”

REDGODDESS

As guests whisk by Lola’s desk, they yell gleefully “TGIF.” Who can forget Friday is Margarita day at the hotel. Since Lola is on duty, she can’t drink alcohol but can still mingle. Two giggling women in their 20’s, wearing sundresses, designer dark glasses hurried to the gift shop. They seem immersed in chatter and trying on perfume samples. Lola suddenly misses her childhood best friend. She appreciates a good cocktail. They had a big fall out after collegel and have not spoken since. They now live 100 miles apart, yet the memories they shared are always a heart beat away.

PLANET Z

My science book says that if you laid all the blood vessels in the human body end to end, they’d stretch 100 miles long.

So, me and Bobby picked up a hitchhiker, killed him, dumped him in the back of the pickup, and got to cutting.

Parkersburg is fifty miles, so we figured we’d just head out there and back

A mile out of town, we look back, and birds are picking the goods out of the gravel.

Bobby said ignore ‘em. They’re just picking up the stuff we already measured.

I wiped my hands and went back to cutting.