The 100 Word Stories Podcast

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

We’ve got stories by:

• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Charlie
• Tom
• Jon
• Tura
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Laieanna
• Lilith Heart
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

JEFFREY

Barnacles
by Jeffrey Fischer

I looked at polo shirts on the Brooks Brothers web site. The shirts came in a myriad of colors but the prices required a second mortgage for a fistful of cloth. Reluctantly, I closed the window.

Later, as I opened a blog entry on the mating habits of arachnids – hey, it’s a long-standing passion – I saw an ad in the middle of the page, for none other than Brooks Brothers polo shirts. The same thing happened when I browsed for fountain pens and later read a lengthy piece on cross-dressing anarchists – NOT a passion, mind you, but broadening one’s horizons never hurts.

No, those barnacle ads are not creepy at all.

RICHARD

Creepy

It’s a little known fact that there were, in the beginning, eight dwarves sharing that cottage with Snow White.

Along with Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, Doc and the others was another dwarf who was always a bit of an embarrassment – he was the really ugly one whose appearance made children cry and grown men cross to the other side of the street.

Which is precisely why Disney wrote Creepy completely out of the story, and nobody has ever seen him since.

But actually, he’s been doing rather well for himself.

Ever since he sealed a publishing deal with Stephen King!

CHARLIE

Nina Titwash was creepy. A lazy eyed, spongy gummed grandmother; she worked on Maggie’s Lunch Wagon on the West side. She’d sneeze and cough, light up another Camel, and throw Elk Burgers on the Grill.

She’d wash her hands once a day, but only incidentally if she got something icky on them when reaching into the back of the wagon’s reefer.

Titwash was a native Texan. Her family lived off things they drug out of the city dump. One day, her dad found a duffle bag full of money, and moved out, abandoning the family and its secrets and crimes.

2.

Romy Wovencrotch was a Seattle hippy. He spent an hour each morning doing his hair, tweezing his eyebrows, and putting on wristbands, analog watches, silver rings and ear jewelry.

The creepiest of creeps, he creeped around coffee bars, bicycle shops, Thai restaurants, and music venues. He was a picker of pockets and picked the pocket of pocked marked procurer at the produce market. He was caught, shaved head to toe, dipped in plaster, and planted puss down in a pig pen at the wildlife zoo, North of town.

He was found a month later, half eaten by the big sow.

JON

Something Creepy

By

Jon DeCles

There’s something sexy about something creepy. The frisson is not about something you should not do, it is about something you don’t want to do: only you do. The way your skin crawls at the guy in the Clive Barker movie where he is re-assembling without his skin, only you can feel why the girl is turned on.

There is also something erotic about fear, about surprise. The feeling that something could happen out of your control. Women and men both have rape fantasies, but almost nobody really wants to be raped.

Thus the ticket taker in the mirror maze.

TOM

Some People; You just Can’t Please.

“Smile!” I don’t like to smile, especially for someone trying to steal my soul for a momentarily tourist capture the moment as staged as the last 20 WrestleMania; and if I had a folding metal chair then I would be smiling for real. “No wider.” So I raise up my best 4th Grade Photo Day Smile. You know the one your parents show to perspective girlfriends “OOOOO that’s so creepy.” Not as creepy as what I am about to do with that camera of yours. “So serious.” I ponder how long it will take to find the body. Hope they take photos.

TURA

Creepy
———
“The first card represents the present,” said the fortune-teller. “The Astrogator, spying out the future.”

Well, no-brainer, here I was consulting her.

“The second is the immediate past. The Knight of Batons, reversed. A soldier defeated.”

A reference to my ignominious exit from my last assassination mission? The soothsayer continued.

“Then the three futures. 16 of Tentacles. Entrapment without escape. This is the best future.”

This was getting seriously creepy. I decided to postpone my current mission until the stars were once again right. But first, I shot the fortune-teller. One can’t be too careful in this line of work.

SERENDIPITY

People seem to think I’m creepy…

You could put it down to my fascination with blood and gore, or my fondness for stories of murder and mayhem.

Perhaps my unhealthy obsession with knives and the darker side of the soul causes them to wonder about my motives.

Or maybe, it’s just that I come across as something of a psychopath?

But, I don’t think that it’s really any of those things.

What really freaks people out, is that they’ve never heard my real voice, or seen my face… You have absolutely no idea who I really am.

And that’s creepy!

LIZZIE

She just waited there, wearing this huge hat while sitting between the over-sized figures of Death and a Bride.
The display was a performance, they said. All she had to do was sit down and be quiet. And that’s what she did. Well, at least until Death started coughing.
She stood up and peeked in through the eyes of Death, wondering if anyone was inside.
“Are you OK?”
To which Death replied, amidst intense coughing, “Help me.”
Everyone fled. Too creepy, the critics wrote.
Apparently, Death had planned to rob the jewelry-clad celebrities attending the opening, and Death almost died.

LAIEANNA

“Creepshow”

Shooting, stabbing, even setting fire -which almost burned down my
house- did nothing to eliminate the hideous creature dwelling inside.
I tried humane methods first, but authorities couldn’t see it and I
got fined for false calls. Invisible when attempting to evict and
invincible when trying to kill, if left alone, friends saw the
monstrosity.

I didn’t need to tend to it, but I couldn’t ignore it. So, I did the
next best thing and made a spectacle of it. You want to see something
unnatural and creepy? Ten dollars will get you a ticket for a half
hour viewing.

LILITH

She awoke in the bedroom to the sound of the bathtub faucet shutting off.

The bathroom had been dimmed and filled with flickering tea light
candles. Lavender and chamomile aromas were swept up with the
spiraling steam from the bubble bath. The tub was empty. She smiled.

Her husband called for her. “You home, babe?”

“Upstairs,” she called back, lowering herself into the bath. She so
felt sleepy as her head sank below the water. Blood swirled up from
her wrists.

He screamed her name when he saw her.

She awoke to the sound of the bathtub faucet shutting off.

NORVAL JOE

Back in my neighborhood, when I was a kid, no one ever invited Wendell along, but he always showed up anyway. No one cared.
He wore a cereal bowl haircut and didn’t seem to have any neck at all.
He never said anything. He just nodded his head in agreement to whatever I said and smiled his creepy smile.
He must have moved away. I never saw him after eighth grade.
At my twenty-fifth high school reunion I asked around among my old friends if anyone knew what had happened to him.
Funny. No one else remembered him at all.

PLANET Z

I named my first cat Mister Creepy.
His grey fur stuck out in all directions.
And his tail was a bent shock of fluff.
His claws were almost always out, gripping the carpet for dear life.
And his yellow eyes, as wide as can be.
He never walked anywhere. He always ran at full speed.
There were times that he jumped up on shelves and the tops of dressers.
Staring down at me, hissing and shrieking.
One day, I left the door open too long, and he escaped.
Crazy bastard never came back.
It was a relief to us all.

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com.

This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

We’ve got stories by:

• Jeffrey
• Charlie
• Richard
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Tom
• Jon
• Tura
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

JEFFREY

Ticket to Ride
by Jeffrey Fischer

Amy had just driven the BMW 340 off the lot and headed for the interstate. She wanted to find out just what the car could do. In 11.6 seconds she was at 100 miles per hour, weaving her way around the traffic that insisted 70 was fast enough.

One such weave took her past a car marked “State Police.” Oops. Sure enough, Amy soon heard the wail of the siren. She pulled over and handed the patrolman her license and registration. “Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked.

“Just a wee bit fast? It couldn’t have been much.”

The cop shook his head. “More than 20 miles per hour over the limit. That’s reckless driving in this state. I hope you have someone who can keep this car running for the six months you’ll be without your license.”

CHARLIE

Suny Veranda bought the winning ticket at the mom and pop grocery. She checked the numbers, signed the back, stuck the ticket in her bra, and called the regional office in Olympia as her prize was over 100 million.

She made an appointment to claim her winnings, filled out the tax forms, got her proof of identity together and waited for the day of her appointment.
Monday morning, her friend Edna drove her to the office. Edna and Suny were crossing the parking lot to the office door and were struck down by a beer delivery truck, killing them instantly.

2.

German prostitutes were given a ticket to ride by health authorities if they had a clean bill of health. They had to carry the card issued to them if they were to make a living in Northern Germany. The alternative was to go underground, stay out of the view of the police, and work at night, only.

Modern city girls don’t bother with such formalities and precautions. Neither do modern city boys.
For a small payment in Bitcoins, an outfit in Canada will prepare the proper medical credentials that certify you as free of VD so you may go clubbing.

*Inspired by Beatle’s Tune, …Ticket to Ride.

RICHARD

#1 – Beatlemania

It was a shared love of Beatles’ music that brought my wife and I together, but over the years her obsession with the Fab Four has taken over our lives.

I’m forbidden from using my beloved Ford – she insists, ‘baby, you can drive my car’, (VW Beetle, obviously); and sex is a complete disaster…

It’s not that she’s constantly nagging to ‘please, please me!’, but she will demand that every time, I need ‘a ticket to ride’!

In the end, frustration got the better of me. Turns out The Beatles were right – happiness, is indeed, a warm gun!

#2 – Golden Ticket

Ever get the feeling that the world is changing for the worst? Imagine, for example if ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ had been written today…

On seeing the flash of that Golden Ticket, as he unwrapped his – considerably smaller – chocolate bar, he’d have been on Ebay within minutes, auctioning it off to the highest bidder.

Willy Wonka would have been sued into oblivion for violating health and safety; and damages payouts to the traumatised kids during the factory tour, whilst the Oompah Loompahs would be demanding equal rights as members of a minority group.

Almost stranger than fiction!

#3 – Park & Ride

After nipping into the newsagents for my morning paper, I returned to find a warden writing out a ticket.

“You can’t park here”, he said with a sneer.

“I clearly can”, I replied, pointing to the car parked, somewhat badly, but quite definitely ‘parked’, by any definition of the word.

“I mean, you can’t park here legally”, he objected.

I smiled: “That’s great… Because the car is parked illegally, isn’t it?”

“You’re an idiot!”, he said.

“Not really”, I replied, walking across the road to my own car, before he had a chance to write a ticket for mine too!

SERENDIPITY

Here at Styx Incorporated, times are changing – we’re working hard to bring the Afterlife into the twenty first century. We believe death should be a modern, streamlined process.

So, now you won’t be paying the Ferryman – he’s been replaced by an autonomous transit pod – instead, you’ll buy your ticket up front; the more in advance, the better the deal.

Of course, that means a certain amount of planning ahead for your transition to the Underworld, but it’s worthwhile.

Trust me, you don’t want to be caught without a ticket – Cerberus, our inspector doesn’t like fare dodgers!

LIZZIE

He flattened the map on the table.
“This is where we are going.” And he thumped his index finger on the right spot a few times for emphasis.
The gang seemed bored.
“Get in the cars and… try to look inconspicuous so the police don’t stop you, ok?!”
They all nodded.
When he arrived, he saw no one.
“Damn retards… They got caught. When you want something done, do it yourself.”
He walked inside the bank. Empty.
He got caught too.
“One-way ticket to hell,” one of them had the gall to tell him when they met again in jail.

TOM

Sometime You Just Got to Use The Taser

“I’ve got a ticket to ride,” said Rudy. “Sorry Mac, this is the A-Train.” “My name is Rudy and I’ve got a ticket to ride.” “Look sub-intellect that ticket is for the B-Train.” “My name is Rudy and I’ve got a ticket to ride.” “Yous sees that cop over there, Rudy with the ticket to ride? He’d just as soon open your melon head as look at ya, Capeesh?”

“Melon Head is the name given to legendary beings in Michigan, Ohio, and Connecticut generally described as small humanoids with bulbous heads, who occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people.”

JON

Ticket

By

Jon DeCles

I’d have liked him better if he had worn a loud plaid suit, such as one has a right to associate with carnival personell: but he was dressed like any shabby street person, somebody picked up to fill a temporary job. The way he looked me in the eye when he said: “Punch your ticket?” left me wondering whether he was making a pass or planning to mug me.

I gave him a half smile, hoping to disarm whatever might be hiding in his not-so-sub conscious.

He stayed in my mind until I encountered him in the maze of mirrors.

TURA

Ticket
———
The nightclub was by invitation only. Its scandalous reputation was spread mainly by those most desiring an invitation. I remember when my friend Gustave suddenly gave me a ticket, for I had not suspected him of mixing in such circles.

But when I presented it on the appointed night, the doorkeeper stood fast.

“‘ADMIT ONE’ is the price of admission,” he reproved. “Admit a fault, a secret lust, a betrayal. What you admit is up to you, and what is up to me is whether your admission is worth admission. None are so poor that they cannot meet this price.”
———

NORVAL JOE

We bought a new digital pressure cooker because it’s supposed to cook a chicken in 30 minutes. That’s great, but you have to add ten minutes to warm it up, ten minutes to sit afterwards, and another ten to broil the chicken to get a crispy skin.
It took longer than I planned to make dinner and I had already bought my ticket to the new Spiderman movie.
We made it to the movie on time, but I didn’t have a lot of time to write my 100 word story.
Ultimately, the movie was a lot better than my story.

PLANET Z

His guitar. His voice.
His tickets to stardom.
He played three gigs a night, seven days a week.
All the while, he posted videos of his work to the Internet.
Sold tracks off of a website.
Then, a record company came sniffing around.
They wanted a piece of him.
But they wanted too much. He refused to sign.
He woke up in an alley, covered in blood.
The six fingers still on his hands all broken.
He tried to shout for help through a crushed throat.
These days, he’s an agent.
The shit he’s been through, nobody tells him no.