Flash Fiction Challenge #27: Five Words, Plus One Vampire

five words, Flash Fiction, vampire, writing

Our flash fiction challenge this week at Terrible Minds was to write a 1000 word story using 3 of these 5 randomly chosen words: Cockroach, Fountain, Tax, Bottle, Box. And, it had to include something to do with vampires. Because I didn’t read well enough, I used all 5 words in my head, had the story, and then ended up using 4 instead of 3. Exactly 1000 words… So, please enjoy.

Flying Dog, Wing, Tongue, Zoo, Tiergarten, Nature

Darkness at the End of the Tunnel

“You’re a roach.”

“I’m a what?”

“You’re a dirty, manipulative, disgusting cockroach.”

“I see.”

“Rot in hell.”

“Maybe I will.” Aiden ended the call and slammed the cell phone down on the table. “You’re the roach,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t fucking get rid of you.”

But he laughed then, because he was pretty sure he’d managed to rid her from his life for once and for all. It might have been the lifelike vampire bat he’d sent her in a box, or it could have been the note attached to it explaining why he hated her. Either way, she seemed to have gotten the message.

“That Lucy?” Russ asked with his mouth full of nachos.

Aiden merely sneered and shook his head. “What do you think?” He took a swig of beer from the bottle. “At least I’m finally free.”

“Well, it took you long enough. Thought she’d had you drugged most of the relationship. I don’t know how you could have dealt with her shit.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I was drugged,” Aiden muttered and glanced around the pub. Most of the patrons were regulars. A few returned his gaze, but most were too busy with their own lives to notice him.

Russ was staring at him.

“What, man?”

His friend shrugged. “Are you happy?”

Aiden shook his head again. “Why would I be happy? I just told a woman I was dating for a year to go fuck herself, again, that I hate her guts, that I wish she was dead, that she’s ruined my life. I sent her a fake bat, for Christ’s sake. What’s wrong with me?”

“But are you glad you did it?”

The cute waitress in a tight white tee shirt and a black mini skirt returned to their table to retrieve their empties. “Same again?” Her voice was as smooth as velvet. Her long honey brown hair complimented her bright green eyes. Her gaze never left his.

“You bet,” Aiden said. Russ nodded as well and then watched the waitress walk away, keeping a firm watch of her ass. Aiden was watching her legs, which were muscular and tanned. “Yeah,” he continued. “Damn right I’m glad I did it.”

Russ smirked. “Good.”

Aiden pulled a stack of papers towards him. “Anyway, we’d better get back to these tax forms or you’ll have the government on your case.”

****

The waitress returned twice more before they prepared to leave. On the top of the bill, which she carefully slid in front of Aiden, she had written her phone number, beneath it, Claire.

“Look at that,” Aiden said with a smirk. “Can’t keep ‘em off me.”

Russ finished his drink. “If I didn’t have a girlfriend, I’d have been all over her for that number. You wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Aiden began to pack up the papers and stuff them into his briefcase. They had not gotten much done tax-wise, but he’d had a chance to properly vent. He grabbed his sports jacket and began to slide it on when Russ froze in his spot.

Lucy!” he exclaimed.

Just as Aiden turned to look behind him, he felt something sharp poke him in the center of his back.

“Don’t move.”

The voice was definitely Lucy’s, but it had a sensual quality to it that he had never heard.

“Luc—” Aiden tried to turn again but the point dug further into his skin.

“You made a big mistake, Sweetheart,” she said deep into his ear. Aiden could feel her hot breath on his skin.

He looked around and suddenly wished they had not chosen a table in the corner. “Lucy, what do you want?”

She moved into his peripheral vision, and with her left hand dropped the fake vampire bat onto the table. “Thought that was funny?” She slammed the hate note down on top of it. “And that? Oh, you’ve got quite the sense of humour.”

Russ had begun to sneak out of his chair, but Lucy noticed this and dug the point deeper into Aiden’s back. Now he had to squirm away from it.

“Don’t move, Rusty, or I’ll stab your buddy in the heart.”

“Lucy, you don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” she said. She turned to Aiden now so that her face was before his. “All I ever did was love you. The time I sent you those two dead doves, it was because I wanted you to see the signs of love that I saw—but they just wouldn’t stop trying to escape! And that time I surprised you in your bedroom—”

“You mean the time you stabbed your neck twice with a pencil so that it looked like a vampire had come to take you away from me?” Aiden exclaimed.

Her eyes flickered. “Yeah, that… I’d just wanted you to realize how lucky you were to have me, and to not take me for granted—”

You’re a lunatic!” Aiden shouted.

Russ had slipped out of his chair and was now circling around the table.

Lucy smiled. “You still love me, though, you filthy cockr—”

Russ grabbed Lucy’s left wrist and pulled her away from Aiden. As she stumbled backwards, he could see the nine-inch chef’s blade in her right hand. She growled, and before Russ could grab her hand, she swung at him. The knife slashed across his face, leaving a streak of blood travelling from his left eye towards to his right ear lobe. In that same moment, Aiden jumped out of his chair, and Lucy swung around to leap at him.

As the blade pierced Aiden’s ribcage, the only thought in his head was: If two people are five feet apart and are travelling towards each other at a constant rate of… What? How fast did she—He collapsed to the floor, seeing only red.

Lucy bent over him. “I couldn’t trust you to rot in hell on your own. You know you never do anything without me asking ten times.”

© Lindsay Mawson 2011

10 thoughts on “Flash Fiction Challenge #27: Five Words, Plus One Vampire

  1. Great story. Lucy is awesome. I love the way you've done so much character development on her without her even needing to be in the room for most of it. By the time she showed up, I had a really strong sense of her as a person.

  2. Christ, what is it with crazy bitches? There's one in my story, too.
    Maybe because I was married for 19 years?
    I liked the story. It just goes to show exactly how "shit happens."

  3. I enjoyed how smoothly this was written. Despite the violent ending, everything proceeded naturally, and I felt like it was a believable story. I enjoyed this!

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