Cold Blood Part 2

Last week, I started a four part story to be finished by another author. This is a Terrible Minds challenge. This week, I was able to pick the first part of a story and add the second.

I chose Cold Blood by Pavowski.  You can read the first part of the story here:
https://pavorisms.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/cold-blood/

And here is the second part, my contribution:

She shivered, frozen to the spot, and looked around at the stand of trees surrounding the camping site. She couldn’t see who it was, and she thought they must be hiding out there. Lem tiptoed back over to the fire and sat down on the rock, as the figure came out of the woods. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, trying to break free of its confines. She could see the outline of the backpack, and a wave of relief washed over her when she saw the dreads on his head—just a backpacker.

“You scared me,” she said.

“I was separated from my group about an hour ago.”

Lem looked up to the sky and realized the sun hadn’t even been up for an hour. Unease crept into her, but she plastered a smile on her face as she looked at him.

“Did you see a man on the trail? About six feet? Beard, probably unkempt hair?”

The backpacker shook his head. She sat on the rock warming her hands by the fire, and she motioned for him to take a seat.

“I’m Ian,” he said.

She grasped his hand, noticing his knuckles were split around the edges, like he’d been hitting something. He followed her eyes, and she stared up at him, darkness staring back at her. She shuddered and pulled her hand back too abruptly.

“I practice taekwondo. Split my knuckles on the punching bag. Your name?”

She nodded, but she didn’t believe him—the same feeling of unease from this morning creeping back to her as she wondered where Mark could be and whether the blood on the rock was his.

“Lem.”

“Unsual.”

“Belonging to God.”

“Huh?”

“It’s what the name means. It was my mother’s maiden name and was stuck onto me like a fungus. Imagine being a girl and growing up with a name like Lem.”

She didn’t know why she was telling him this, nervous talk, because when she looked at him the feeling of dread seeped under her skin. She wished Mark was here, or that she even knew where Mark was, but more than that she wished the gun in the tent was in her hands. She thought about breaking away from the campfire, going into the tent and pushing it into the space between the elasticity of her pants and her skin.  But, she thought, if Ian was dangerous then she would be trapped. Coming out of the tent, he could easily accost her and she didn’t want that. She thought about the split skin on his hands, the blood seemed newly dried and this thought turned her stomach as she thought about the little pool of blood on the ice. It could only be Mark’s.

“Would you like some bacon?” she asked, pointing towards the pan she had left cooling by the fire.

Her breath was still coming out in vapor, but the world seemed to be warming up now that the sun was peeking up from behind the trees. 

“Yeah, that’d be fucking great,” Ian said, and he leaned forward to help himself to two pieces.

“So how does one get lost from their group so early in the morning?”

He glared at her, and she felt an icy prickle, like a hand, trail through her body alerting her to the danger this man seemed to possess. 

“Maybe you should be asking yourself that about—what’s his name?”

“Mark.” When the name came from her lips, she knew Mark was past tense. She wanted to crawl out into the woods and look for his body, but right now she had to protect herself from the monster sitting right next to her. 

“This bacon’s great.” The words from his mouth dripped like acid, despite the benign nature of them.

She nodded, pulling her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, trying to warm herself up in a childlike pose meant to protect her from things unknown.

“I think I’m just going to go to the tent, put another layer on. You’re welcome to another piece of bacon.”

She set her feet into the dirt, and as she started to push herself up from the rock his hand clamped on her wrist, a pair of handcuffs meaning to trap her to this place. His fingernails dug into her skin, a grip so tight she knew there was no escaping.

“I think you should stay here,” he said through clenched teeth.

Her heart was beating so fast, a thousand tons sitting on her chest, as the reality of the situation started sinking in. Sweat broke out on her forehead, despite the coldness that seemed to drag itself into every pore of her body.  She wanted it to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up and roll over, feel Mark’s warm skin next to hers and warm herself up with a morning coital.

The daydream faded as she realized Ian wasn’t going to let go. Her eyes moved from his hands, split knuckles, dirt under the fingernails, to his chest.  When she saw it, she gasped.

He had the necklace hanging around his neck—a token from a kill? The Joshua Tree imprinted on the metal, the frayed edges of the shoelace material laying along Ian’s neck, instead of Mark’s where it belonged. She had bought it for Mark at Joshua Tree National Park about a month after they started dating. He hadn’t taken it off since.

And she knew what this man was here to do.

He maintained his grasp on her wrist. With his other hand he trailed his fingers against the exposed skin on her neck. She started screaming, and as expected he clamped his hand over her mouth, the smell of dirt and moisture filling her nostrils.

Lem tried to break away from his grasp, and was surprised when the searing pain clouded her field of vision, and suddenly her world went completely black. This is it for me, she thought. 

                                                                             ****

You Can Buy my book, "No Turning Back": 

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1BDMdPf

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And we have a winner...Plus "Just a Body"

I'm happy to announce that we have a winner for the Rafflecopter giveaway of a free copy of "No Turning Back."

It's JAMES CHEARY

(James, check your email!)

Thanks to everyone who entered, and check back often for more giveaways.  For more information about "No Turning Back," such as where you can buy it, see the bottom of this post

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Now, I wanted to share with you "Just A Body." I wrote this piece for Mid-Week Blues Buster, which my great author friend, Michael Simko, led me to this week. He knows all things Flash Fiction. One day, we're going to start our own Flash contest, so keep attuned for that announcement.

Also, one little brag on myself. I won Alissa Leonard's Flash Fiction contest this week with my entry of "Berlin." I'll be judging next week over there, so if you're a writer make sure to enter so you can make my decision harder!

And, without further ado, here's Just A Body:

Fumbling around in the dark, he couldn’t find where he had left his pants. He had one shoe on, and he was hopping around like one of those poor blokes in the movies. He knew it was time to leave. She was in the bed, still looking at him and scratching her armpits. God, he hated when she did that. He could imagine her monkey self, somewhere out in the jungles of Africa, and it turned his stomach.

She picked at her fingernails and looked at him, as he pulled the khaki pants up over his rump.

“So you’re going to leave again, just like that?”

“I have a lot of work to do,” he said. He was glad the lights were out, and the room was dusky, so she couldn’t see he was lying.

At exactly that same moment, she clicked on the bedside lamp. He looked like a deer in headlights, standing there slack-jawed, she thought. God, why did she invite him into her bed every time she ran into him? She’d been picking out mangoes at the grocery store this time, when he’d come up from behind. His hand automatically put his arm around her waist, as if he owned her.  

“It’s Sunday,” she said, but she could hear the neediness in her voice. She reached to the floor and plucked up the rose colored shirt that had been discarded seventeen minutes before in the heat of passion.

“Um, yeah, I know.” The words dribbled out, falling flat between them, little meaning behind them besides the lie.

“Do you think we should, you know, do more than this?” She wondered why she was asking. She’d never been one for commitment, but there was something about him.

He was standing up against the wall, and he leaned back easing into it as if it could hold him up and maybe even carry him away from this conversation.

“More than this?” he asked, acting oblivious.

“Forget it. Get to work,” she said, turning over and turning off the light.

He slammed the door when he left her house. He saw the need in her eyes for something more. But he knew he couldn’t give that to her.  He pulled out his phone and Emma’s name was flashing.

He auto-dialed.

“Hey Em.”

“Where have you been?”

“You know, just out for a Sunday stroll.”

“I have on red lingerie and I’m sitting in bed waiting for you. Waiting is so not sexy. Did you forget Sunday was our day?”

“Sorry—I just had an intense need for some mangoes.”

At least Emma understood their arrangement, he thought, as he started the car, driving towards another dark room where he could lose himself inside another woman, just a figure, just a body, nothing more.  

******************************************************************************************************************************

You Can Buy my book, "No Turning Back": 

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1BDMdPf

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1Lurplw

Kobo: http://bit.ly/169NJ3D

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1EWHdJe

You can find more of me online here:

Website: http://www.lululandadventures.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurengreenewrites

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1CKGGue

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenegreene

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Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/user/LaurenGreene4

The Wall

This week, I'm participating in Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge. At 2,000 words it's really a short story, but it was fun to play with. He listed 20 genres and 20 subgenres and a random number generator was responsible for the genre-mesh we had to write. My chosen two were Urban fantasy and alternate history. I knew this would be a challenge, because I don't write in any of these genres.

Without further ado:

The Wall by Lauren Greene
@laurenegreene
1998 words

On August 13, 1961, they started building the wall.  I remember, because that night my mother tucked me into bed and whispered to me, “Ada, from now on we will be safe. From them. They won’t be able to get us.”

I heard snippets on the news broadcasts, “Communists and Fascists.” I saw his fist slam against the table as my father shouted, “It’s not right. They’re cutting off families.”

But my mother, she said it was right. She was the voice of reason whispered in my ear. I remembered her words: It will keep us safe from them.

Twenty-eight years later, my mother’s voice still seemed to be whispering those words into my ears, even from her grave. Cancer, they had said. My mother had wasted away, and within six weeks of the diagnosis they were putting her in the hard, cold ground. Then my father had drank himself nearly to death, and I never took off my black mourning clothes.  Some say I was responsible for the start of the Goth subculture, but I don’t know if I’d go that far.

The wall ran right through my street, an ugly sight of gray concrete rising up from the ground and capped with a circular piece, supposedly to deter climbers. My neighbor, Mr. Millicent’s, elderly mother lived on the other side. He received permits to go over the wall and into West Germany to visit.

“What’s it like over there?”

“Different. More freedom. The wall on that side is covered in graffiti. They talk about unification.”

I was horrified, remembering the drawings my mother had made in the leather-bound book and her words of warning.

“Is your mother safe?” I asked him.

“They say it’s safer than here. They have policemen roaming the street, but no armed guards.”

I was shocked by this. But, what if? I didn’t express my concern to him, just nodded and continued to eat the cookie he had given me, and took a sip of my coffee. Dark and rich, just the way I liked it.

“There is some talk, from the government, that they are going to tear it down,” Mr. Millicent said, as he stirred his cream into his coffee.

I met his eyes, and I knew the expression on my face was akin to The Scream. 

“I will be glad,” Mr. Millicent continued. “My mother is elderly, and she needs someone to take care of her. Visiting doesn’t cut it.”

“There’s been talk before,” I said. “Nothing comes of it, as well it shouldn’t.”

“I’m surprised, Ada. For such an artistic lady as you, the West seems to be the place you should be.”

I wondered who I could talk to.  Were they really going to tear the wall down? I knew for a fact the government knew what was really on the other side, even if they kept it from their civilians. I’d heard all about the civilian deaths, about people who went from the East to the West for a visit and never came back. 

I stood up and delivered the chipped rose-colored tea cup to the sink, twisting it in my hand and thinking about Mr. Millicent cut off from his mother, just on the other side of the wall, within waving distance. I turned back toward him, propping myself against the counter.

“I’m going down to Museum Island today.”

“Oh yeah. I hear they’re thinking about doing something about that, renovating. What do you want there? Walk the ruins?”

“It’s beautiful. My mother used to tell me stories of before the war, about how the museums were. I’d like to walk around and feel her presence.”

“Oh yes. The anniversary, right?”

I nodded, looking down at the grungy tile on the floor, feeling the familiarity of the grief rising up within me, threatening to take over. It never got easier, losing your parent, even if it had been eighteen years.

“Talked to your dad lately?”

I shook my head, looked away, and gathered my coat from the back of the chair, sliding my arms into it.

“You should give him a call. I heard rehab worked for him this time. He wants to change, Ada.”

“He has my number. He knows where I live.”

I felt underdressed when I came out of the train near Museum Island. The breeze seemed to have kicked up, the water in the canals rippled, and the wind chilled me to the bone. The Altes Museum was the only one open, the others were busy falling into ruin and decay. Such a shame; all the history here was falling by the wayside, and I hoped what Mr. Millicent said about renovations was true.  

I was standing in front of Thronende, when I felt the weight of somebody’s hand placed on my shoulder. I turned around to see familiar eyes that I hadn’t seen in years. I knew the face, he was the little boy who lived across the street from us in West Berlin, before the wall was built. I had played with him, running through the streets; memories of my childhood swept through me like a wave.

“Ada?”

“Hannes Nimitz,” I said. The fear caught in my throat, and I felt it swell. My mother had told me he was one of them: a shape-shifter. The little boy I had played with was one of them.

His hand was still on my shoulder, and I had turned slightly toward him. I could see the coarse hair freckling the back of his hands, creeping slowly out of his jacket the way vines crept up trees. 

“How did you get here?”

“East, you mean? I’m part of an envoy to your government, to encourage them to tear down the wall.”

“Did you run out of food on that side?”

I couldn’t believe I was standing here, next to him, in the Altes. My whole body seemed to shake with fear, and he was still touching my shoulder. My mother had drawn pictures in the book. The transformation from man to wild boar. Shoulders slumped, falling to the ground as hooves took the place of their feet and tusks protruded from their mouths. I stared at Hannes Nimitz’s mouth and noticed his canines were large, “the better to eat you with,” I thought of the old familiar lines of 

“Little Red Riding Hood.” 

“You know, don’t you?” he asked, hand still sitting on my shoulder.

I nodded, and I tried to back away but he tightened his grip. My breathing came rapidly, as I tried to pull away from him.

“It’s a lie, Ada.”

“My mother wouldn’t create monsters like that if they weren’t true.”

He moved closer to me, pushed his face into mine and whispered the words through clenched teeth. 

“It’s true, but we aren’t dangerous. Not in the way your mother thought.”

My whole world seemed to come crashing down. I thought of the tales my mother had told me of the West Germans stealing babies from their cradles, devouring them and leaving only empty bonnets in their cribs. Why would she create such horrible stories?

“Think about it? Did I ever put you in danger? Did my parents?”

I thought back on my carefree days as a child and I shook my head, but I still felt small and weak in his presence. My mother had drawn those pictures, of Hitler, and what he had done to all those people. I had never understood why he had starved them half to death before he killed them, but my mother had explained that boars liked bones. 

“What about Hitler?”

He dropped his hand down to his side, and looked me in the eye as if he was challenging me. We strolled through the gallery, which seemed so romantic but the reality of the situation was far from it.

“There are some corrupt shifters. Just like there are some corrupt politicians. Do you really think a wall could keep us out?”

We were standing in front of the bust of Nefertiti. I looked out of the windows, surprised to see rain, when it had felt cold enough for snow. The gray colds seemed to be taking over the whole sky. I looked him in the eyes, and something wild and free looked back at me. I hadn’t felt free for years, trapped by my fears of this world, trapped by my fears of him.

I thought of him in his lederhosen as a little boy, running down the street in front of our houses, before we had been separated by the wall. The smile he always had plastered on his face and the twinkling in his eyes. Even at that age, he knew he had to pretend he was someone he was not. I understood that, pretending for all these years along with all the East Germans that the only danger on the other side of the wall was democracy.  

I grabbed his wrist, and twisted it pulling him toward me with as much force as I could muster. He did not resist, and when he leaned in I thought he was going to kiss me, so I pushed him away.

“I will fight you and your kind for the rest of my life if I have to. I have connections too.”

“Your mother’s dead,” he said, cocking his head at me.

“She fought for us her whole life.”

“Too bad she’s not here to fight for you anymore,” he said, and turned his back, walking away from me.

When I got home I pulled off my jacket and released my wings, shaking them out until they were full sized. The light danced against the iridescence of the spider silk from which they were woven.  I thought about Hannes Nimitz and how he said shifters weren’t dangerous. In my room, I pulled out the leather bound book my mother had left for me. The first page showed the Nazi symbol and Hitler, morphing from a man to a boar. He had led the fairies into gas chambers, killing millions of us.  My mother had escaped persecution, as had many fairies who kept their wings a secret. Ever since, I had been told to hide who I really was. I wasn’t all that different from Hannes in that respect. I knew I would never feel comfortable releasing my wings in public, although some fairies, as of late, had come out of hiding.

I slid the book back into the drawer, and as I did I heard glass breaking downstairs. I reached down, sliding the knife from the sheath securely attached to my leg. I gripped the bannister tightly with my left hand as I scanned the house for signs of the intruder.

In the hallway, I could hear heavy panting. I turned around, and there he stood, half-man, half-boar, still in the process of shifting.

“The door was open,” he grunted.

I looked at the shards of glass where they were scattered along the floor. I knew he could use them against me. His hooves struck the ground, as if he was about to charge me. His transformation complete now, the eyes of a wild beast replaced the soft blue hue of Hannes’. He didn’t calculate his move, instead he charged at me with his tusks. I knew he didn’t see it coming. He was huge, but I thrust the poison-laced knife directly into his heart. Blood seemed to drain out of him at an alarming rate, as he sunk to the ground and curled up in the fetal position. I watched as his fur slowly disappeared replaced by the gray of his dying skin.  The tusks sank back into his mouth, and I stared at the naked dead man lying in a pool of red in my foyer.

On November 10, 1989, to the tune of “Wind of Change,” the Berlin Wall began to be torn down. It wouldn’t be complete until 1992. Then, I knew the war would begin. 

 You can find more of me:

Website: http://www.lululandadventures.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurengreenewrites

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenegreene

Google+: http://bit.ly/1DgXK9i

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"No Turning Back," my novel is available:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1BDMdPf

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1Lurplw

Kobo: http://bit.ly/169NJ3D

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California, No More

I've become a little obsessed with Flash Fiction.  Honestly, I think of it mostly as a writing exercise for me: a challenge.  I've always told myself I'm not a short story writer.  I'm a novelist.  I write long stories, about conflicted characters, and they are in no way funny. Humor sells, or so I'm told.  I have a really good sense of humor in real life.  I'm not sure why my books are mostly serious, but that's just the way they are.  In real life, I'm sarcastic and I'm fairly good at sticking in a little comment to elicit a laugh at just the right moment, sometimes an inappropriate comment. For some reason, that's hard for me to figure into my writing. I took a stab at it yesterday day, over on Alissa Leonard's blog:

http://alissaleonard.blogspot.com/2015/01/finish-that-thought-2-30.html 

I wasn't crazy about the first sentence prompt: 

None of us really believed in [UFOs] until the night [the cameraman] went missing.

Those little brackets mean the pronouns can be changed.  Thank goodness for that, because I am not a Sci-Fi writer (even less than I am a humor writer).  

So I went for it, and this is what I came up with. I'm sorry to my friends who live in California, nothing against you, it was just where the prompt took me!

California, No More

None of us really believed in global climate change until the night California went missing. I was sitting at my kitchen table, eating a piece of chocolate cake left over from Ethan’s birthday party.  It was a night like any other: my overweight tabby cat, Slippers, was sitting in the recliner licking her leg incessantly, as was her habit, and my husband was nodding away on the couch. 

I had heard on the news a few days before that the winter storm had been dumping buckets of rain on the West Coast.

“Four to five inches more and California might disappear altogether,” my brother-in-law had said.

My husband and I had laughed.  We didn’t believe him. We knew global climate change was just a liberal ploy.

   

The phone rang, and it was my brother-in-law, Pete.

“I’m wondering where we’ll be getting our stuff now that Amazon is in the Pacific Ocean,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, mouth half-full of cake.

“Turn on the news. California is no more.”

“Amazon’s in Washington,” I said.

“I’m not joking. California is in the ocean.”

“The next thing you’ll be telling me is that the planet Mars has disappeared,” I said, hanging up the phone and chuckling to myself.

He obviously had no idea what he was talking about: Amazon in Washington, seriously what was he talking about?

I put my dirty dish in the sink, and walked into the living room, running my hand across my husband’s sleeping face. I found the remote, stuck securely underneath him, and all he did was groan and turn away from me as I removed it from underneath his back fat.

I clicked the power button.

“Yes Scott. That’s right. It’s gone. There wasn’t even time to evacuate. Dropped off the face of the earth into the Pacific Ocean. No Golden Gate bridge, no Oakland Raiders, no more Napa valley.  This is a sad day for wine drinkers everywhere.”

My mouth gaped open in shock as I took it all in: Pete was right. I glanced back at my husband snoring away on the couch, and my cat looked up at me with her bright green eyes then went back to licking her leg as if nothing had happened.  

And by the way, Social Media has taken over the world: 

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"No Turning Back," is available for pre-order and will be out on January 31st! 

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Je Suis Charlie

I talk about writing a lot. I direct you to #Wattpad to read "The Devil Within," but as far as I can remember I've never given you a sample of my writing on my blog.

Today, I participated in a flash fiction contest over on Alissa's Blog. I found out about this flash fiction contest last week, from the #10MinNovelist group I joined. One of the people who beta read my book, "No Turning Back," Suzie Jay (@zeeyone3) was the judge.  I figured I'd give it a go.  And what I realized, in turn, is that there are a whole heck of a lot of people in this world who are way smarter than me: existentialist writers who love Flash Fiction.  And, wow, do I wish I could write half as well as they can.  But, still, it's fun so I thought I'd enter again. Especially, since I won the Special Challenge last week. In Flash Fiction, you're given a prompt, and maybe some special items you have to use in your work.

Well this week, the prompts brought to mind the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack.  As I read the prompt, I envisioned a can of tomato soup, fallen from the desk of a worker, mixing with the blood of the victims from the attack. I thought of the chaos of being there, and of how these people who were just going about their daily lives will never ever be the same. They'll never feel safe again, as long as they live.  And so, I wrote about it. Here's my entry:

No one expects to hear the world implode, atoms splitting, time melting, but here I am. I’m hiding under a desk; a vat of tomato soup comes crashing down from the desk of Stephane, the thick fluid mixing with the blood that is staining the carpet.  I look over to the copier machine, and I see one of my colleagues trying to slide behind the machine, looking for cover in vain. 

I look down at my own shaking hands, peering out through the seams of the desk, as I see the terrorist raising his gun at someone. I can’t see the victim’s face, but I hear his pleading, then his scream, and finally the sound of gunfire: I know someone else has died.  The moment is so slow that I know the hands on the clock must have stopped or melted away: 11:47.  I think about the dirty dishes in my sink that I didn’t have time to wash this morning. I think about my son who will be orphaned if I don’t come home tonight.   I cover my mouth to prevent the sob that wants to escape. I must keep quiet, so the masked men don’t find me. I must keep quiet, so I can go home to my house tonight, and wrap my arms around my son, whisper in his ears, “Je te aime.”

I gaze through the small cracks; from my position under the desk I can see the black boots of a man: the terrorist. He has the gun pointed downwards, and walks by my hiding place.  I crouch down lower, trying to make myself as small as possible, so he doesn’t find me.  The man walks away, and I hear him shouting something to someone else. Who is it? I don’t understand the words they are saying.  I hear their heavy boots stomping on the carpet, but my eye is trained on the tomato soup, mixing into the pile of blood 500 feet from where I’m hiding.

A few minutes pass, but it feels like an eternity.  I start to move a little bit, and I turn, still crouched underneath my desk to see a hand being offered from above.  My whole body is shaking, as I place my fingers into hers, and she pulls me up into an embrace.  We stay there, my co-worker and I, someone I barely know locked together in distress, crying in one another’s arms.  Our worlds will never be the same. 

When we pull apart, I see it’s the girl who was desperately trying to hide behind the copier. 

Tears are streaming down her face, a line of mascara creeping down her cheek, like the blood trail across the floor.

“C’est fini.” 

  

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