#FlashMobWrites 1×42

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Welcome to #FlashMobWrites Week Forty-Two

And we’re back! Hope everyone survived the holidays with their humor intact.

Come one, come all! This is an open flash fiction challenge with a musical inspiration, hosted by authors Cara Michaels (formerly of #MenageMonday, #WIPflash, and #RaceTheDate) and Ruth Long (of the wicked fun #LoveBites and #DirtyGoggles challenges).

  • The challenge begins: Fridays @ Noon EDT (Eastern USA)
  • And ends: Saturday @ Midnight PST (Pacific USA)
  • Word count: 300-500 (no less, no more)
  • We love you and wish to heap praises (and random prizes) on you, so be sure to include your name (no, it doesn’t have to be your real name) and a way for us to get in touch (Twitter handles are encouraged)
  • A prompt choice is offered by each judge. Choose one (or both!) and include it in your story as given.
    • The prompt may be split between sentences, but no order change or dropping words.
    • Words may be added before or after, not in the middle.

The Inspiration

For your musical enjoyment only. You do not need to reference the video or song themes in any way for your story.

The Prompts

Cara Michaels: “steady rainfall”

Ruth Long: “shallow grave”

Now pick your prompt(s) and post your story in the comments below!

35 thoughts on “#FlashMobWrites 1×42”

  1. The Hutch

    Whoever Tyrell was, world weary soldier, corrupt politician, desert recluse or some bizarre composite, he accepted our intrusive visit with an unanticipated measure of grace.

    While, Miquel, his resident security guard/ assassin handyman and Miquel’s child bride, Rosario, who would prove to be a cook extraordinaire, prepared a filling meal of roast jackrabbit, frijoles negros and a tasty combination of okra and basil, we sipped some beer and rested.

    Inexplicably, Tyrell wandered off for about an hour, returning just as dinner was served.

    Our streak of superb meals was continuing, albeit with an isolationist undercurrent.

    While Miguel and Rosario ate in the kitchen, a strangely old fashioned master servant configuration that seemed out of place, Tyrell, Quarry and I huddled around the yummy dead bunny.

    “This is an excellent meal. Things I’ve never tried before,” I lauded.

    “Out here, we are somewhat obliged to eat what’s available. Can’t grow much. We get sudden squalls but no steady rainfall. Haul in bagful’s of beans, grow a few vegetables and, thankfully, Bugs’ relatives are plentiful in the desert.”

    I watched Tyrell give what was amounting to a filibuster on the game we were consuming.

    “I seem to recall,” I said, reaching for some distant bit of information, “that these creatures were somewhat diseased…”

    “A concern, to be sure, so you have to cook ‘em with a bloody vengeance. Nothing is wasted out here. For me,” Tyrell continued, “hunting them serves half a dozen purposes. Sport. Safety, Survival. War fabricated a cast iron gut for me. You can’t be fussy about what’s served up in war. You must have found that?”

    “There was never enough,” I said, “So yeah, you take what’s dished out…and hope for more…”

    “Rosario and Miquel, they…they live here permanently?” Quarry asked, evidently not wanting to continue the dietary discussion.

    “For now,” Tyrell answered a bit cryptically. “Why don’t we get your questions posed?”

    “Roger,” said Quarry, “What can you tell us about the Internment Camp land deal?”

    “Well, it is federal land, but you must know that. It’s served its purpose as a…well, as a wartime Jap holding facility. So, unless the Feds want to build something else, expand it into a Federal Penitentiary, perhaps, or establish a military base, and now that the war is over, that probably won’t be necessary, it’s dead land. It was also fairly expensive to service. So Hap’s proposal…a sound business proposal, might fly.”

    “His principal investor, is that a worry?”

    “Our state needs an economic boost. Ten Years of Depression. Four years of war. The whole damn country needs new juice, some fun, some change.”

    “You, too?” I asked. It was a trivial question, I suppose. I’m not sure why I asked it.

    “I have quieter interests. Most folks need…more. I need…less.”

    After dinner, we had tequila on the porch.

    Below Tyrell’s mountain, the desert was as still as a shallow grave.

    We drank, smoked cigarillos and Tyrell slipped into his secure shell.

    The dark was silent once again.

    500 moments of quiet as night settles in
    @billmelaterplea

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  2. The water dripped a steady rainfall that sent streams of water in rivets across the shallow grave. As I stood over the burial place I said a prayer; but the umbrella I held was useless to prevent the deluge that coated me and drenched me to the bone. I shivered as the wind raised and howled a mournful sound. Henry had it coming. His life had been a well calculated series of incidences where he harmed others to gain his wealth…not one kindness could be displayed in his defense.

    As a boy he tortured other children his age robbing of their toys to see them cry. Graduating from that to steal lunch money and then as an eleven year old dealing drugs. Soon a kingpin, attending college and dealing, meeting the right sort of contacts and starting another business calling itself a bank ( no more than loan sharking) creating where ever he dealt and yet still accumulated wealth.

    Possessive and cruel he acted like he owned his wife, Mara and son, Henry junior, as he told them how to dress act and behave and kept a mistress They tried to escape his grasp but were brought back by his henchman and then severely beaten for their so-called transgressions. They lived in misery, self-doubt and were but shadow people under his watchful eye. Henry expected the boy, his only child to follow in his footsteps and often accused Mara of adultery saying the boy Henry junior could not be his. Henry had given them both an extra beating last week for this as he drank his scotch and counted his ill gotten money. That day Mara achieved the courage to leave Henry and take her boy now twelve years old from his evil grasp. Mara waited until Henry passed out raided the safe and took the cash there and a pistol she placed in her purse. Mara now had thousands of dollars as she left with little Henry.

    Henry caught up with them first he kicked Mara then blow after blow fell shattering her cheekbones her jawbones her arms her legs; shattering sounds crunching and deafening with their intensity. Henry begging pleading his father to stop to no avail; he only received some backhand blows himself to his eye socket. Henry Junior reached into his mother’s purse handing the gun to her end to Henry’s tyranny. They hastily buried him where he stood. Too bad Henry never learned hell has no fury like a woman.

    So here I stood granting the ingrate’s last wish to see his burial place and as the rain pelted down, I saw a coyote digging at the shallow grave and tear what was left of his body to shred and ingest it. The horror on Henry’s face was a boon to me at last he met his fate and I, the Archangel Michael could escort him to his hereafter where he suffer the torments of Hell that he’d made everyone else suffer his entire life.
    500 words

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  3. Lightning flashed and Billy’s gun shone blueblack in response. The mud squelched around my feet, and I prayed to the God of my youth that the steady rainfall would keep up for another few hours. Digging a hole that kept filling up with water was a pain in the ass, but I was a lot more concerned with getting back out of the hole afterwards. At some point, he’d shoot me, I’d fall into my hole, and then it’d be a race between drowning or bleeding to death and getting myself out of this shallow (oh I hoped it would be shallow enough) grave in time to get to Lainie.

    If Billy hadn’t found her first, that is.

    “Goddamn, Jo, can’t you dig any faster? It’s raining harder than fuck.” Another crack of light, and he looked down at the hole – or pond – I was standing in. The water was up to the tops of my knees by now, and it was cold. I tried to be glad – cold water would mean I’d bleed out slower, but I couldn’t feel my feet anymore.

    “Screw it. That’s deep enough. I gotta fill the thing in – can’t ask you to do that part, too, right?” Billy’s laugh was filled with snot, and he barked a mouthful of it at me. I didn’t duck, which was probably a mistake. Though the mucus landed a foot and a half short of me, I needed him to think I was scared of him, so he wouldn’t put the muzzle in my mouth. Wouldn’t matter how shallow the grave was if the top of my head wasn’t attached anymore.

    “Wanna play it that way? Fine. Lay down. On your face.” I didn’t move. He wanted to kill me, he could look me in the eyes while he did it. “You think I want to move your dead ass, you bitch? It may be a fine one, but I like mine alive.

    “Like Lainie. What, you didn’t know I was getting me some of that? Thought you were her only true love? She always told me that whenever she was with you that what she really wanted was a big ol hunk of…”

    He’d gotten distracted while taunting me, and my shovel hit him square in the face. At least I hoped so – I’d turn to run as it left my hand. It was dark and sloppy out here. Maybe I could lose him. Maybe I could get to Lainie and the baby. Maybe…

    Pain blared in my left thigh as his bullet burst into me. I wasn’t getting away from him, not tonight. I heard him roar in triumph and fell to my knees.

    Then I heard him scream.

    453 words
    @drmagoo

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  4. Street lights glinted off ice-covered bus windows as Jimmy Rickliefs sat reading a book. The tour bus crept up the interstate as a steady rainfall of freezing rain coated everything. Ice storm warnings blanketed the area. When the bus slowed to a stop, Jimmy glanced outside. What he could see didn’t look much like a rest stop.

    A blast of frigid winter wind ran through the front of the bus when the door opened. Normally, the door to the living area was closed, but Jimmy had opened it to talk to the driver. He didn’t particularly want to get up again and close it. His right leg was bothering and getting up required putting on his brace and shoes. Pain zinged from his hip to his toes in and his only relief was elevating it on pillows.

    “Thanks,” the driver, Merle, said.

    A man in a brown uniform, with a yellow patch that said IOWA STATE PATROL tipped his hat and walked off the bus. The door shut a few seconds later, and the bus started its slow drive once again. Jimmy returned to his book. He was a southern California boy; he wasn’t cut out for this cold weather.

    “They’re closing the interstate,” the driver said. “There’s a rest stop another half mile up.”

    “Fun times,” Jimmy said. He stretched his foot and calf to relieve a Charlie Horse. “How long will it be closed?”

    The bus turned right and Jimmy thought it slid a little.

    “He didn’t know. He said the ice was to turn to snow overnight and that would cause more problems.”

    “Well, at least we’ll be safe here. Are the other buses coming?”

    The bus crested the steep entrance ramp and turned left. The small parking area was full of cars, trucks, semis, buses, and other vehicles.

    “Yeah, they should be.”

    Jimmy pulled his sleeve over his hand and rubbed at the window. There was too much ice to see. When the bus was parked, the driver got off and hooked up the water and toilet.

    “Nasty out there,” Merle complained. “You want to walk or anything while I’m up?”

    Jimmy marked his place in the book and nodded. “If you can hold me on the right. I don’t want to fuss with my brace.”

    “Can do.”

    Jimmy carefully took his leg down, then grabbed his cane. The floor was warm under his bare feet. Merle tucked one and under Jimmy’s right arm and together, they got the drummer on his feet.

    “I’d like to look out the window a moment,” he said.

    He frowned when he saw people out sliding on the ice. He used to do that once, treat it like fun. Now, a fall could be devastating. He turned around with Merle and walked back to the couch.

    “Thanks, dude. Go get some rest.”

    Merle saluted and Jimmy laughed, as he elevated his leg again. When the man was gone, his smile fell. He’d rather be out having fun.

    @Aightball
    497 words
    WIP

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  5. Fairy Tales of True

    Once upon a time,
    in a land far and away,
    bug’s crawl,
    and snakes slyly play,
    somewhere in a place,
    where sickness lay,
    under a steady rainfall,
    in a shallow grave,
    is a secret place,
    a dank and dismal disgrace,
    muddy puddles gather,
    in watery memories,
    bones float and gather,
    of remains from days,
    some bone’s are heavier,
    left to drown down,
    in clayish ground,
    murky bubbles,
    sometimes bubble up,
    from loose gravel,
    and shifting rocks,
    like thoughts slipping,
    a lifetime of living,
    simply left to rot,
    such a sad stories,
    I wonder though,
    what their stories were,
    silently marked,
    with dirty graves,
    I wonder where they hailed,
    who they were before,
    I also wondered,
    had they been more careful,
    been less careless,
    perhaps their fate’s,
    if given more thought,
    they might not be dead of late,
    I suppose tragically not,
    but sometimes in life,
    people can’t always think clear,
    behind corner’s who’s to know,
    where shadow’s grow,
    monster’s do hide,
    lurking with smiles,
    and kindly words,
    with agenda like guiles,
    as they plot fiendish plans,
    their thoughts are not,
    how they would seem,
    so victim one could be,
    of plans to a fiendish plot,
    I suppose it’s how many rot,
    such a shame,
    such a gruesome thought,
    but only one brought,
    by stories of true,
    human being’s so cruel,
    only monster they may be,
    so hard to see through,
    soon they’ll turn you blue,
    maybe quickly after using you,
    maybe not,
    like monster’s will do,
    who knows why their ways,
    leaving freshly dead,
    pale shaded greys,
    and not in an easy ways,
    perhaps it’s an addiction,
    so sickly twisted,
    that’s how they always existed,
    so next time you go out,
    watch behind corner’s,
    watch behind stop’s,
    and that lone road,
    you walk alone,
    cause you never know,
    if you could be prey.

    @Tarcarius 303 words

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  6. Here’s the first of two stories.

    I stood beside her shallow grave, in the steady rainfall that February night, and made a promise to her, I’d find who put her there and when I was through with them, there wouldn’t be enough left to bury.

    It was them, that much I knew. The armor had digitally enhanced the area around the grave, using edge sharpening, and color spreading. I knew there were five of them, from the footprints in the ground, the damage to the grasses, the way the rocks had been displaced. Five distinct footprints.

    “They knew who you were,” I spoke the words, though the armor silenced them. “It’s how they got to you.” I knelt beside the grave, used the armor’s scanners to look through the dirt and rock, to see her remains in the ground. “They beat you pretty badly, didn’t they.” The armor recorded the fracture to her skull, the dislocated vertebrae in her neck, the torn skin and bruises on her wrists and ankles. “How long have you been missing?” I had no way of knowing how long she’d been missing, or who she was, without digging her up, and getting a DNA sample, or fingerprints.

    “Marker.” A slot on the left forearm of my armor opened and a small, black box with an LED on it popped out. I pushed a button on the box. The LED came on, a blinding red, visible for hundreds of feet. “Test.” The armor tuned a radio receiver to the frequency the box was broadcasting. The signal was a very clear “PING!” I pulled the plastic sheet off the bottom of the box, and put it on the rocks she was buried under. That box adhered to the rock.

    “911.”

    I spoke into the phone, my voice altered electronically, “They killed this woman, and they buried her in the woods! Oh, God, they killed her!” I had to explain where, “I have an emergency beacon in my backpack. I’ll put that out.” I gave them the frequency of the beacon. They asked me to stay where I was. “I can’t do that.” Of course, they wanted to know why. “It’s not safe here. They might find me.” I hung up.

    I moved into the trees, and waited five minutes. I called 911 again. “They’re after me! They found me!” I fired two shots from my hand-held into the ground. “Jesus, they’re gonna kill me!”

    I waited.

    Shortly, there were sirens, followed by lights, and several law officers. They found the beacon.

    So it began, the next hunt. “Armor 17.” I called headquarters. “Going silent.” That was the signal headquarters knew meant I was actively pursuing a case. They’d wait to hear from me.

    I waited in the steady rainfall that night in February, for the authorities to come for her body. I’d let them identify her, and I’d go from there.

    “I promise you, I will find them.”

    482 Words
    @LurchMunster

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  7. Pingback: #FlashMobWrites 1×42 : Graceland (Second Try) | My Soul's Tears

  8. Here’s the second of the two stories.

    Clara’s tears blended with the steady rainfall as she used her shovel to pack down the dirt on the shallow grave for Eskimo. Eskimo’s grave was next to Tiger’s, Tiger’s next to Stripes’, and Stripes’ next to Hazel’s. Little homemade tombstones stuck out of the ground for the others. She hadn’t had time to make one for Eskimo yet.

    “The trouble with living a long time,” she thought, “you get to see everyone that matters die.”

    She stood and looked at the graves for her four cats, “Hazel, Stripes, Tiger? Take care of Eskimo.” Clara was soaked, water dripped from her chin, hair, fingertips, and ran down her pants legs to the ground. Her shoes were a total loss to the mud.

    “Oh, Eskimo. You died so young.” Eskimo had lived for eight joyous years. “I loved the way you used to sleep on my pillow, propped against my head.” She cried at the memory, her tears washed away by the rain.

    “You never did catch the red dot.” Eskimo always chased the red dot the pointer made on the carpet and the wall, as if trying to stop it from moving. Clara giggled, “Tiger will explain the red dot to you,” she looked at Tiger’s grave. Tiger had figured out the red dot, and stopped chasing it.

    Clara remembered the times Eskimo climbed into her lap, with that look he got that said, “I know you’re lonely tonight, Mommy. It’s OK. I’ll take care of you.” And he had. He’d given her a family, a friend, a confidant. Eskimo was who she talked with. She told him everything about her life, how her day at work went, how stupid and frustrating men were. Eskimo always listened, and always rubbed his cheeks against hers. He made sure Clara knew how much he loved her.

    Eventually, the rain wore her down, and Clara started toward the house. Halfway there, she turned to look at the graves again, “What’s that?” Her jaw dropped, and she took several steps toward the graves. All four of her cats were there, looking at her. Hazel, Stripes, Tiger, and Eskimo. Their purrs, and their voices all told her the same thing.

    “We don’t want you to be lonely, Mommy. There’s always room for another family member. When you’re ready we want you to find a new kitty who will take care of you.”

    Clara smiled, happy tears blended with the rain, “Thank you, my children. Thank you.”

    After a shower, and some hot cocoa, Clara curled up under her blankets, and hugged her pillows. “I miss you already, Eskimo”. She cried herself to sleep because she realized her friend was never going to prop against her head again. “Good-bye, Eskimo.” She hugged her pillow. “Good-bye.”

    459 Words
    @LurchMunster

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  9. Love Like Poison

    Your love’s like a drug, flowing through my veins. I know I shouldn’t want you, but the more I have the more I need. I know you will ruin me— how can it be otherwise?

    I love you more than air, yet when I am with you I can feel myself suffocating. I cannot be what you want me to be… an extension of yourself.

    How can I, when I hardly know myself. I want you, I want to be with you and be yours in every meaning of the world, but that would kill me.

    Yet you draw me in with your intoxicating smile and the promise of days to come— yet part of me sees through the euphoria and I know it cannot last.

    How can it?

    Your love is like a slow rain in a shallow grave and I would drown before I even realized it was over and then I hear you speak the simply truth and know it is the same for you.

    “I shouldn’t love you like I do. How can either of us survive when we are lost in us?”

    Those words free me and scare me at the same time. We are no longer you and me, but us… and that is the drug I fear.

    Reaching the point where I don’t know where I end and you begin, you curl me up inside you and together we breathe. How can we share that— and survive it’s loss?

    “Letting go is easy… and its the hardest thing I’ll ever ask you to do,” you tell me and I can’t help but smile. “Let me live through your eyes… in your heart… and you in mine for whatever comes our way.”

    You never could simply say ‘will you?’ With you it has to be a challenge. And I, of course, must accept.

    “It’s the only way to go.”

    315 words
    @mishmhem
    #FlashDogs

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  10. Leann couldn’t believe that someone would be riding a horse with some hunting dogs down the middle of the street. Especially when they seemed to be running towards her, the person pointed towards her and turned the huge horse towards her. It was an odd time for some cosplayer to practice the appearance of their armor for themselves and their steed. Sparks rose up from where the hooves struck the pavement.
    She gave a look around and saw that the street was still pretty deserted and she didn’t want to deal with some guy who wanted to go around in metal as the steady rainfall picked up. She definitely should have brought an umbrella. Either way, she tucked her pizza against her side and started to run. She wasn’t keen on getting bitten by dogs and they were foaming at the mouth. When she got a chance to stop, she was calling the cops on the nutjobs. There was a leash law after all.
    But running. Running was good. She slid around a corner as the eerie horn sounded. The sound reverberated against the walls of the alleyway and things at the other opening went strangely Technicolor despite the dark sky above.
    Color burst in front of her and it looked like she wasn’t in town at all but heading towards some sort of forest before she burst through, almost slamming into a lightpole as it went from not being there to being there.
    She wheezed, feeling the heat of the pizza pool against the bottom of the cardboard box. And possibly cheese. She was not going to be happy about the state of her pizza. She let out her breath and peered down the alleyway to see if the crazy knight was still following her but she didn’t hear the hooves of the beast he was riding or the dogs. So they might have gotten distracted by something shiney.
    She left out a breath and turned. Stood up by a blind date and dealing with a crazy cosplayer. She’s had better days. She was ready to enjoy what is left of her pizza and having a cold beer. She turned and stopped. Standing on the sidewalk in front of her was the knight with his hounds. They stared at her, quiet.
    “How the hell…”
    The visor raised enough on the helm for the rider to blow his horn. The dogs bayed and she turned around and started to run again. This shit was plain crazy.

    @solimond
    416 #WIP words

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  11. “When—when will they—will she—”

    Tears stung my eyes as the voice on the other end of the line faltered. I jammed thumb and forefinger to my eyelids. I’d killed her daughter.

    “When will you bring her home, Graham?”

    “As soon as possible, Annalise. I promise.”

    I drifted closer to the balcony doors and slipped outside. The steady rainfall drowned out the conversation in the hotel room, and that was fine by me. Lightning shocked the afternoon gloom with blinding white.

    “One thousand one. One thousand two. One thou—”

    Thunder consumed all other sound. Graham’s unenviable conversation with his dead friend’s family. The traffic on the street below. Even the screams in my head. Blissful seconds. I wanted to lean out into the rain, let it wash away the dried blood, the stink of death. I contented myself with the fine mist tossed by the wind.

    “Come inside, Red.” Graham cupped my shoulders. “The storm is too close for comfort.”

    “I’m fine.”

    “I’m not. I can’t be alone right now.”

    I closed my eyes with a sigh.

    “Please.”

    “Fine.”

    He met me inside with a dampened towel. He lifted my left arm and gently scrubbed away the worst of the gore covering me.

    The gore formerly known as Mariele Bode’s head.

    “Don’t,” I whispered. “Jesus fucking Christ, don’t be nice to me. Don’t clean her off of me.”

    His body shuddered.

    “I have to.”

    “You absolutely do not.” I yanked free. “As soon as the storm passes, I’ll shower.”

    “So I just sit here and look at you, knowing exactly what you’re covered in—and what? Pretend this is okay? My brain knows you did what you had to,” he said.

    “It doesn’t help.”

    “No.”

    “It won’t,” I said. “I’m not the lifeline you need tonight, Graham.”

    “You’re the one I have.”

    His discarded cell phone sat on the bed closest to the door. I tossed it to him.

    “When the autopsy is done, she’ll be cremated.” I studied the streaky pastel watercolor art on the wall. “I’ll get her ashes released to you, but that’s the best I can do. Beats the shallow grave most hematphagous murderers wind up in.”

    “Don’t call her a murderer. Some sick fuck did this to her. Made her into a monster. Her family expects me to bring their daughter home.”

    “Only because they don’t know what she can become next.”

    “Next? What the hell does that mean? You blew off half of her bloody head.”

    “It should’ve been a better shot.”

    He panted softly, jerky breaths. Shock, anger, I didn’t turn around to figure out which.

    “It’s a little known fact,” I said. “Hematophages are in the first stage of infestation. The Tyrannohemia stokeri are reluctant to give up a perfectly good host. Even to death.”

    “What?” Graham gripped my arm and tugged me around.

    “The revenant retains no humanity. There is no soul or spark, there is only hunger. Relentless and unending. Is that what you want for Mariele?”

    @caramichaels
    500 WIP words

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  12. Attention to Detail

    The tropical vegetation drooped under the constant weight of the steady rainfall. The ground itself was made for the constant moisture. Absorbing the water into the earth so that nothing accumulated.

    “Exquisite,” Dr. Fraunch whispered. The man took his pencil and lifted one of the larger leaves to reveal the small pump affixed to the side of the terrarium. The whole scene in the glass chamber was perfect. Dr. Fraunch would expect no less from last year’s Clark County elementary science fair winner.

    The judge returned to his clipboard and then back to the dour girl that made this miniature rainforest. Barbara Grossman looked as disinterested in his evaluation as she’d looked on stage last year accepting her ribbon. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

    “Not at all, It’s just. . . ” He pointed to the project display board. Strong black block text labeled the science fair entry as TROPICAL BIODOME. “There’s something inside that doesn’t match the title.”
    Barbara shrugged. Dr. Fraunch reached back into the terrarium and lifted a different set of foliage near the ground revealing two miniature head stoned at the head of two tiny, shallow graves. “Are these part of the biosphere?” he asked.

    “Yes,” she said confidently.

    “Even these graves?”

    “I reused the terrarium from last year.”

    Fraunch remembered the two gerbils on the wheels connected to the small glowing LED light. It was years more advanced than any other elementary student at the fair.

    “I forgot to take them out of the experiment last year.” Barbara scratched under her nose, indifferently. “They were still in the terrarium when I got it up from the basement about a month ago.”

    Dr. Fraunch considered what he would find if he probed deeper in the terrarium. He retreated his pencil from the space. The girl was now looking up at him as a baby bird does when mother returns with part of a worm. “Don’t worry I put them to good use. I fed what was left of them to the tarantula that lives in there.”

    The judge nodded slowly. “But there’s not a tarantula that lives in there.”

    “Yes there is. She’s in there, all covered in babies,” Barbara asserted.

    Dr. Fraunch delicately slid the top back onto the container. He was sweating and breathing rapidly at the thought of the incredible spider loose somewhere in the science fair.

    “You lost a spider?” he said, controlling the panic in his voice.

    “No,” Barbara calmly replied. “I know right where she is. She’s on the bottom of your clipboard.”

    423 words
    @BradyTheWriter

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