Just got the green light to share my second entry for the 2016 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. Mystery is not my forte so I wasn’t all that confident going into this one. After a weekend of racking my brain, this little gem is what I came up with. I had a good time with it and I ended up pretty pleased with the end result.
Submitted for your approval, I call this story...
Fixer drips from the last photo as I hang it from the line and admire my handiwork. I enjoy this process. From left to right, images hang before me to tell a story. This one of a brutal murder and a budding search for justice.
The story is important. It’s how I get paid. News organizations pay handsomely for shocking images, but they especially like there to be a progression. Live broadcasts love to use the phrase “Viewer discretion. Some images may be disturbing” before they begin to take you down the rabbit hole.
The red light bathing my images makes the most innocent of them look sinister. Shot just inside the victim’s apartment, the story starts with evidence that Mr. McMannon didn’t foresee his own death. In the image, newly purchased groceries are still sitting on the counter. A gallon of milk and a carton of eggs that never made it to the refrigerator, and now, never will.
As we progress, the story begins to take a malevolent turn. We see holes in the drywall, presumably where Mr. McMannon’s struggle to overcome his attacker began. Blood splatters across the furniture help track the events. A tuft of McMannon’s dark hair is stuck in a smear of blood on the corner of an end table. A single tooth, marked with a police number, lies in the hallway.
And then we come to the body. I got lucky with it. Several of my negatives had the surprised reaction of the uniformed police moving to escort me out, but I had one shot that was golden. Just before anyone realized I was there, I got a shot between two of the beat cops of Sam McMannon’s corpse.
A crime of passion. That’s what they’ll call it because the guy was beaten to a pulp. That’s important to the story. It will dictate how the police proceed with their investigation. They’ll assume the doer knew him. They’ll assume that the perpetrator was emotional and that’s what fueled the attack.
Despite what the “Cop Shop” dramas on television would have you believe, cops are pretty thorough. They’ll find that Sam McMannon, Mr. “In And Out Of Town On Important Business,” was not an upstanding guy. They’ll find that the ritzy flat that he was bludgeoned to death in was not his primary residence. They’ll learn about, and have to break the news to, his wife and two kids a couple of states over.
They’ll find that, though he was making a good living as a traveling representative for the accounting firm he worked for, he was enjoying a healthy sideline cooking the books for some shady types that operate down by the docks. Old Sam was quite thorough, himself, where his records were concerned. This is where things will start to get murky for the investigators.
Like I’ve said, cops are thorough. As thorough as they can be. Their problem is twofold. First, they are understaffed so every detective has a lot on their plate. Secondly, cops are bad to get tunnel vision. When Sam McMannon’s death leads them to illegal revenue streams for the mob, that will become a huge point of focus. It’ll either get kicked further up the chain or some detective will keep the payoff for themselves, hoping to play the hero for the ten o'clock news. Either way, the focus will shift from some two-bit con man’s death to exposing some serious organized money laundering.
The story my photos tell will be worth a fortune.
They’ll track his movements over his last few days, just to cover their asses. They’ll look for people he may have pissed off and would have motive to kill him, but they’ll have their primary avenue of investigation. Sam’s ledger will give them that. It’s all right there in black and white. He was getting greedy. They’ll assume that his death was a hit and that the killer couldn’t find the ledger to make it disappear. Maybe they’ll spin it so that the killer was sent to tune him up a little but got carried away and things went further than they were supposed to. In his panic, he got out before he could destroy the evidence. It doesn’t matter. The important part is that they’ll have their story all wrong. It’ll be wrong, but nobody will be able to prove that. It’ll be a good story, though, so they’ll stick with it.
What they won’t find, because they won’t be looking, is that McMannon liked to drink in the suburbs (he had a reputation to uphold here in the city.) They also won’t find that he wasn’t above picking up a little late night company, from time to time. He didn’t like running the risk of being seen so he never brought them back to his apartment. He preferred cheap motels out by the turnpike.
They also won’t find that the last time he had one of these affairs, the girl had second thoughts. That she tried to tell him she’d changed her mind. They won’t find that he dragged her into the room and took what he wanted from her. They won’t find that when he was finished, he left her, naked and crying in the fetal position on the floor. They won’t know that she called her big brother to come help her.
In his defense, that was over a month ago and he hasn’t been back to the bars. Maybe that was the first time he’d let things go that far. Maybe he felt bad. I don’t care. What I do care about is the story. Every version of it. The cops have their version. It’ll lead them where they want. The one depicted in the photos will get me paid. My version, though… It’s the most important one. It’s the one that satisfies me.
In my version, the son of a bitch got what he deserved.
**For my fellow competitors who may have been lead to this post from elsewhere, you can find the thread for DEVELOPMENTS on the forum here.**
Join us in celebrating all things Heartless by Marissa Meyer! Starting Monday, September 19, we’ll be counting down to on sale with daily challenges where you can show your love and excitement, AND where you’ll have the chance to win a special edition advance copy of Heartless and MORE every single day.
Enter for your chance to win each day from September 19 - November 8 on Twitter or Instagram using #HeartlessCountdown and #Sweepstakes.
We’ll be posting weekly challenge updates and adding more links and information for some challenges as we get closer. Take a look at the schedule below and join in the excitement!
• 9/19 - Share a picture of you with a black heart
• 9/20 - Share info about the Tea Party with Marissa Meyer Sweepstakes
• 9/21 - Share a picture of your copy of Alice in Wonderland
• 9/22 - Tell us who your favorite Lunar Chronicles character is
• 9/23 - Solve the “Why is a raven like a writing desk,” riddle
• 9/24 - Share Marissa’s tour schedule
• 9/25 - Share our favorite treat
• 9/26 - Share our post
• 9/27 - Share info about Heartless
• 9/28 - Dreamcast Cinder
• 9/29 - Post a picture of a Heartless poster in your town
• 9/30 - Share your Marissa Meyer shelfie
• 10/1 - Post your Wonderland inspired outfit
• 10/2 - Take a picture of your Cheshire Cat
• 10/3 - Share the info for Marissa’s 10/8 Facebook Live Q&A
• 10/4 - Share Marissa’s Fierce Reads tour schedule
• 10/5 - Share our post about the Lunar Chronicles box set
• 10/6 - Tweet a question to Marissa and she might answer it in our November newsletter
• 10/7 - Share the info for Marissa’s 10/8 Facebook Live Q&A
• 10/8 - Tell us your secret talent
• 10/9 - Who’s the Mary Ann to your Cath? Tag your BFF
• 10/11 - Color the Heartless cover coloring sheet
• 10/12 - Take a picture of you wearing a crazy hat
• 10/13 - Share a picture of the Heartless poser in your town
• 10/14 - Finish the rhyme: The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer’s day…
• 10/15 - Tell us what your favorite kiss from a book is
• 10/16 - Tell us about your favorite misunderstood villain
• 10/17 - Tell us what your dream job is
• 10/18 - Don’t be late, show us a picture of your calendar with the Heartless on sale date
• 10/19 - Dreamcast Jest
• 10/20 - Dreamcast Thorne
• 10/21 - Tell us who your favorite character from Wonderland is
• 10/22 - Share a picture of you drinking tea
• 10/23 - Take a picture of you with a Queen of Hearts card
• 10/24 - Share your favorite Marissa Meyer quote
• 10/25 - Take a picture of you wearing a crown
• 10/26 - Show us your Heartless manicure
• 10/27 - Carve a Heartless inspired pumpkin
• 10/28 - Share our post
• 10/29 - Draw a crown
• 10/30 - Tell us why you’re excited to read Heartless
• 10/31 - Show us your Marissa Meyer inspired costume
• 11/1 - Change your profile pic to Heartless
• 11/2 - Share the livestream info for the Heartless launch party
• 11/3 - Take a picture of you with a rose
• 11/4 - Take a picture of a Heartless poster in your town
• 11/5 - Heartless is on sale in three days! Share our post
• 11/6 - Dreamcast Cath
• 11/7 - Tell us about when you first lost your heart
• 11/8 - Heartless is Here! Share a pic of Heartless in the wild
No purchase necessary. Open only to persons who are a legal resident of the 50 United States, D.C. or Canada (excluding Quebec) and who are age 13 years or older. Minors must have permission of a parent to enter. Entry period begins at 12:00 a.m. ET on 9/19/16 and continues through 11:59 p.m. ET on 11/8/16. Void where prohibited. For full Official Rules, visit fiercereads.com. Sponsored by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, New York, NY 10010.
So I’m competing in the 2016 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. The competition challenges you to write a short story in 1000 words, based on a prompt they give you, in 48 hours. The prompt consists of what genre your story must be written in, the location it must take place, and an item that must be used in some way in the story (it doesn’t have to be integral to the plot.) The following is the little ditty I hashed together for the first challenge.
I hope you enjoy.
Jim was soaking wet and shivering when he crawled through a gap in the boarded up, broken window. He stayed away from abandoned buildings, as a rule. Other bums usually lived there and were often hostile toward newcomers. Any port in a storm, though.
The place was an open room with a desk at the front. All the windows were boarded up and the storefront had sheets of plywood across it but the street lamps outside pushed enough light in to see by. In the back of the room there was a couch and it made Jim’s heart smile.
“Hullo?” Jim muttered, barely audible over the howling wind and the sheeting rain outside. “Anybody here?”
No reply.
He started toward the inviting softness of the couch with tentative steps. Facing the couch was a tripod with a camera on it. On either side of the camera were bigger tripods with umbrellas on them. Jim stopped to inspect the camera and noticed it was covered in dust.
Nobody’s been here for a long time he thought. His mind wanted to wonder why, but he forced it away. His last “place” had been the dumpster of an Indian restaurant that stank of old onions. An actual building with a couch inside, despite how eerily silent it was, was a step up. Besides, being empty may mean that nobody else knew about the place. If he could sneak in and out, maybe he could have it to himself. The thunder boomed outside as if to confirm that thought.
His clothes were dripping wet and he was still shivering. There was a door at the back of the room that looked like a closet. Jim hoped that there was something in there he could wrap himself in while his clothes dried.
When he stuck his head inside the door, it was too dark to see. What he could tell was that the room, while narrow, was too big to be a closet. There was a counter just inside the door but he couldn’t see far enough inside to see if there was anything on it. He turned to leave, resolved to huddle in his wet clothes till morning when there was a click and a buzzing sound from behind him. Red light poured out around his feet.
The hair on the back of Jim’s dirty neck stood on end and he froze. The chill he’d felt crawling over his gooseflesh earlier, rushed to his core, caressing his heart. He turned slowly to see that the red light was pouring out of the small room.
“H-h-hullo?” he said again, barely a whisper this time.
The buzz from the light was the only reply he received.
Instinct screamed for him to run for the window he’d come through and get the hell out about the time a bolt of lightning exploded in the sky and illuminated the room.
Not going back out there. His jumbled mind resolved. Besides, he was close enough to stick his head into the Red Room and steal a peek. If he saw someone (or something his mind protested) he could bolt back out into the storm then. If it’s not too late.
He leaned, very slowly, bracing his hand on the doorframe to peek his head around the corner. Inside, there were counters that ran at waist height along both sides of the room. Trays sat stacked next to bottles of chemicals and some odd machine. Strips of film negatives lay scattered at its base.
It’s where they make pitchers. His brain managed to put together and his heart rate slowed a little. He shuffled into the room still holding himself across his middle. On the counter across the room there were stacks of photographs that had been developed. All of them were laying face down, their white backs glowing against the red light that bathed everything. Jim picked up a stack and turned them over.
There was photo after photo of the empty couch in the room outside. Jim flipped through them and saw identical images again and again. As he made his way through the stack, the black and white images began to yellow and look old, like they had been taken a hundred years ago, even though the paper they were printed on felt new.
Something is wrong here. Get the hell out.
His heart rate was up again as he gripped the top of the stack and began to flip through them like an animation book. About halfway through he thought he glimpsed something different. He started rifling back through the stack to find it but couldn’t. His unease was panic now. He dropped the stack of pictures and started flipping over the ones on the counter.
One was different.
The camera was still pointed at the couch but what else was in the frame stole his breath. It was him. He flipped over the next photo. The camera had followed him as he approached the door to the Red Room.
Snap.
Snap. Closer.
He flipped over photos at a maddening pace now. They showed him disappearing into the room after the light came on. Then there were just pictures of the door.
Jim heard something move outside. Something squishy sounding. His heart was racing behind his Adam’s apple. His pulse pounding in his ears. He flipped over another photo. In this one the space next to the Red Room door was distorted. Like the wall wasn’t real all around the figure standing there. The thing was man-like but stocky. And runny. Like a sculpture made of pudding in a hot room.
In the last picture Jim turned over The Squishy Man was looking dead into the camera. It’s eyes were white against it’s black head and looked like squiggles a manic child had drawn. It had one of It’s fingers in front of where it’s mouth should have been. Shhhh it seemed to say.
When I saw it the other day as I drove by, I literally laughed out loud. It's clever and funny because this location is one of the ones chosen to be a Pokémon Gym in the wildly popular Pokémon GO, but when I couldn't get it off my mind a couple of days later, I realized it was more than just Oak Grove Church's wit that made me smile.
In so few words, Oak Grove says so much. The sign says "Looking for Pokémon or Jesus? Both found here." Seems obvious to anyone who's ever heard of a church and is in the know where Pokémon GO is concerned. But it's more than that. This simple sentence welcoming.
If you watch the news these days (or interact with others in public or have any form of social media at all), it seems like everyone is polarized where almost everything is concerned. People seem to develop a set of beliefs and then refuse to see anything any other way. New ideas or ideas that contradict your own are strictly forbidden.
Bear in mind that (as of the time of this writing) the locations picked to be PokéStops or Pokémon Gyms (the locations a player can interact with in the game) were determined without consulting the people at said locations. The locations were picked either due to their historic or cultural significance in a community, or because they were recommended in an earlier game developed by the company responsible for Pokémon GO. This means that no church ASKED to have people suddenly flooding their parking lots for something that had absolutely nothing to do with the reason the church was there: religion.
I've seen accounts of congregations and their leaders being upset with the fact that people were using their church parking lot for a video game. In some cases, those offended were going as far as encouraging players to, not only, stop involving their church in the game but to stop playing all together.
I love that Oak Grove didn't decide to take this route. Instead, they changed their sign to welcome any and all people who may want to come by because, Pokémon or Jesus, you can find what you're looking for here. The subtext? If you come looking for one, maybe you'll find a little of the other. And that idea warms my heart because it implies that they'd like to be a place that brings people together to share ideas and interests rather than one that would help widen the divide.
In my mind, that is exactly the mentality a church should have and we should all be so fortunate to have the good sense to take a page from their book. Embrace others, even if they're a little different from you. Make them feel welcome
Oak Grove couldn't have done a better job if they'd put a little Granny out by the road with a warm smile and some fresh cookies. It makes me proud that this came from my hometown.
I don’t know about you droid folks out there, but if you’ve got an #iPhone or an #IPad, and you’re like me, you’ve got a #Podcast app that you probably keep tucked away somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Break that bad boy out and look up The Truth . They market themselves as “Movies For Your Ears.” They make short radio dramas that are completely addictive. As a sucker for #ShortStories, I loved stumbling across this gem. When you go check em out, I suggest starting from the beginning with “Moon Graffiti” but “Eat Cake” is good too. Each story is about 15-20 minutes long so you don’t have to be invested for long periods of time. Do yourself a favor and check em out. You won’t regret it. #TheTruthPodcast #ShortFiction #RadioDrama #NewFavoritePasstime
It’s literally the greatest feeling when someone loves a book so much that they want to share it with you, or they read a book and think of you so they want to share it with you. It’s like they’re giving a piece of themselves and their understanding of the world to you.
It’s so odd to me to think about the fact that I approached this series with apprehension. After finishing Winter, I am sorely disappointed that the ride is over.
This book was so well done. By this stage in the game, Ms. Meyer had developed such a large cast of characters that she had a very large well to draw from to help control the plot of the novel. She handled it masterfully. Every character’s storyline was fulfilling and well riddled with conflict.
The way Meyer would draw one character’s story to the brink of a crescendo and then change gears, moving to a different character’s perspective at the beginning of the next chapter made the plot move at a break-neck pace. I read the last third of the thing in, more or less, one sitting because I couldn’t put it down.
Marissa Meyer is wonderful at painting flawed, elaborate characters. By the end of this book, the final installment in the series, you have fallen in love with every member of her cast. I loved Captain Carswell Thorne so much I propositioned the author, herself, to play him in the movie (when it, inevitably, gets optioned.) She hasn’t replied… yet. But I’m confident she’ll make the right choice. :)
The revolution that the series has been building to was so much more than satisfying. Often times, I’ve found, when a series builds toward a heightened conflict over the course of several books, that crescendo is built up in our heads until the author can’t meet the expectation. Marissa Meyer not only met any expectation I may have had but far surpassed it.
This novel is deeply satisfying as a resolution to this wonderful series. As I said earlier, I'm sad that it's over. I'm going to miss Cinder and her companions. It goes without saying that whatever Marissa Meyer decides to pen in the future, it will be high on my list of priorities to read.
The latest addition to my #Funko #Pop! #Collection landed in the mailbox today. One corner of her box is a little rough but, other than that, she looks great. #OnceUponATime #Regina #SDCC2015Exclusive #Variant #SDCC #Toys #NerdCorps
I once saw someone point out something I hadn’t really considered before- libraries are one of the only places that are warm and dry where you can stay for long periods of time if you have no money. If you’re someone with nowhere to go during the daytime, they provide a safe environment in which to keep a roof over your head for a while- and all while you can access information.
I used to work on a campus library and if you want someplace to put your money, so to speak, make sure you put books back in the designated areas. I know you think you’re being helpful by reshelving, but even if you pull something out to read a couple paragraphs just stick it in the basket for things you didn’t want. I don’t care if you know EXACTLY where you are. In academic libraries (at least in Texas) our funding was determined by how many books people looked at. So we got additional funding based on books not being reshelved. If there’s a designated shelf/basket for things you don’t want, stick things in it!
What @standbyyourmantis said about not reshelving is true for public libraries, too. Our funding is dictated largely by how ‘used’ we are, so we scan all the items that are laying about as In House Use. That, tied with Reference Count and Door Counter numbers (we have to manually put in the time we take for references) to prove we’re providing a needed service.
We also have to count the number of people who come for our programs, which not only helps funding but shows that the programming/services are needed, as well.
So, basically, if you want to feel like you’re making sure we’re getting paid and staying around, keep these in mind.
