Mickey Wright Wins Flash Fiction Challenge

Mickey Wright is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.) Without further ado, here’s the winning story:

 

elk city hotel flash fiction prompt copyright KS Brooks
Photo copyright K. S. Brooks. Do not use without attribution.

Stockpile
by Mickey Wright

Lhak trudged up the crater-pocked mountainside, his six legs pumping. His basket, heaped high with dengleroot, chafed his shoulders. He couldn’t wait to sit down and relax with the kids later. Maybe watch a Holo.

He heard a hiss. Then a “CRAaaaCK” and dust puffed near his foot. Another meteorite. This worried him. Too early for The Fall to begin. He needed three more days to stockpile enough roots to survive the two lunar cycles of stone storms.

When he saw the front doors of the abandoned storm shelter cave flung wide open, his stomach rolled. Dropping his pack, he sneaked in through the brush-covered side entrance.

Creeping through the shadows, he found three uniformed Grebbs eating the roots he had worked so hard to gather. Four more slept on the moldy mattresses piled in one corner. Worse, his kids, trussed like trasky birds, squirmed and squealed by a barrel of boiling water.

Lhak fingered the trigger of his laser. No way he could kill all seven Grebbs quickly enough.

Meteorites popped outside.

An idea. Born of desperation. Lhak crept to the Holo projector, queued one of the kids’ monster vids and cranked up the audio.

He pushed ON. A huge, roaring draquedon appeared.

The Grebbs ran screaming out the front doors where, peppered by meteorites, they collapsed.

Standing in the doorway, Lhak finished them with the laser. Then he donned his armor for the chore of dragging the corpses inside. With Fall full on, why waste good protein?

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