Theodore Jerome Cohen 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:
Blood Moon
by Theodore Jerome Cohen
“Tha’s wha’ Abraham Duval done tol’ me a year ago,” Sophronia Beliveau asserted as she sat sipping iced tea with her best friend, Jacqueline Rivière. It was early afternoon in Palmetto. The temperature already was 100 in the kitchen of the weather-beaten shack four miles west of the old concrete bridge over the Atchafalaya River.
“Abraham Duval? Who’s he, woman?” Jacqueline demanded, pulling her head back and staring at her companion.
“Oh, come on, I done tol’ you ’bout him at da time. You mus’ be goin’ senile or sumpin’. He dat ole Creole who used ta cut Philomine’s grass. I tol’ you: he done seen an alligator crawl under Philomine’s house on da day before she die. You know wha’ dat mean!”
“Now I ’member. Terrible t’ing, all right. Dat family be cursed for sure.”
“Hush, woman . . . der’re spirits about!”
“I’m just sayin,” whispered Jacqueline, putting down her glass, “ ’member Philomine’s son, Otis?”
“You mean dat big clumsy man ever’body call Grand Beedé?”
“Yeah, dat’s ’im, da one whose mouth was crooked ’cause he slept wit’ da Blood Moon shinin’ on ’is face. He was cursed, too. Look what happen ta him!”
“I know,” replied Sophronia, shaking her head. “Dat boy was born under a bad sign. Can ya imagine what musta gone through Philomine’s head when da State Police found ’im drowned in da bayou west of Levee Road dat mornin’, ’xactly like what Madam Roselle said wud happen?”
Congratulations, Ted!
Congratulations! Very lively story.