Use the photograph above as the inspiration for your flash fiction story. Write whatever comes to mind (no sexual, political, or religious stories, jokes, or commentary, please) and after you PROOFREAD it, submit it as your entry in the comments section below.
Welcome to the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. In 250 words or less, write a story incorporating the elements in the picture at left. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.
Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level.
Use the comment section below to submit your entry. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific Time. No political or religious entries, please. Need help getting started? Read this article on how to write flash fiction.
On Wednesday, we will open voting to the public with an online poll so they may choose the winner. Voting will be open until 5:00 PM Thursday. On Saturday morning, the winner will be recognized as we post the winning entry along with the picture as a feature.
Once a month, the admins will announce the Editors’ Choice winners. Those stories will be featured in an anthology like this one. Best of luck to you all in your writing!
Entries only in the comment section. Other comments will be deleted. See HERE for additional information and terms. Please note the rule changes for 2018.
Nathan dropped his glass, his hands no longer answering him. He stumbled away from the shards, away from the window, lurching away from the sliver of yellow dominating his view.
The moon was rising.
Nathan fell to his knees. He could no longer see the moon, see the bite it had taken out of the sky. He’d no need to use his sight to sense it. He sat back on his haunches and howled, raising his voice in tribute.
He would lose himself soon.
His wife was still asleep, lying motionless. She’d been curled up close beside him when he woke, content to steal his warmth. She knew nothing of the changes in him. To her, he’d recently become distant, often unreachable, his moods tending more to violence than the calm he used to project. They’d begun to argue, his temper rising, his hands becoming weapons. There were holes in the drywall in their bedroom now, still ugly and unpatched.
He was falling apart.
But yet, he was stronger than he’d ever been. He’d been gaining weight, muscle not fat, his clothes tearing when he strained. He’d begun to wear sweats in oversized sizes, his suits no longer fitting him. He could never return to his job in the office; that life was finished, a dwindling memory. Few of his colleagues would recognise him now.
Although, when the moon took him, he’d not remember himself. Even now, he couldn’t recall his wife’s name.
He was becoming something feral or wild.
Moonrise Over Alberni
After days on the road, I pushed the final leg.
I wanted to time it right.
Even spent the day in the harbour city, my hometown, a place that held not much for me.
Did it so I could time it right.
I hadn’t been back in years.
You get to a stage in life where you want to have some of the old sensations back.
Time tends to anesthetize you.
Maybe not you if you’re lucky.
Me, maybe I wasn’t so lucky.
Luckier than some, though.
Still got my wheels.
Free as a friggin’ bird.
That’s me.
Even with that sensation of numbness.
So, I figured I had to find a way to claw back some of whatever it was that I had lost.
I remembered the feeling, it was the best ever feeling, the one I’d get driving through the grove on late evenings mid-summer, climbing up over the hills of Arrowsmith, descending into the valley just as the golden moon started to rise. Couple that with what awaited, the woman who waited for me for that brief time, a girl then, as young as I was, as hungry as I was for whatever we had together.
Beyond the distance of our lives.
For that brief summer, especially those nights when the high golden moon shone on us in the warmth of that field, for that brief summer, life seemed as perfect as it ever could be.
Strange how one summer keeps you alive forever.
Fourteen days ago, Lieutenant Commander Ethan Burke had been reassigned. He’d been transferred from intelligence gathering and reconnaissance to barge search and destroy.
During that time, his Patrol Torpedo boat had been refitted. Two pair of tandem torpedo tubes Port and Starboard. The deck bristled with twin antiaircraft guns amidships and one large bore cannon aft.
The boat was rigged for barge busting.
That night the moon peeked over rugged shoreline. In a couple of hours the channel would be soaked in blue moonlight.
Clouds rolled in. Thick overcast obscured moonlight, turning water to ink.
Burke and his crew were sitting in a narrow cove. From this vantage point, they could see traffic lanes near shore.
The forward lookout spotted a silhouette breaking the horizon.
While the crew used pole gafs to push the boat out of the inlet—they couldn’t take a chance of throwing a wake and leaving a phosphorus trail—Burke pictured the charts he’d drawn over the past year. The depth and topography of the channel was as familiar as Main Street.
The boat was in the channel now. Tidal currents pulled it toward shore and closer to the barge.
The barge busters had been outfitted with big guns for a reason: Mark 8 torpedos ran at a minimum depth of ten feet. Barges drew 5 feet.
Burke fired a single torpedo. It ran above the sandy bottom and detonated directly under the barge.
Explosive force lifted the hull. The barge cracked when it came down.
The Last Mission
It was night, and as the moon rose over the city, a lone figure made her way along a cobblestone street and vanished into a nearby building.
“Have a seat,” said Ivers, as he took a drag on his cigarette.
“You said it was urgent,” Madeline replied, removing her coat and hat.
“It is,” he said. “We need you to make a delivery to the Resistance.”
“Delivery?”
“Special codes.” He rolled the tip of his cigarette along the edge of a metal cup until the ashes dropped off. Then he looked up. “The Gestapo will be on the alert.”
She closed her eyes. “Of course.”
“The boys hitting the beaches in the coming invasion will depend on those codes getting through to the right people.”
She looked at Ivers with weariness in her eyes.
“I know you’re tired,” he said, sympathetically. “We all are.” He paused. “Just one more mission, Madeline. I promise.”
“Promises,” she whispered, with a touch of cynicism.
Ivers fell silent and stared at his cigarette.
“All right,” she finally said. “I’ll do it.”
“That’s a good lass,” he said, with admiration in his voice. “The briefing will be tomorrow night. Later, you’ll be flown over the drop zone, where you’ll parachute in. The Resistance will meet you.”
“Sounds peachy.”
Epilogue: During World War II dozens of brave young women carried out important missions behind enemy lines. Many of them never returned. Their selfless actions helped to secure ultimate victory… and freedom.
Moonrise
Looking at the moon, the romantic sighs over its majestic colours, revels in its mystical ascent
into the frosty sky while cuddling a loved one.
Yet….
Absolute dread is the only emotion which scars me. Cold sweat beads on flesh. My hands claw at my clothes. An inhuman screech shudders through me and escapes as an iniquitous growl. Fearfully the growl grows and mutates into a hideous howl.
I sat down a man, I sprung up a monster.
The Werewolf, chained servant and enslaved child of the moon,
Wails a raging moan of his hatred, awful and out of tune.
Manwolf, Wolfman, Shapeshifter, Lycanthrope
He hates his affliction, his out of control self, and men. He is a misanthrope.
Now, I am howling at the moon in a rage- totally out of control. Where am I? I am yowling on a forsaken hillock in the middle of nowhere. I am furious, full of rage. A genetic anomaly. I border on the knife blade between mythological creature and science fiction brat. A furious out of control shapeshifter. Silhouetted against the vast besilvered moon, my fur is matted, covered with burrs and miscellaneous thorns and other strange plant life. The full moon enslaved me. The moon is my cruel master. I am now a ghastly horror, the stuff B-rated horror flicks are made of. My howls mournfully belabour the unfairness of having no control over my destiny. One moment mutant moaner and the next, I am running blindly for my life.
“I do not need glasses! I just have a good imagination.”
“Oh, sure. A black plastic bag blows across the street and you call it a devil cat. You can’t find your own car in a parking lot. And now you’re saying that eyes in the sky are looking at us…”
“Not eyes, plural. Just one eye. And it’s only looking at you, not me.”
“And that makes it only half as bad I suppose.”
“Do you want to drive?”
“No, you’re doing fine.”
“Then be quiet and let me drive.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Maybe you could just have your vision checked? They have some really cute frames out right now. You’d look good in glasses. Maybe black frames. Big round ones, with tinted lenses.”
“I could do that I guess. Try some on. See if I like them.” The eye seemed to be getting closer. “How much farther is this place?”
“Only a couple of miles.”
Myrna concentrated on driving. The eye was behind them now. She could see it in the rear view mirror.
Tracey seemed to have fallen asleep, curled up in the seat beside Myrna. Myrna drove on. The eye followed. When she looked over again, she saw only what looked like a rumpled coat in the darkness.
That was odd. She could have sworn Tracey was right there with her. Or maybe not. Must have been her imagination playing tricks on her again.
He looked at the sky. It was pitch dark, but slowly the moon began to rise over the mountains. He began to walk backwards, into the dark, gloomy forest. He was scared. It was his first time, and he was alone. His family didn’t know where he was. What if someone came into the forest and saw him? And what if in the morning his family woke up and didn’t see him at home? They would think something horrible had happened. He quickly glanced back up, looking at the sky fearfully. Being what he was was terrible; always having to fear the full moon. It was nothing but a burden.
Just then, the full moon began to show itself clearly. He could see the whole thing. It was no longer dark anymore. A few minutes later, the man was gone.
In his place was a wolf.
Snapping and snarling the young wolves harried the man, driving him deeper into the forest. It was a game to them. One after the other they would launch forward and snap at the man’s ankles. They did not bite him for they knew the consequences would be severe if they harmed him in any way. Perhaps they would snag a strip of his clothing, a great honor amongst the young ones.
The man stumbled in the darkness, he couldn’t see as well as he normally did, There was no sign of fear or concern on his face and he moved at and almost leisurely pace. He briefly looked down at the scrabbling young wolves and a hint of a smile appeared on his face.
The man strode into a moonlit clearing, completely undeterred by the other wolves of the pack emerging from the darkness. He looked at the magnificent creatures who now surrounded him and then at the moon. As he did, he gave a violent start and then began to remove his clothes. The wolf pack watched in silence as he fell to the ground and began to writhe and moan as he started to change.
When the transformation was complete, the largest wolf anyone had ever seen sat in the center of the circle, the alpha-male of his pack. Giving some silent signal he rose and the pack followed him into the woods. They will be back to this place at the next full moon.
It was cooler than the last few nights, but like the other nights, we could smell smoke from camp fires across the lake. The crickets were talking to each other, and we could only hear parts of cabin conversations.
The moon was finally rising, which is what we were waiting for. It’s more fun to skinny dip when we can disturb the moonbeam on the calm lake surface. We also know the nights we do this, there are many people watching us. We’ve heard them…
“They’re at it again.”
“I can’t believe they think we can’t see them.”
“I wonder if the pictures will come out?”
“Makes me want to be young again and even join them.”
“Sam, you’ve had the binoculars long enough, it’s my turn.”
“I looked at the calendar, and the good news, tonight is a full moon. There’s no way we will be hidden even if we wanted to. Sandy, do you want to skip tonight?”
“Why? We wait all winter to come up here, and tonight will be a gorgeous full moon. Just think of all the excitement we’re going to create. You’re the one who suggested floor to ceiling windows when we remodeled the cabin. The views are spectacular in many ways.”
“Hon, if this is what we do in our seventies, what will we do in our eighties?”
“I’m not going to say, but let’s not walk to the water tonight with our canes, it kind of ruins the mood.
Even after almost a decade of living here in Silicon Valley, Ted Alandale still had the flatlander’s astonishment at being surrounded by mountains on two sides. For some reason, it was particularly intense at night, as the moon rose over the Diablo Range.
He’d grown up in a small town in Iowa, with a school district so strapped financially that half its science books still speculated about what would be found when “someday men may walk on the moon.” The land was so flat that church steeples and grain elevators were the tallest objects around. He still remembered sneaking into the belfry of the Methodist church to take a picture of a distant silo.
He should’ve gotten an A for it, because he’d gone out and gotten proof that the Earth was round, instead of copying the textbook explanation like all the other kids. Instead he’d gotten swats and a zero when the teacher found out that no, he didn’t have permission to get up there.
At least it hadn’t harmed his prospects too badly, because here he was, in charge of McHenery Semiconductor’s research campus in Santa Clara. And he could still admire the rising of the moon, now with the gleaming lights of the spaceports that served the cities humanity had built there.