City of IF

[Shady Stoat]

Hey all

I thought I'd put up a new competition, to chase away the post-nano blues. A chance to win lots and lots of lovely fables. You, the lucky winner, will be able to afford all the riches IF has to offer. A new car, a hot tub for twelve, a happy meal at Colonel Chinaren's Fried Gnome Emporium. The world will be your eco-friendly, soya-substitute quasi-oyster :D

Anyway, here it is.

1) All entries will be posted anonymously, through me. So if/when you finish your story, just post it to me and I'll make sure it gets put up in the thread.

2) No minimum word limit.

3) Maximum word limit: 4000 words.

4) Anybody can enter. Any genre can be written in, including poetry.

5) Once we have enough entries, I'll post the poll and democracy will run its course.

Now, here's where it gets interesting:

i) The story must include the prompt given below.

ii) The first entry I receive, completed with that prompt included, will have the opportunity to provide a SECOND prompt for future competitors.

iii) At this point, all entrants will have the choice. They can continue writing their original story, with the original prompt. OR they can include both the FIRST and the SECOND prompts.

iv) All entries containing prompt1 will be accepted. However, the first entry I receive that includes both prompt 1 and prompt 2, gets to choose a third prompt for future competitors to include.

For example: The initial prompt is...

A woman in a racoon hat

Smee writes a short story about a woman in a raccoon hat. In the PM he sends to me, he says that the second prompt must be...

Chasing a leprechaun

Chinaren is too far gone in his story to start chasing after leprechauns, so he continues without the second prompt. But Crunchyfrog and Phang both love the leprechaun angle and start scribbling away.

Phang gets her entry in first, and adds the THIRD prompt:

A box of fireworks

Now Crunchyfrog has to decide whether she can squeeze in a box of fireworks or whether she just wants to finish off her original masterpiece.

And so on, until it gets silly or it's not fun any more :P

v) None of the additional prompts can be too specific, or too anachronistic. For example, I reserve the right to change the prompt "President Obama" to "Leader of the nation", or to change "Rolex watch" to "sundial/watch/other timekeeping device" in accordance with the setting of the story. So, no trying to sabotage the next competitor by giving him an impossible pairing of prompts. Play nice :)

vi) Multiple entries are allowable. For example, if Smee gets all lit up about the fireworks (hee hee, get it? Lit up. Like fireworks! Coz fireworks have a fuse and you light... they go up... and... oh, forget it!), he can write another entry with all three prompts in it.

vii) Because writing stories with multiple prompts in is harder than writing for a single prompt, the prize money will be:

400fables multiplied by number of prompts used (eg. 3 prompts used is 1200 fable prize)

However, you still have to write a GOOD story to get the prize, so it's a balancing act. May the best strategist win ;)


The first prompt is: A light bulb that continues to flicker, even after attempts have been made to fix it (I'm willing to be flexible about 'light bulb'. It could be a torch sputtering, or a futuristic illumination device on the fritz. Just use your imaginations)

Second: A disturbing thing become personified

Third: The arrival of an unexpected relative

Fourth: A pumpkin, marrow or other gourd-like vegetable

Fifth: getting a stoning, turning to stone or being stoned

Sixth: cherry red lips

Seventh: an emerald green wine glass

Eighth: A heart-shaped box

[Crunchyfrog]

I think I geddit... and it sounds good!

Question: can you enter more than once? :D

[Shady Stoat]

Indeed. Covered under rule six (vi)

(Yeah, very complicated, sorry about that) ;)

But as many entries as you like, for as long as the comp is running.

[Tikanni Corazon]

Ooo! This sounds fun! I'll give it a try. Sounds complicated, but I like a challenge. :D

[Shady Stoat]

We have our first entry. And our second prompt - which I'll put up in the top thread, along with the first.

Soooo excited! :D

====


The last light bulb
“Your monster is the dumbest monster in the world!” Jenny yelled at Rebecca. Thomas and Joe buried their heads further into their pillows. The four of them were supposed to sleep at night so they could travel by day, but so often Jenny and Rebecca were too busy fighting over the dumbest things.

“At least my monster isn’t my Mom!” Rebecca said as she glared dangerously at Jenny. Joe laughed at this, even though he didn’t want to get involved, and actually Jenny’s Mom was the second scariest thing he’d ever seen (the first scariest was his own spider/scorpion monster).

“She isn’t my real Mom!” Jenny squealed as she started to get tears in her eyes. Her real Mom was gone. All of their moms and dads were gone. The four of them were the only people left that they knew about. Rebecca didn’t say anything back, but she knew she won. This was the third night since the monsters came and took everyone away, and she still firmly held her position as leader. Besides, she was already 12, so she was the oldest. It was her right to be leader.

Jenny went to the corner to cry, and she hid her face behind her blond hair with colored streaks. She couldn’t leave the bedroom because the group only had one light bulb, and it was the only thing that kept the monsters away. If Thomas, the youngest in mauve pajamas, hadn’t dropped the other light bulb they would have a backup. And of course, if they didn’t wear out the batteries in their flashlights in the first night, they would have those too.

Joe preferred to be called Super Joe, but no one would go along. He decided to become a superhero and had the mask and cape to go with it. Unfortunately he didn’t have any super powers that he was aware of. Rebecca wore expensive green satin pajamas which went well with her red hair.

The four of them were scattered in the bedroom they found earlier that night. Joe slept halfway in the closet with the door open, and Thomas slept in a bubble made by his blanket over a heating vent. It was generally agreed that blankets were the second best defense against the monsters. The girls were supposed to share the bed, but Jenny once again stormed off to the corner, leaving Rebecca to have the whole thing to herself. This was how they spent their nights. In the day, they would make their way to Christmas Town.

Christmas Town was undoubtedly the happiest place in the whole state. They would have to go another 30 miles to get there, but the children knew that they would be safe once they did. It was a place in Grover Mall that was crammed with all kinds of Christmas lights. Plus it was in a mall so they should be able to find food and batteries and lights, and, not that it was high on their list of needs, every kind of toy they could want. They were thinking about Christmas Town a lot while drowsily sinking to sleep, when the light bulb started to flicker.

[Shady Stoat]

Second entry in. Nice and gory.... oops, I mean:

Caution: Contains adult themes and language. Not to be read by anyone with big blue eyes and pigtails. ;)

===

The Silent Man

The girl's head thumped, as she attempted to open her leaden eyes.
"Where am I?" she said aloud, to anyone who might hear. But she got no answer. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she found herself sitting in a black leather dining chair, in the middle of an almost dark room, a single, dim, flickering bulb the only source of light.
"Where the fuck am I?" she repeated, looking around for any signs of life. But she could see nothing and no one amongst the shadows, and her question went unanswered for the second time.

Her head killed, and she went to lift a hand to her brow, but found that she couldn't. Looking down, she found that her both her hands and her feet, were taped to the chair's arms and legs. A few hard yanks at her bonds told her that she was firmly stuck.

She started to get nervous. How had she got here? Where was here? And who had tied her to this chair? She wracked her brains, trying to remember. The last thing that she remembered, was that she along with her friends, Lola and Annie, had tried to get into a local club, but had been refused entry, as they were underage. So they had snuck in through a back door. Once inside, they had danced for a bit, then Lola and Annie had disappeared somewhere. She had looked for them for a while, then she had met this guy. He'd bought her a drink. Then......then what?
"Think, think!" she ordered herself. But she couldn't remember anymore, no matter how hard she tried.

Suddenly, there was a noise. The sound of a door opening, and then a soft click, as it closed again. But still she could see nothing.
"Hello?" she called warily into the surrounding shadows. "Is anyone there?" At first, there was silence. Then she heard the sound of soft footfalls, moving towards her. She stared into the darkness, trying to force her eyes to see.

Then he appeared. Directly in front of her, he came to a standstill. She looked up into a face, painted black, so thoroughly that it was impossible to discern any of his features. He was dressed in black too, completely, from head to toe, including black gloves, and black baseball cap.
"Who are you?" she demanded of him, "Why have you brought me here?" He didn't answer. He just remained silent and still, watching her. The silence was unnerving, and she grew more and more afraid.
"Untie me," she ordered him. "Untie me right now, damn it!" Her voice portrayed a confidence that she did not feel.

Then fear consumed her, as she watched him reach inside his black jacket, and pulled out a long silver knife. She let out a small squeal of fear, as he moved closer.
"Please," she gasped,"please don't hurt me!" She flinched as he pressed the tip of the blade to her throat. She gulped. He ran the knife down her neck, over her breastbone, until he reached her blouse. She watched in horror, as he proceeded to remove the tiny pearl buttons, one by one, with the blade, until they were all gone, and the flesh beneath lay naked before him. A new fear sprang into her mind. Rape. He was going to rape her.

He stood back now, and just looked at her as if deciding what to do next.
"Please!" she begged, between sobs, "Please let me go! I swear, I won't tell anyone. Please......"
For a moment, he seemed to ponder over her words. Then he approached her, and, without warning, he thrust the knife into the soft flesh of her belly.

Pain, such as she had never felt before, crashed through her, so intense, she couldn't even scream. She just sat stock still, eyes wide, mouth gaping, her nails digging into the arms of the chair, in a claw-like grip.

Then he withdrew the knife, and her body returned to function. She looked down at the blood pouring forth from the wound. And she started to scream. She screamed and screamed, tears flowing down her now ashen face. She couldn't stop.

Then came a second blow, as he drove the knife through her left shoulder, and withdrew. Then another in her right thigh. Her scream ceased, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps, as his frenzied attack continued. Over and over again, he buried the knife inside her flesh.

At one point, she spasmed, throwing back her head. Colours flashed before her eyes, and it seemed to her, for a moment, that she sat before the Aurora Borealis. She watched the colours shimmer before her eyes. Then they were gone, and she was back in that dark room, with the one flickering light bulb.

The man stood over her, staring into her face, seeming to revel in her agony, though he still said not a word. She looked into his eyes, and what she saw there turned her blood to ice. There was nothing in their cold, black depths. They bore into her, two bottomless pits of darkness, the personification of pure evil.

She tried to scream, but only managed to splutter a mouthful of blood into his face. She watched, horror stricken, as a fleshy, pink tongue protruded from his mouth, to lick the blood from his lips. At the taste of it, he seemed to go into a trance. His eyes no longer focused on her, but stared into space.

Then, suddenly, he turned and walked away, leaving her there. She tried to speak, to plead with him, but she was beyond that ability. It was as much as she could do to breath. She sat slumped in the chair, eyes staring, her mouth opening and closing, like a dying fish. Every now and then, a spasm would cause her to spew out blood, which ran down her chin and neck, to mingle with the rest of the blood that covered her body.
"Dying," she thought, "I am dying."

The man walked away, leaving the girl twitching and gasping, as her body struggled to stay alive. But it wouldn't take long. It never did. Death would soon claim her.

He frowned at the still flickering light bulb, and made a half-hearted attempt to fix it. Then he continued on, walking towards a door, hidden in the shadows.
He entered the room beyond. He removed the gloves, throwing them in the bin. He sat down before a darkwood desk and opened a drawer. He took out a photograph of the girl, that now sat dying in the other room. With a red marker pen, he drew a line across her pretty, milk-white neck, then numbered the back of the photo, 17.

He smiled to himself as he replaced it in the drawer. Then he withdrew a second picture, this one portraying another young girl, around fifteen, with silky blond hair, and bright, laughing, blue eyes.
"Soon," he whispered to the photograph. "Soon."

[Shady Stoat]

And a third entry! With a third prompt (put up at the top with the others).

===

Elliot stared glumly at the ceiling. He had been staring glumly at something for the last 2 hours. He had tried to stare slightly cheerfully at first the shower curtain, then at Glenda, until she had informed him that he was glaring like a maligned mailman. Then he stopped. So, Elliot starred glumly at the ceiling and tried very hard not to think of anything even remotely postal.

"Stop that."
"Stop what?" Elliot slowly peeled his attention from the chipped and peeling paint, and carefully turned his attention, but not his eyeballs, towards Glenda. "I'm not looking at you. I'm not a mailman. I'm not doing anything even remotely creepy. What's bothering you now??"
"Besides being locked in the bathroom with my ex boyfriend? Besides that, you mean?" Glenda's voice, shrill to being with, began to climb in both pitch and volume.
"Er, yes. Besides that. Stop what, Glenda?"
"Stop staring glumly."

Elliot sighed. He had sighed a lot during his relationship with Glenda, a fact that was brought up multiple times during the long, hurranging argument that had ended their decidedly un-torrid affair a few days earlier. He sighed to release air, frustration, and in an attempt to avoid doing anything that might further agitate Glenda.

"Impossible!!"
"What's impossible?" Elliot carefully unsighed his sigh, choosing instead to gasp softly. His eyes meandered from the ceiling to the showerhead, and over to the ceiling light, which had begun to flicker. Outside the bathroom, the party continued on.

"It's absolutely impossible that no one at this stupid party needs to use the bathroom."
"Except us."
"What??"
"No one except us. We obviously both needed to use it, and so we ended up in here. And then the door jammed, and here we are."
"Well, obviously, Elliot. OBVIOUSLY except us.

The lightbulb began to flicker more obtrusively, sending shadows dancing around the pale yellow tiled walls.

"It's also, Elliot, impossible that I am stuck in here with you, at a wonderful party. We didn't go to a single party the entire time we were dating- all six months of it! And now here I am and here you are, at a party!"
"I quite like parties, actually, Glenda. I wouldn't have minded."
"Minded? Who cares what you would have minded. I minded."
"Minded parties, Glenda?"
"No, Elliot, minded YOU."
Elliot gasped slightly in frustration, the light flickered in agreement. He tapped it with the toiled brush. The lightbulb stopped flickering for a moment, and then continued.

Elliot sighed. Glenda glared. The lightbulb contined to flicker sympathies towards Elliot, whilst the toilet brush stewed angrily in the bowl, and the ceiling began to wonder if the two current occupants were ever gong to leave.


====

(Note from the Stoat: I was a bit back and forth about whether a disturbing thing had been personified here - but I've got to admit, there's not much in life that's more disturbing than a stewing toilet brush :shock:)

[Shady Stoat]

Fourth story, fourth prompt. :D

===

Deadly Performance

Ben held his breath until the front door slammed.

At last! He had the house to himself.

Maybe not for long though. He had to hurry. Crashing down the stairs three at a time, he sprinted into the kitchen. It was cold. The whole house was cold these days, not just in temperature but in atmosphere. Nobody smiled or laughed. Nobody talked. It was like a chasm existed where Katie had once been, and nobody was allowed to acknowledge it, never mind try to fill it.

His hands fumbled at the drawer. It slid open, revealing knives, forks and spoons. Not what he was after. He began to jiggle at the runners, pulling until the whole thing came away in his hands.

There it was. Taped to the back of the drawer, silent and accusing. The key to his sister's room.

He felt a tug of guilt and shook his head angrily. If his parents hadn't locked the room up like a goddamned tomb, he wouldn't have had to sneak around behind their backs! As it was, it had taken him six months to find it, and another three weeks to be in a position where he could use it. He wasn't going to waste the opportunity now.

Lowering the drawer to the floor, he ripped the key from its moorings and unsnagged it from the tape. Turning it over and over in his fingers, he made his way upstairs again, until he was standing in front of his sister's room. It still had the old sign on it:

Katie's Room

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter

His jaw clenched. Underneath the sign, she had scribbled, “This means you, squirt!”

She'd never called him by his name. Always pint-size or four-eyes, squirt or numbnuts (when mom and dad weren't around). And he'd always called her suckup and emo-chick and big ears in return. Not that she had big ears, but he knew she hated them so he used it. They'd been names. Just names. But Katie had looked after him. When the bullies picked on him at school, she'd always been there. She'd turn up, when things were worst, and make sure that the big kids knew it was two against one now. Brother and sister, against the world.

Did she know he'd loved her? Had she loved him? He guessed he'd never know now.

He turned the key and shoved the door open, eyes prickling. Nine months ago, she'd died. Slashed her own wrists and then cut across her throat. Mum and Dad had found her there, in a pool of her own blood. They'd gone crazy. He'd been sent away to live with Uncle Bernie and Auntie Marie for a while. And when he'd got back, the room had been locked closed. The photos were gone from the walls. The apron she'd made in needlework class – the one that had hung on the back of the kitchen door for five years – had been stored away in a dark cupboard somewhere. The foods she'd liked, the TV programs she'd watched, everything that left a trace of her had been eliminated from the family's daily routine.

He'd tried asking. There'd been nothing but silence. So he'd pressed, desperate to know what had happened, why she'd done it.

The last time he'd asked, Mom had exploded, jamming her face up to his and screaming, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” until he'd thought his brain and his ears would explode.

That was when he'd started to search for the key.

Ben blinked, realising he'd been miles away. He was wasting what little time he had on useless memories and dark thoughts. Instead, he steeled himself and flicked on the light switch to Katie's room.

It flickered. Once, twice, three and four times, before becoming steady. They'd tried to fix that light a hundred times. Changed the bulbs, fiddled with the wiring, replaced the fuse box, and it had never made a difference. Dad had always joked about ghosts in the machine. Now he never joked. Period.

He looked around. After a second or two, he released the breath he'd been holding. “What did you expect to see?” he muttered, flushing. “A dead body and a soggy patch of blood?”

Either his family or the police had tidied up thoroughly – to the point where the blood was nothing more than a cream-pink stain on the beige of the carpet. He gazed down, imagining what the last seconds of her life must have been like. What she must have been thinking as she got weaker and weaker. How she must have felt to have seen the best option as slashing a knife through her arteries.

What happened, Katie?

His eyes roved through the room, searching for any clue, any sign. It was exactly as he remembered it. The big bay window that took up nearly a whole wall. The window seat below it, red velvet with a lift-up lid. Dark maroon paint on the walls – her parents hadn't allowed her the black she'd originally wanted. The bed, neatly-made, with the Buffy bedspread still covering it. The shelves full of CDs and books, and the one below it with stuffed animals, showing she wasn't quite as grown-up as she pretended to be. The pictures on the walls; a double page pin-up of Samurai's lead singer; a picture of herself on Summer Holiday with her best friend, and that creepy court jester painting he'd always hated.

It had been in his room when he was really young. Mom and dad had moved it in with Katie when he'd started having nightmares. He stared at it again. A dark background, almost black. But you could make out the shapes and silhouettes of a banquetting table behind the main character. The jester itself stood central to the painting, his brows drawn together, his hands mid-juggle. He wore the traditional motley. Red and canary yellow, with a three pronged jangly headpiece. His eyes, rather than being on the balls he juggled, stared straight out of the painting, seeming to lock gazes with anyone who viewed it. But it was the smile that was so creepy. So wide, with all the teeth displayed, it was a shark's grin, never reaching beyond his mouth.

Ben shuddered, then blinked. He took a step toward the painting, staring closer. The juggling balls were moving.

He was imagining it. He must be! Still, round and round they went, the jester catching them, flicking them up in the air again, each movement practised and easy. One eye dipped in a wink, and Ben whimpered, stumbling back to the centre of the room.

“No,” he whispered. “It's not real.”

The Jester rolled his eyes, as if at the stupidity of Ben's words. Another gesture and there was suddenly a knife in his hand. He threw it up in the air to join the balls. As Ben watched, another two knives joined the aerial display. He juggled six objects with no more difficulty than the original three. There was noise, faint in the background, of people feasting and merry laughter, and conversation in a language he could not understand.

Ben swayed. The movement of the knives and balls was making him dizzy. He flopped down, his back to Katie's bed. Despite himself, he found himself responding to the Jester's expression with a stupid smile. Around and around and around... so heavy now... so heavy.

A flicker of new movement and suddenly pain jerked him awake. He looked down at his hand, at the deep red line in its palm, welling with blood. A knife lay on the carpet, metal skimmed with crimson.

Playtime

Ben understood the word, even as he understood that it wasn't what the Jester had uttered. The shrill, laughing voice had spoken a foreign language, straight as a drill-bit, into his brain. And as he wondered at that, another knife flew out of the painting, aimed at his throat.

He dived to the side, yelping, and felt the metal clip his shoulder. The noise of the crowd was louder now. Laughter and applause. Spectators of the sport. And the Jester followed Ben with cold eyes, waiting his chance to strike again.

The boy ran to the door and pulled at it. Jammed! The door handle wouldn't even turn, never mind open. He was trapped! Collapsing to his knees, he tried to crawl to a safe spot, but the bedroom was too neat, too tidy. The bed was against the wall, and while he was trying to pull it out, the Jester would get a free shot at him. He'd bleed and die, alone on the floor, just like Katie had.

He was going to die! The room seemed to close in on him, dark and clammy. He could smell the yellow of old books, the stench of blood-saturated carpets, the stink of sweat and fear. He could feel the coldness of the air as it prickled the hairs of his skin. And he could see the Jester, bright against black background, readying the knife for its final assault.

There was a screech. For a moment, he thought it was him, and then Katie flew from the silhouetted background of the banquet table and landed on the Jester's back. Her skin was bloodless, with great gashes on her wrists and across her throat. The flesh around it was turning putrid and green, but the determined outrage on her face was pure Katie, and he'd never seen anything so wonderful in his life!

She wrapped her legs around the Jester's waist and clawed at his eyes with her nails. He spun around and around, one arm trying to slap her away, the other trying to protect his face. A scream of fury, tinny and harsh, grated out from the picture. Above it, he heard the sound of his sister's voice.

“Finish it, Ben. Finish him!”

Both knives still lay on the floor. He fumbled for the closest one, holding it offhanded, because his right hand wouldn't grasp properly. Katie was beginning to struggle now. Another few moments and the Jester would have shaken her off completely.

“Do it!” she gasped.

With a yell, he charged at the painting and slashed it, again and again. Canvas tore into strips, shredded into scraps and still he couldn't stop. Only when his arm began to cramp with the effort did he collapse to the floor, panting and sobbing.

Gradually, the sting of his wounded hand brought him back to reality. He had to get out of here and clean up before his parents came home again. They could never know what had gone on here, or what had really happened to Katie. Not that they'd believe him anyway. It was impossible, but he knew it had been real.

He struggled to his feet and limped out of the room. At the doorway, he stopped impulsively, turned off the light switch and flicked it back on again.

It lit up, perfectly and first time. He managed a grin – for Katie, for himself, for mom and dad; for all that was and all that would never be again.

“No more ghosts in the machine,” he said.

[Shady Stoat]

Nice idea from this author. A continuation of the original story, including all the prompts. They as yet have not provided a fifth prompt, so we're on 4 until they do. In the meantime, enjoy!

====

The Last Light Bulb PART TWO, Your worst nightmares

The children gaped in terror as they watched the light bulb struggle. Each time the bulb went black their hearts would stop and then jump as the bulb lit up again. They waited to see if darkness or light would win the fight until the bulb died.

“Flip the switch!” Rebecca screamed, and Thomas shakily flipped it back and forth with no success. The room rocked with an enormous collision that shattered glass and knocked the dresser onto the floor. A loud scraping sound came up one wall and across the ceiling, heading toward Super Joe who laid on the floor in a trembling ball. Rebecca climbed up a wobbly chair she placed on the bed and unscrewed the light bulb. She shook the bulb, not knowing what else to do, and told Thomas to try again. Rebecca was blinded by the light, but the scraping stopped. They had just enough time to look at each other one more time, and see that they were all equally frightened, before the light went out for the last time.

They huddled together at the foot of the bed, hugging each other tightly. The next nightmare would be nothing more than a little knock at the door, but it might as well have been a gun shot.

“Sweetie, are you in there?” called the voice of Jenny’s Auntie Martha. None of them would fall for that one… except Jenny.

“Auntie?” Jenny asked desperately. She broke from the group and ran to the door, heedless of the warnings shouted by the others. When she opened the door, a figure stood before her with skin so pale it could be seen in the dark, and eyes that had the cold glint of steel. She smiled with blood on her lips and fangs protruding. It was Vampire Mom, impersonating Auntie Martha. Jenny screamed as she was ripped away by her monster. Then, once again, it was very silent and the door remained open.

Super Joe stood up to close the door, but could barely walk toward it. With clacking noises above, and a sudden implosion of the roof, an enormous scorpion stinger smashed down on Joe and he was gone. Rebecca made a run for it, but was tripped by something moving along the floor. The snake made of socks would be comical in the light but as it coiled around Rebecca in the darkness, it was the fourth most horrific thing Thomas had ever seen.

“Help me Thomas!” Rebecca screamed as the sock snake dragged her away. Thomas could do nothing but cry and wait for his fate. In any moment, he knew his own monster would appear; a monster that knew what Thomas feared more than anything else. The closet began growling like an angry dog. Thomas backed against the bed, and as though waking them, more growling came from beneath it. At the door, clawed feet stepped forward. Thomas backed against the wall by the window. He reached up and unlocked it. He slid the window slowly up.

All at once, the dogs leaped from their places, barking and snapping. Thomas was halfway out of the window when more dogs jumped at him from outside. They began fighting over his limbs like he was a rag doll, till one dog prevailed at pulling him out of the house. The dog dragged him across the yard as the other dogs crowded around, barking furiously. Thomas was brought before the other monsters, each holding their prey tightly. On the ground between them was a pumpkin which had been left to wither and rot after Halloween, without a single cut from a carving knife.

As the children watched, the pumpkin grew to enormous size, like a sickening twist of the Cinderella story. When it was “carriage” sized, large human-like eyes opened and looked at its surroundings maliciously. Fleshy lips formed and immediately vomited the rancid pulp and seeds from inside. Large maggots squirmed in the mush that smelled like the pumpkin’s potent breath. The monsters pushed their prisoners forward. The pumpkin quickly swallowed the children.

The inside of the pumpkin was cold, wet, and smelly, but the children were very glad to be able to hug each other again. The pumpkin began to move as though walking, and as it walked and jostled the children, it held its mouth slightly open. It was too slight for the children to do anything but look out and see the terrors that walked the streets stalking the remaining prey throughout the neighborhood. Some of the monsters were such things as bears, spiders, and Freddie Krueger, while others were unrecognizable and indescribable. One house, guarded by one strong light within, was surrounded by giant ants that were covered in sludge. The sludge would drip from the ants, but if it slipped onto a lit up window, it would instantly dissolve to nothing.

Rebecca ventured nearer to the mouth and called out for help to the warm light, but the pumpkin snapped its mouth shut. The remainder of the journey was in total darkness. Clawing the sides was useless and made the children’s hands numb. Calling for help was merely an amusement for their captors.

At last they were spat out amongst a throng of monsters which danced and paraded around the children. The pumpkin became a sunken rotting little thing once again, but the other monsters continued to celebrate, especially the personal monsters of the children. The dogs, jumping and barking, the vampire mom laughing maniacally, the sock snake looping circles, and the giant spider scorpion above them stamped its legs.

The hum and turning of machinery made the spider scorpion duck suddenly and it nearly crushed the children with its belly. Just barely over its body, with its scorpion tail wrapped around its side, a very bright ray of light shone in the night and illuminated a large screen. The children could now see they were in a drive-in theater and a black and white movie was just beginning. Dramatic music played from small speakers standing everywhere in the parking area.

As Dracula appeared on the screen, the monsters all called out in a cacophony of adulation. Many of them bowed in worship of their evil ruler. In a thick accent, Dracula spoke,

“Bring the children to me.”

The monsters eagerly lifted the children and carried them forward, but as they fought each other for recognition, Thomas was dropped and he fell amongst their feet. The only monster who really noticed, however, was a ravenous black dog, Thomas’s own monster. Dracula laughed at the distress of the children, but even he did not realize that Thomas was making an escape with only one monster in pursuit. He proceeded by ordering the monsters to hold the children still while he began “the transformation”. Thomas ran between the monsters as Dracula’s eyes shone with the power of his terrible spell.

The dog took very little time to catch up, and would soon have Thomas again, except Thomas found a car still parked in the drive-in and quickly jumped in. The dog barked and clawed, but none would take notice of it while Dracula was crafting his curse. Thomas scrambled to the wheel and tried to flip on the headlights, not knowing they were broken out. The dog continued barking, and even the turning of the engine did not immediately alert the monsters.

“What is going on?” Dracula said in a rage. “Who disturbs my work?”

All of the monsters turned to Thomas who stomped on the gas pedal, causing the engine to race angrily… Thomas had no idea how to put it into drive. In fact, he didn’t even know he wasn’t moving until he looked up from under the wheel and saw the monsters closing in. He flipped every switch and pushed every button he could, which turned on the radio, lowered the window, locked all of the doors, turned on the heater, and lit up the inside lights. The monsters shielded their eyes and retreated from the car. Thomas finally remembered something about pulling the lever by the wheel and gave it a try.

The engine continued to race uselessly as the car rolled forward in neutral. Dracula demanded the monsters stop the child but none would approach the tiny light from the inside of the car. When Thomas rolled close to the other children, Super Joe and Jenny ran up and pulled at the handles of the locked car, screaming at Thomas to let them in. A lump of green laid on the ground behind them, stirring only slightly.

Thomas unlocked the doors. Joe ran back and picked up the green lump as though it was a mere pillow. Joe threw it into the car, hitting Thomas in the face with a screaming scarecrow in green pajamas. It screamed like Rebecca, and Thomas screamed like Rebecca too when she hit him. Joe and Jenny got in and Jenny pulled the car into "Drive" while Thomas still had his foot on the gas. The car squealed its tires and jerked everyone forward, and the door hit Joe as it tried to shut. The door finally slammed shut after it hit a large orc, but everyone was safely inside.

The children drove away, leaving Dracula screaming mad, throwing furniture in his black and white movie until something broke and the film melted, leaving only a blank white screen and an army of angry monsters.

By the time the children found the freeway, Rebecca’s partial transformation reversed and she was able to fight with Jenny over how to get to Christmas Town. Super Joe and Thomas just looked at each other and smiled. They were going to make it.



Unless, of course, they ran out of gas.

[Shady Stoat]

I plan on closing this competition early in the New Year, so if you have any further entries, either get them in before then, or PM me to tell me you're working on it :)

[Smee]

*throws a marrow at Stoat* Patience! ;)

[Shady Stoat]

Fifth prompt is in

*catches the marrow and turns it into a carriage a la Elladora* ;)

[Shady Stoat]

Another entry - and it somehow has all the prompts in, so there's another at the top :shock:

===

No Rest for the Wicked


Patty stood in the open doorway of the morgue, puffing away at a nearly spent cigarette. She crossed her arms across her bony chest, and pursed her much-lined lips, as she blew out a cloud of smoke, and looked out at the rain, that plummetted to the earth in a torrent.

"Goddamnit Eddie! You sure picked a great time of year to snuff it!" she muttered, bitterly, to herself.

Then she dropped the fag on the ground, turned and went back inside.


She entered the room, where her husbands body lay ready, in his coffin, to be taken down to St Peters Cemetary for burial. She plopped down into a chair, and proceeded to examine her nails, which she had painted a garish pink that morning, for chipping. Then she took a compact mirror out of her handbag, to check her make-up, along with a silver tube of lipstick, with which she added another layer, to her already overly made-up lips. She pouted, then smiled at her refection, her lips the same shocking pink as her nails, clashing violently with her fake tan.

"Always was too good for you Eddie, you fat bastard!" she said to the corpse, that had been her husband, as she snapped the compact shut, and returned it and the lipstick to her handbag. She got, once again, to her feet, and tottered, in her five inch heels, over to the coffin. She looked down at him.


In life, Edward Miller had been close to thirty stone. He had lived on a diet of fry-ups and take-aways, and spent all of his time sat in front of the tv. It had only been a matter of time before his lifestyle turned around and bit him in the arse. And that bite had come a week previous, when he had dropped down dead in the middle of Luigi's Pizza Palace.


Patty laughed at the memory.
"Oh, the irony, Eddie!" she chuckled, "the one time you get up off your fat arse, and do something, it kills you! Even if it was to get more food for you and that pork-pie of a sister, of yours!" She sighed. Eddies sister Clara had come over from New Zealand, unexpectedly, to visit them. Eddie had gone out to get pizza for dinner, and never come back. A policeman had turned up on the doorstep an hour later, to tell them the 'bad' news. Clara had burst into tears, and declared that she would never be able to even look at a pizza ever again. Stupid cow!


Then she had gone on for hours, about what a lovely person Eddie had been, such a sensitive, considerate soul. Such a good husband and father. Patty laughed again. Sensitive and considerate were not word that she would have used to describe him. Lazy, selfish slob, that was more like it. Never did anything, for anyone, if it put him out in any way. Even the pumpkin from Halloween was still sat on the step, outside their frontdoor, rotting, and it was now the end of January.


Patty stopped remeniscing and looked at her watch. Where the hell was that hearse? They should have arrived by now. They'd cost enough, that was for sure. The least they could do was show up on time. She groaned, thinking of how much money she had spent on his bloody funeral. She even had to have a coffin especially made for him, because he wouldn't fit into any of the regular sized ones. The man continued to infuriate her, even after he was dead.

"You were a waste of space when you were alive, and, as expensive as it is, dying is the most decent thing you ever did for me, Eddie!"


The light bulb above her head began to flicker. She frowned at it, and attempted to fix it. But she only succeeded in making it worse, so she gave up after a few minutes. She turned back to Eddie. And gave a start.

"That's strange," she said, "I'm sure his eyes were closed before." They were now wide open, and staring into space. She continued to gaze down at them. This was making her feel very uneasy, and she didn't know why. Obviously, his eyes had always been open, and she had just not noticed. But she was almost certain that they had been closed.


She went back to the chair, sat down again, and massaged her temples.

"You're overreacting," she told herself firmly, "Now stop and think. His eyes must have been open the whole time. There is no other explaination for it."


She heard a car pull up outside. 'Thank god, it must be the hearse' she thought to herself, and she got up to go and meet them. As she passed, she glanced at Eddie, and let out a shriek of fear. For now, the eyes were not only open, they were following her across the room.

"It's not possible!" she said, breathlessly, "You're dead. It's just not possible!"


Eddies corpse sat up in it's coffin.

"Oh, but it is, Patty," it rasped, as it attempted to get out of the coffin. Patty watched as it struggled to get free of the box, the fat rippling beneath Eddies best white shirt.Finally the corpse stood in front of her. She shook her head, disbelievingly, as if denying it could make it go away. But the corpse plodded slowly towards her. She backed into the corner of the room, and slid down the wall to the floor, continuing to watch with horror, as it approached.

"Don't hurt me, Eddie!" she pleaded, " I'm sorry for what I said about you! Please don't hurt me!"

It stopped in front of her. She looked on in amazement, as it's eyes began to glow. Then they stopped and a piece of paper lay in the corpse's hands. It handed the paper to Patty.

"Take this," came the raspy voice again. Patty took it and began to read. "NO! It's not for you to read! Just hold it!" She was too scared to do otherwise. She held it in trembling hands, looking up at her husbands corpse fearfully. Then the eyes began to glow, once again. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Patty could feel her joints beginning to stiffen. She gasped, as she tried to move her arms and found that she couldn't. She began to scream.

"No, Eddie! No! Noooooo!"


Helena and Kyle Miller came in a few minutes later, to pay their respects to their father. His body lay peacefully in his coffin, and they approached.

"It almost looks like he's just sleeping," said Helena, as a tear escaped from her eye, and trickled down her cheek.

"Yeah," her brother agreed, "Good old Dad. I'm gonna miss him."

"Me too"

They turned to go back out, when Kyle noticed something in the corner of the room. "What's that?" He looked at his sister, and she shook her head, that she didn't know. They walked towards it.

"It's a statue," said Helena, "A statue of Mum." They looked at each other again, puzzled. As they got nearer, they could see that the statue held something in its hands. It was a piece of paper carved out of stone. On the paper, in gold lettering, was written:

Edward Miller 1949 - 2009

A Dear Husband, Father and Brother

A Sensitive and Considerate Soul

Will Be Greatly Missed


This must be the headstone, that Mum was going on about on the phone," said Helena, "She said it cost a bomb." She looked down at the statue. "It looks just like her, doesn't it." Kyle nodded.

"Yeah, I didn't know she cared so much."

[Smee]

Gah!

[scissorkitty]

haaa! I liked that last one. Sort of a Golem thingy going with it.

[Shady Stoat]

Yet another entry. Yet another prompt :shock:

===

Trick or Treat!


"Aawww, Mum! Do I have to?" Zac whined, trailing after his mother as she collected glasses and wine, to take back through to the living room for their guests. Auntie Vicky and Uncle Fred had turned up, out of the blue, on their doorstep that evening. They, and their son, and Zac's cousin, Tony.
And worst of all, it was Halloween. Zac and his friends had made plans, and now his mum had gone and thrown a spanner in the works.

"Yes Zac, you do," replied his mother, placing the glasses on a tray, "What else is he going to do all evening? Sit and listen to us gossiping. No, I'm sure he'd much rather go with you." She picked up the tray and began to walk through to the lounge.

"But Mum, he's a total geek!" hissed Zac, "He'll embaress me in front of my friends. They won't speak to me ever again"

"Don't be ridiculous!" she said, turning back to him, "You're over reacting! And if that was the case, they're obviously not very good friends,are they? So it's no real loss." Zac opened his mouth to object, but she held up her hand. "No more buts Zachary. You are taking Tony trick or treating, and that's that! And you had better take care of him, Zac!" They she turned on her heel and continued on to the lounge.

Zac cursed under his breath. This was not going to be a good night!


"Zac, wait up!" But Zac carried on at the same pace, leaving Tony trailing behind. If he had to take the little dork along with him, the least he could do was to keep up. He wouldn't be forgiving his mother, too quickly, for this.

"Zac!" Tony called out again, "Please slow down!"

"I've got to meet my friends," he replied, huffily, "If I slow down we'll be late." And that was that. 'With any luck', Zac thought to himself,'I'll lose the little squirt, and he'll go back home.' He turned his head, to watch his cousin struggling to keep up. He sniggered to himself. Tony was dressed as an astronaut, complete with an oxygen tank on his back.

"For gods sake, how old does he think he is?" muttered Zac, to himself, watching the lanky, twelve year old hurry after him.


They were all meeting at Zac's friend, Sam's house, and Jem and Mickey were there, waiting with Sam, when they got there. All four of them had decided to go as zombies, and they all looked great! Sam tapped his watch, as they approached.

"Where've you been, mate? We've been waiting here for nearly half an hour. We were about to leave without you." He glanced at Tony, as he hurried up to them. "Who is that?"

"My cousin," replied Zac, with a grimace, "My mum made me bring him along." The other three looked Tony up and down, taking every detail of his costume.

"What is he wearing?" said Jem, with a high-pitched giggle. The others laughed too. Zac could feel himself going red, as Tony finally reached them.

"Hi," he said, breathlessly. The other three were still laughing.

"Hey there, loser! Who let you out of Dorksville?" sniggered Sam, which led to another burst of guffaws. Tony looked embaressed, but said nothing. Zac wished, at that moment, that the ground would open up and swallow him. He'd had enough.

"Come on, then," he said, starting to walk away, "Let's get trick or treating."


For a while, everything went on as it had. They visited the houses, gathering plenty of chocolate and sweets, and Zac's friends continued to make snide remarks about Tony, who became redder and redder as time went on. Finally, when they were leaving the eighth house, another deluge of treats stowed away in their bags, Tony tugged on Zacs sleeve.

"I want to go home now."

"No Tony, we've only been out half an hour. We got plently more places to go yet." He turned to his cousins pleading face. "No. If you want to go home, go. No one's stopping you."

"I don't want to go by myself," Tony said quietly. But not quiet enough.

"What the matter?" said Mickey, in a baby voice, "Are you too scared to go home alone?" He and the others laughed.

"Please Zac!" Tony begged.

"No! I'm not going home yet, Tony! I told you, if you want to go, be my guest."

"Yeah, get going baby!" Sam lobbed something at Tony as he spoke. It hit him on the cheek. The object fell to the ground, and Zac saw that it was a stone. He looked back up at Tony's face and saw that the stone had broken the skin and it was starting to bleed. Tony put a hand up to his face. When he drew it away and saw the blood smeared on it, he started to cry. Sam and the others laughed, and then they began to throw more stones at him.

"Ow! Ow! Please stop! Zac tell them to stop! Ow!" Zac looked on as his friends pelted his cousin with rocks, but said nothing. Finally, Tony started to run. And the others chased him.

Tony led them down to the beach and towards the caves. He paused at the mouth of one cave, and looked back at his tormentors. They continued to come at him. Zac could see that he was afraid, but the next moment he had disappeared inside.


The others halted outside the cave. They jeered and laughed through the entrance.

"You had better stay in there, loser!" shouted Sam, "Cause if you come out, we'll get ya!" He turned back to the others, with a smug smile on his face. "Problem solved. Lets get going. By the time he decides it's safe to come out, we'll be long gone, and he'll have to go home."He started back up the beach and the others followed. Zac paused for a moment, wondering if Tony would be alright. But then he too followed Sam.


They took up where they left off. They went to more and more houses, gathering more and more treats. But Zac couldn't enjoy himself. All he could think about was Tony. He had allowed his friends to stone his own cousin, and now, he was out there, mabye lost in that cave, cold and frightened. His guilt at what had happened grew, until he couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm going," he announced to the others.

"Going where?" questioned Sam, "The night is still young, Zac, mate."

"I'm going to find Tony," replied Zac, turning and heading back the way that they had come. The others looked after him in disbelief.

"Why? We got rid of the loser! Why'd you want to go and find him again?"

Zac turned back to them. "Because, he's my cousin, and because I shouldn't have let you do that to him in the first place. My mum was right. If you guys were real friends, I wouldn't have to worry about what you think. Real friends would just have accepted him." Then he just walked away, back towards the beach, leaving them just standing there.


When he reached the mouth of the cave, he looked inside. But it was pitch black, and he could see nothing, let alone Tony.

"Tony!" he called, softly, "Tony, can you hear me?" He listened, but there was no answer. He tried calling a bit louder. But still there was nothing. He groaned. He didn't like the thought of going in there at all. But what choice did he have. "You got yourself into this" he told himself, "If you hadn't been so gutless to begin with, none of this would have happened. Now, pull yourself together. It's just a cave."

He dug inside his bag, and pulled out his battered old torch. He flipped the switch, and a dim, flickering light shone into the cave. After fiddling around with it for a moment, he found that he couldn't fix it, so came to the conclusion, that it may well die on him while he was in the cave. But he wasn't going to let that stop him. He'd just have to hope that his luck held out, and that he would find Tony before that happened. He took a deep breath, and entered.


In the faint light of the torch, Zac looked for footprints in the sandy floor of the cave. Though he couldn't see them very well, he could just about make out some barely disinguishable prints, leading deeper into the cave.

"He's braver than I give him credit!" Zac admitted to himself, as he followed Tonys tracks, all the while wishing that he'd never gone out trick or treating. This place was creepy, and the sooner he found Tony and got out of there, the better. A couple of times he thought about going back, and telling his parents, and his Aunt and Uncle, what had happened, so that they could come and find him instead. But each time he did, he thought of what his mother had said before he had left. He could see her cherry red lips forming the words;

"And you had better take care of him, Zac!"

He had let his mother down. He'd let everyone down. But most of all, he'd let Tony down. His cousin had asked him for help, and he had denied it to him. No, he would face his own fears, and find his cousin. And he would apologise, and, though he didn't deserve it, he hoped that Tony would forgive him.


He kept going, following the footprints, until he reached the end of the cave. And there he was. Tony was knelt down in front of a large rock. There was something sat atop it, and, as he drew nearer, Zac saw that it was a pumpkin. The torchlight didn't allow him to see it very well, but he could see that the face had been carved, like the ones in the windows of many of the houses they had visited that night. But unlike those, this one was not lit up from within. It just sat, as dark and silent as the cave.


Zac approached Tony, and knelt down next to him.

"Hey Tony! You alright, mate? I came back to find you, to take you home. Tony? Tony, can you hear me?"

But Tony didn't move or speak. He just continued to gaze at the pumpkin. Zac clicked his fingers in front of Tony's face.

"Hey, snap out of it! Come on, mate. It's alright now, I'm here." But nothing that he said or did changed Tony's vigilant stance. He had eyes only for the pumpkin, it seemed. A thought suddenly dawned on Zac. "Oh, shit! He got so scared, he completly flipped his lid. What the hell am I going to do now?" He looked from his cousins blank face, to the carved one of the pumpkin. He had an idea. "I'll smash the pumpkin. Mabye that'll bring him to his senses."

Zac got to his feet, leaving his torch on the cave floor, and reached for the pumpkin. Then, suddenly, everything went dark. His luck had run out, and the torch had finally given up on him, and gone dead.

"No!" Zac exclaimed, despairingly. He squatted down, to grab the torch, to see if he could get it to work. He felt around on the floor where he had left it. But it wasn't there. "Where is...that...bloody...thing?" he said, scrabbling around in the sand to find it. But he couldn't find it. With no light, he decided that he wasn't staying in the cave a moment longer. He'd drag Tony out by his hair if he had too. But they were going.


Suddenly, there was a fizzing, and popping noise, and an eerie, green light lit up the cave. Zac looked around for the source, and saw that it came from the pumpkin.

"What the......" Zac began, but something was drawing him towards the grotesquely, carved face. He knelt down next to Tony, and stared at it. The power it had over him was unnerving, but he could do nothing to stop it. He forgot everything, Tony, the cave around him, his parents, his friends. All he could think of was the pumpkin, and he didn't know why.


Suddenly, the pumpkin began to move. I turned so that it faced Zac directly. Fear consumed him, but still, his eyes would not leave it. Then the grin of the pumpkin grew wider, and the eyes narrowed into evil slits. Then it began to speak, in a grating voice, like someone running their nails down a blackboard.

"You...belong...to...me!"


Sam sat at the breakfast table, eating his cereal, and watching the news. It wasn't his first choice, but he needed to, for homework. His spoon froze in mid air, halfway between the bowl and his mouth, when a special news bulletin came up on the screen.
"News just in. Two boys from the small town of Merryfield, have gone missing. The two boys, one Zachary Taylor, and one Tony Lewis, were last seen yesterday evening, near the caves on Merryfield beach. Though, we have little information on this case, it has been confirmed, that that caves have been searched, and no trace has yet been found of either of the boys. We will keep you posted."

[Shady Stoat]

:lol: This competition's going thermonuclear. Another prompt's on the board.

====


The Dinner Party

Summer-Rose Melody stepped out of the taxi, paid the driver, then stood gazing in awe at the house before her. The Ruben Mansion was the biggest house she had ever seen in her life, which, granted that she was only twenty-one years old, was not very long, but she was taken aback by it all the same. She started up the stone steps, to the huge, oak front door, and rang the bell.

She heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the other side of the door. She heard a key turning in the lock, then the door creaked open. She found herself looking into the withered face of an ancient looking man. He looked at her, distastfully, down his long, hooked nose.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m Miss Melody. I believe I’m expected.”

He looked her up and down, then stood aside to let her pass. She entered the mansion, and stared in wonder at the glittering crystal chandeliers that hung, high above her, and the beautiful marble floors. In front of her were two sets of marble stairs, leading up to the second floor, and every few steps up, there was a pumpkin, each one intricately carved with complex shapes, the candlelight within making patterns on the dark burgandy walls, and marking the occasion. Lady Aleona’s Halloween dinner party.


The butler woke her from her awestruck trance.

“This way, please madame” He led her down the hall, then stopped at the third door on the left, opened it, and gestured for her to go inside. She walked past him into a luxurious dining room, the walls painted a deep, purple, and another gorgeous chanderlier dangling elegantly from the ceiling. In the centre of the room was a huge, extravegantly dressed dining table, and at the table was sat six people, two women and four men. One, a woman of exeptional beauty, got up from her seat as she entered, and Summer recognised her as the hostess. Lady Aleona walked over to her, her cherry-red lips turned up in a smile.

“At last, Miss Melody! We just about given up on you. Welcome to my home!”

“Thankyou for inviting me, your Ladyship,” Summer replied, shyly. She barely knew this woman, indeed she had only met her once before. She had been collecting money for charity, in the street. Her Ladyship had given her a hundred pounds, told her she admired her for giving her time to such a worthy cause, and then, out of the blue, invited her to dine at the Ruben Mansion the following evening. Though she thought it a strange thing to do, she had accepted. And here she was, being welcomed into this beautiful, charming womans home, in such a warm manner. Lady Aleona smiled.

“Please take a seat, and let me introduce you to the others. I will tell you names only. Careers and private lives will remain just that, private.” She gestured to a handsome, well-built young man at the far end of the table. “This is Mr Nathan Thorn.” Then she continue clockwise around the table, and Summer apraised them in her head as she did so. “ Mr Desmond Craven,” a tall, handsome man, with long, dark hair, “Miss Victoria Hearts-ease” a petite, pretty, young woman, with blue eyes and a headful of golden ringlets, “ Mr Harrison Masters,” a tall, middle-aged man, with an impressive, thick, red moustache,” and Mr Steven Winters,” a short, fat, balding man, who looked to have a slightly nervous disposition. “Everyone this is Miss Summer-Rose Melody. Now, let us use first names only. It’ll create a friendlier atmosphere.” Lady Aleona smiled warmly at them all. “Right, now that everyone is here and introduced, let us begin.” She rang a little silver bell, and the butler was immediately at her side.

“Tipton, please bring in the wine, and tell Mrs Riley that we are ready for the starter.”

“Yes, your Ladyship,” replied Tipton, before turning on his heel and walking, stiffly, back out of the room.

“And what is the starter to be, Lady Aleona?” asked Victoria.

“Why, pumpkin soup of course!” answered their hostess, “It is only right, on such a night as Halloween!”

Tipton returned a moment later, with the wine, and proceeded to fill each glass. Lady Aleona took up hers, with an elegant, many-ringed hand, and held it up, so that the light from the chandelier danced upon the beautful emerald green colour.

‘Let us drink a toast. Here is to our…” But she was interrupted at that moment by the doorbell. She frowned and replaced the wine glass on the table. “Who on earth could that be?” They heard voices in the hall, and then footsteps, headed towards them. Then Tipton entered the room.

“Miss Francessca Brightwater, your Ladyship,” he announced. A dark-haired lady in pink satin swept past him, smiling widely at Lady Aleona.

“My dear sister!” she declared, holding her arms wide to embrace her. But the frown did not leave Lady Aleona’s face.

“Francessca, what are you doing here? As you can see, I’m in the middle of a dinner party.”

“Yes, dear, I know I should have called. But I wanted to surprise you. And I’m sure Tipton won’t mind setting another place, for me.” She smiled at the butler, who didn’t smile back, but fixed up another place setting at the dining table, all the same.


Summer looked on. Though Francessca seemed very pleasant, she couldn’t help feeling that there was something false about the woman. But who was she to judge.


The argument seemed to have been settled. Francessca took her seat, between Harrison and Steven, and Tipton poured her a glass of wine.


Soon after, the first course arrived. The soup was devine, as was the Coq au Vin that followed in he main course.

“Aleona, dear, that was exquisite! Mrs Riley outdid herself this evening. I can not wait for dessert!” She sat back in her chair and surveyed her fellow guests. “So,” she went on, “How did you all meet?”

“Oh, we don’t know each other,” chirped up Victoria, “Only Lady Ruben.”

“How strange! Well, in that case, how did you all meet Lady Ruben?” Victoria was just about to answer, but Lady Aleona beat her to it.

“No, I have already said, no private or personal matters are to be discussed.”

“And why is that sister?”

“I just prefer it that way, Francessca. And as it is my party, I shall have it as I please.”

“Just seems a little odd, that’s all. Why all the secrecy?” Francessca Brightwater, lended towards her sister, and Summer noticed that something unspoken passed between them. Francessca’s expression was defiant, and, though Lady Aleona tried to keep her face impassive, her eyes blazed with fury. She rose from her seat.

“May I please speak to you outside for a moment?” she addressed her sister. Francessca left the table, and followed her sister into the hall.


None of the guests said a word, but instead, tried to hear the conversation between their hostess, and her obviously unwelcome sibling. But they could only hear the faint sound of voices, and could not discern any of the conversation itself. A few minutes later, Lady Aleona returned, alone.

“I’m afraid my sister has decided that she is unwell, and can no longer attend the party. She sends her apologies.” She returned to her place at the head of the table, and said nothing more. Neither did her guests. All were aware that her Ladyship was lying. There had been nothing in the slightest wrong with Francessca. Obviously, she had been ordered to leave, for some unknown reason. ‘But,’ Summer thought to herself, ‘I’m sure that I didn’t hear the front door open and close. Weird!’


A delightful white chocolate mousse arrived for dessert soon afterwards, and the guests forgot all about Francessca Brightwater, and concentrated instead on the decadence before them. When they were done, their hostess invited them through to the lounge for coffee. They trailed out of the dining room behind her.

“Could your ladyship please direct me to the bathroom,” asked Nathan, as they passed through the hall.

“Certainly,” answered Lady Aleona, pleasantly. “Go up the stairs, turn left, and it is the fifth door on the right.”

“Thankyou, your Ladyship,” he said, heading off up one of the marble staircases. The others continued on to the lounge.


They entered the room and Lady Aleona invited them to take a seat. The sofas were covered in luxuriously soft fabric of pale gold, a slighly darker shade than the walls, and were covered in navy and gold striped scatter cushions. The curtains were in the same fabric, and the rug, on the solid oak floorboards, too was patterned in navy and gold. Summer looked around. She was almost afraid to touch anything, in case she should damage or even break it.


Lady Aleona sent Tipton to get the coffee, then she too sat down. The room once again decended into silence. Summer started wondering why she and the others had been invited here. Their hostess had little or no interest in entertaining her guests, and in saying that she would have no talk of their private lives, the guests themselves didn’t know how to start a conversation. Summer felt awkward in this roomful of strangers, and to look at them, she was sure that they felt the same. She wished that she could turn back time, and not come at all.


Tipton returned with the coffee. As they all took the offered cups and saucers, there was one left over, and they remembered Nathan.

“I wonder where young Mr Thorn has got to,” said Harrison, twiddling with his moustache. “He’s been gone a while now.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back any moment,” replied their hostess, after she had dismissed Tipton for the evening. But another twenty, nearly silent minutes passed, and still he did not return.

“Do you suppose that he could have got lost?” piped up Victoria, “This is an awfully big house. I’m sure that if you were unfamiliar with it, it would be very easy to lose your way. Mabye Tipton should go and look for him.”
“But Tipton has gone home,” said Summer, “Lady Aleona dismissed him after he brought the coffees.”

“Well, someone will have to go and find him,” Victoria persisted, “His coffee is getting cold.”

“I’ll go,” said Harrison, getting to his feet, “Why don’t you come with me Steven, old boy? Two heads are better than one, eh!” Steven looked horrified at the idea of exploring the house, but he still got to his feet. “Turn left, fifth door on the right, right your Ladyship?” Harrison continued. Lady Aleona nodded.

“That’s right. Just make sure that you don’t get lost too. Victoria is right, this is and awfully big house.”

Harrison laughed, and walked out of the room, followed by the petrified looking Steven. The others continued to drink their coffee, as they waited for their return. A few attempts at conversation, by complimenting Lady Aleona on her décor, were short lived, as she said only thankyou to their compliments, and made no attempt to continue talking.

Summer began to find the constant silence unnerving. ‘This whole thing is just weird!’ she thought to herself, ‘Why did she even bother asking us here, if we bore her so?’ She watched her hostess, as she inspected her perfectly polished nails, then look towards the large, gold clock, hanging on the wall. ‘It’s like she’s waiting for something. And I’ve got a feeling, it’s not for the others.’


Finally, when another hour had passed, Desmond got to his feet.

“This is ridiculous!” he exclaimed, “They’ve been gone for absolutaly age!. They can’t all be lost! And, despite the size of this place, I don’t think that Mr Thorn could still be lost after a whole hour.” He frowned at his hostess. “I demand to know wht is going on here!”


Lady Aleona looked shocked.

“I hope, Mr Craven, that you are not accusing me of some kind of foul play!”

“All I know is that there is something funny going on here, and I don’t like it one bit! And I’m pretty sure the others feel the same.”

“Is this true?” Lady Aleona turned to Summer and Victoria, who sat side by side, listening to the outburst. Neither of them wanted to admit it, but finally Victoria spoke up.

“Well, it does seem very strange, your Ladyship, that none of them have returned.”

Lady Aleona looked furious.

“I invite you all here, out of the goodness of my own heart, and this is how you repay me! With cruel accusations! Very well. Let us all go and find the others. And when we have found them, you will all leave my home. Is that understood?”

Summer and Victoria just nodded, too taken aback by her reaction to say anything. But Desmond glared at her challengingly. “Yes, your Ladyship. We understand. And will do so gladly.” Lady Aleona looked at him with disgust at his manner towards her. Then, without another word, she got to her feet, and they followed her back out into the hall.


They reached the double-staircase and they started up them to the second floor, Lady Aleona’s slender, red clad figure always leading the way. On reaching the top, Lady Aleona turned left and led them down a long hallway. Summer counted the doors as they passed. They stopped, as she thought that they would, at the fifth door. She opened it, and they stepped into a huge shell-pink bathroom. But Summer had no time to be awestruck this time, as she, along with the other two, looked around eagerly for any sign of the others. But there was nothing.

“Well, they’re not here, your Ladyship,” said Desmond, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “So where do you suppose they could be?” Lady Aleona turned and glared at him.

“I don’t know, Mr Craven. If the fools decided to go off and explore, that’s not my fault is it?” She ushered them out of the bathroom. “Right, we’ll find them faster if we split up.” She regarded the horror stricken faces of the other two women smugly. But, again, Desmond returned her gaze with a defiant one of his own.

“Fine,” he replied, “Summer, you come with me. Victoria, you go with her Ladyship. Try to keep track of where you are going, in case you get split up. We meet back here in half an hour, whether we find them or not.” And with that he turned back the way they had come, towards the right hallway. Summer hurried after him, leaving a nervous looking Victoria with their hostess.

The place was huge. They opened door after door, into various bedrooms, bathrooms and dressing rooms. But found no trace of the missing guests. When they got, what seemed like, about halfway down the long hallway, they came to another set of stairs going up to the next floor.

“Must be the attic,” said Desmond. He turned to her. Despite their situation, Summer couldn’t help but marvel at how good-looking he was.

“So do you want to take this one, or shall I?” He gestured towards the staircase. Summer looked up to the top. It looked awfully dark and creepy.

“Why can’t we both go?”

“Because I’m sick of this place. I want to just find the others and get out. So if one of us carries on looking in the rooms down here, and the other checks out up there, we’ll get it done faster, won’t we?” Summer was still unconvinced, but she nodded anyway.

“Okay,” she said, “But there’s no way I’m going up there by myself.” He grinned at her.

“Scaredy cat!” he said, teasingly. But then, he returned to the matter at hand. “We’ll come back to this spot, okay. Whoever gets back here first, just waits for the other. No wandering off.” She nodded that she understood. Then he surprised he, by bending down and kissing her on the cheek. “Good luck!” he said, softly, then he took off up the stairs.


She just stayed where she was for a moment, the kiss seeming to have rendered her immobile. But then she came to her senses, and made her way down the other half of the hallway.


She continued as they had done before, and finding nothing. She reached the very end, and there was one final door in front of her. She turned the handle, and opened it, expecting another extravegant bedroom or dressing room. Instead she found pure darkness. She fumbled around, trying to find the light switch, all the time knowing that if and when she did find it, this room was not going to be like the others. It smelled musty and old, like it hadn’t been used for years.


Finally, she found the switch, and flicked it on. A dim, flickering light responded. Summer walked inside, and reached up to try and fix the bulb. But it continued to waver uncertainly. She looked around the room as best she could in the faint light.


It looked like a junk room. Most of the floor space was covered in various objects. Summer could just make out the outlines of an old umbrella stand, and a large ottoman. She made her way, carefully, through the mass, worried in case she should knock something over and break it. As she passed an old table, her hand touched something smaller set upon it. She picked it up and found that it was a torch. She was sure that it wouldn’t work, but she tried the switch anyway. She gasped in delighted surprise, as a bright beam of light shone forth. She aimed the beam ahead of her, and immediately found herself face to face with a woman.


She screamed, and ran back the way she had come, sending everything flying in her haste. At the door, she turned back to see if she was being followed. But the woman was still stood, exactly as she had been before. Her heart thumping in her chest, she took a few steps back into the room, and shone the torch beam directly at the figure. It was stock still, almost like it was made of…

“Stone!” she exclaimed, and let out a short burst of laughter. She approached the figure, once again, and it was obvious that she had been scared off by a statue. She reached it and examined the face in the torchlight. And she gasped, as recognition flooded her.

“Francessca!” The statue looked identical to their hostess’s sister, down to the last intricate detail. She shone the beam down the figure. Even the dress was the same. Almost like……

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she scolded herself. “People don’t just turn to stone.”

Then she noticed another figure behind the Francessca statue. This one was a man. She illuminated the face with the torch, but she didn’t recognise him. But like the other one, the features were incredibly lifelike.


Finally she tore herself away from the stone figures, and did a quick examintion of the room. There was no signs of anyone else. She made for the door, and was just about to close it when she heard a noise back inside the room. She opened the door up wide, and peered back inside.

“Hello,” she called, “Who’s there?” She was answered with a shuffling noise, There was definitely someone in there. “Nathan? Is that you? Steven, Harrison?” She shone the torch around, but could see no movement. She took a step into the room. She frowned. Something was different, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Then, it struck her. The statue of the man, it was gone. Fear flooded through her.

“What the fuck is going on here?” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. She was just turning to get the hell out of there, when the door slammed shut. A figure stood between her and the door. It was the statue. Summer was so frightened, she couldn’t even scream. The statue began to make it’s way towards her, it’s stone eyes glinting evily.


Summer backed away from it, into the throng of junk. The statue let out an evil chuckle.

“You’ve got nowhere to go, little girl!” it taunted her, “You might as well had give up now.”

“Who are you? What are you?” questioned Summer, continuing to move away from it. “Why are you doing this?”

“Questions, questions, so many questions,” replied the statue, “Though seeing as you are going to die anyway, I may as well had tell you. I am the late Lord Ruben. I am obviously, a statue. Thought any idiot could see that! I was transformed by my wife, who happens to be a witch. And I am doing this because she wants you, and what my wife wants, my wife gets! Got all that?”

“But why? Why does she want me?”

“Well, I’m not entirely sure,” answer the Lord Ruben statue, “But I believe she would like to eat your face!” Then it let out a burst of maniacal laughter. Summer began to sob. Desmond had been right about Lady Aleona, after all. Why hadn’t she insisted on staying with him? Desmond. Where was he?

“What about the others?”

The former Lord Ruben stopped laughing, though he continued to smirk at her.

“Oh, it’s too late for them I’m afraid,” it replied gleefully, “She got them already. You’re the only one left.”

At that moment, Summer made a mad dash, trying to get past the statue to the door. But it was too quick for her. In a heartbeat, it held her in it’s grasp. She fought it, beating her fists against it’s grip. But it just laughed at her.

“Don’t waste the energy. I’m made of stone, remember. You can’t hurt me.”

She screamed, as the statue opened the door and dragged her out into the hallway. It led her back the way she had come. As they passed the stairs to the attic, Summer could see a trail of blood leading back down the stairs and along the hallway in front of them. ‘Desmond!’ she thought, a new batch of tears running down her cheeks.

The statue made it’s way down the staircase, pulling her along after it. And there, waiting in the marble hall, was Lady Aleona. She smiled as they approached, that same relaxed, sure smile she’d used all evening.

“Good work, darling!” she exclaimed to her former husband. Then she turned to Summer. “You put up a good fight Summer-Rose Melody. But now it has come to an end.” She reached out and pinched Summers cheek. “Ooo! You’re gonna be tasty!”

Summer began to sob uncontrollably. This was how her life was to end. This mad bitch was going to kill her, and then eat her. She heard her Ladyship tut impatiently.

“That’s quite enough of that!”

There was an instant of pressure. Then Summer felt then warmth of her own blood, pouring down her neck and chest. The statue let her go, and she fell to that floor. A few moments of panic, the drowziness. Then, finally, black.

[Lebrenth]

Wow, if the winning story ends up with all 8 of the current prompts, they will win a 3200 Fable prize! I hope Shady isn't feeling too nervous about her hard won Fables.

How many prompts were you expecting Stoat?

[Shady Stoat]

If the prompts get to 10, I'll shut the competition at that stage. I'm not worried about my fables, I'll just steal them from Chinaren's vault, he'll never miss a few ;)

[Smee]

Hmmm... I think I'm out of time on this one - Christmas is upon us.

Excellent fun reading the entries though - good going folks.

[Lebrenth]

Smee wrote: Hmmm... I think I'm out of time on this one - Christmas is upon us.

Excellent fun reading the entries though - good going folks.

So I guess my guess for which one was yours was completely wrong, huh?

[Smee]

Maybe, maybe not :P

[Bookwizard]

The new year nears and I only just laid eyes on this competition. *Quickly scribbles down prompts* I shall hopefully finish this on the plane (of wish I will be on tomorrow) and get it in sometime within the vague time-frame of "early in the new year".

[Shady Stoat]

Last day before I close the competition. If you're gonna write something, write it now :)

[Shady Stoat]

Another entry, with full prompts included.

====

The Changing Face of the Madonna with the big boobies

Gerald was bored. He paced up and down the main hall of the little museum, its exhibits in near darkness save the single flickering neon hanging from the centre of the ceiling. Dwindling funds meant that hiring an electrician to mend the faulty fitting was out of the question, and the curator's attempts to fix it seemed to have made it worse.

There were still another two hours to go before Gerald's night-shift ended – not that he believed a night guard was needed at all; there were barely any visitors by day, and nothing ever happened at night. That was, until, tonight.

For earlier that afternoon, a guest exhibit had been installed as the new centre attraction. The brightly coloured stone statuette took pride of place on the main exhibition stand; a little-known deity worshipped by the ancient and long dead Curcubita tribe. Considered by the ancients as their ‘mother goddess’, the experts claimed she was feared and obeyed by her subjects.

It had attracted a wide amount of attention, particularly as it looked suspiciously like Madonna in her famous Marilyn Monroe guise. Hundreds of visitors had filed past it that day, more than the museum received in the average year. The ancient paints upon the stone figure were beautifully preserved, particularly the seductive eyes, cherry red lips and flowing blond hair.

Now, after hours, Gerald was alone with it. He stared at it, mesmerised by its beauty. Finally he approached it.

He ran his hand up the folds of her lurid pink gown, and the ripples of the carefully carved feather boa. He touched the delicate white curves of her enormous attributes which, he considered, if the statuette were life-size, would have been the size of large marrows. At her feet on the stone plinth onto which she had been carved was a heart-shaped hole. It was here, the experts said, the ancient tribesmen would place a wooden box of the same shape, containing the hearts of recently sacrificed victims.

In her right hand, which she held high over her head was a vessel, resembling an emerald green wine glass, into which a drop of the victims’ blood was said to have been placed. According to the text on the plaque beside it, once the cup was full, the goddess would manifest herself in person.

Gerald chuckled. He could do with some company tonight. He unpinned his night-guard’s badge from his lapel, and biting his lip, jabbed the sharp point into his thumb. Gently he squeezed the pad against his thumbnail and watched the dark red liquid drip and pool in the small green cup. As he did so he ran his other hand over her marrows again, and from the corner of his eye he thought he saw her look up at him.

“Gerald...”

That was his mother’s voice! What was she doing here? He looked around for movement in the gloom.

“No, Gerald, here, in front of you...”

He stared into the eyes of the statuette, which scowled back at him the way his mother always did.

“Mum? Mummy?”

Without warning the statue planted her left fist in his face and he felt his jaw shatter from the impact of her stone knuckles. “How many times have I told you to treat a lady with respect!” his mother's sharp yell echoed through the hall.

Gerald staggered and fell to the ground, the figure crashing down on top of him. The left arm broke off and skidded across the floor, but he would never forget the look of disgust etched onto the statue’s face.

In months to come the figure was repaired, but even the most eminent of experts could not account for the changed face on the statue. To the delight of the curator, the statue was later donated to the museum and is now on permanent display, and poor Gerald has to sit and look at his mother’s angry face night after night.

[Shady Stoat]

Another entry, on the last minute. Single prompt this time, and none the worse for it.

====

Bellero and the Gnat

The flickering street light awoke me as it flashed intermittently through my soft-pink eyelids. I scrunched my eyes and wrapped myself as tightly as I could in my bizarre assortment of bed-sheets, which was one half-linen and the other half plastic covers, but the insistent shimmering of the defective light prevented me from dissolving back into the sweetness of sleep.

It was cold. The wind harassed the quivering trees and shook the leaves of an otherwise silent People’s Park hard enough to dissuade me from picking up my things and moving to another spot. Instead, I lay there on the pavestone of the sidewalk in a contemplative, semi-conscious mood and began to playfully blink in rhythm with the flickering light in order to amuse myself and keep from thinking about the gelid mid-November weather.

Eventually, from so much blinking, darkness and light formed into some kind of twilight in my mind and I reflected on how that seemed an appropriate description of my life to date. My memories of years gone by were rented by lapses which I could at best describe as a velvety, curtain-like blackness which shrouds the order of events. It is a wrinkled blackness impressed with the shape of some vague form which itself is no longer present. As if you look at the sun through the blinds and then close your eyes and see the imprints of light dancing before you, except the imprints are of one depth of black on another. I try following the crevasses of these empty folds which rise and fall like invisible waves and it always leads me here, to People’s Park in Berkeley where all the homeless sleep; where I sleep.

I heard a rasping cough and glancing up, I realized that “The Gnat” was standing by the street-light while smoking. I don’t exactly recall why they call him that— after all, he’s not a remarkably small guy. In fact, his build is average. Anyway its not like nicknames are particularly clever or respond to any actual physical characteristic around here.

He’s missing fewer teeth than most of us, he sports a stubble rather than a gnarly beard because he manages to find the means to shave every few days, and he recently received a new pair of jeans from some charity; his fore-shirt (he wears another two underneath) is only lightly stained from food, garbage, and sweat, so all in all— bearing in mind the standards of our small community-- he’s a dapper fellow. His face, complete with a big straight nose and friendly green eyes, reminds me of my brother. That’s probably why I’m fond of him.

I can’t remember how or when I met the Gnat, so I speculate that it happened during one of the periods of blackness. At least, he said we had already met when I do remember meeting him. But that’s the thing about the Gnat: you never know when he’s teasing you. That’s why they call him Gnat, because he’s always slightly annoying, always asking questions that aren’t really question because nobody can answer them. I guess this night it was me who started the conversation—I walked into the trap.

“Hey, what’s that?” I wrinkled my nose and furrowed my brow into a sort of warily curious demeanor.

He pivoted to look at me and his green eyes flashed mischievously, or maybe he was just glad to talk.

“What, this?” he whispered hoarsely and offered me his hand-rolled cigarette. I took it gratefully, began puffing away with gusto, and he sat beside me on the curb to rest easy as he pulled out more tobacco and paper from a little plastic bag.

“This stuff is better than the regular cigarettes, you know. The tobacco is cheaper and it’s healthier.”

Then he licked the edges of the paper and added as an afterthought:

“You get used to the taste pretty quick.”

He carefully nestled the leftover grains of tobacco in his palm and deposited them in his bag, which he rolled up and stashed in his ragged overcoat.

“Bellero,” he addressed me as he reached for a match from one of his dry inside pockets, “what do you observe about this… ‘fizzling’… street-light?”

He was a man who liked to choose his words; I sometimes wonder how far his education took him, or why he’s even on the streets. It almost makes me think he chose it, but he’s not the type; he’s not one of those indolent morons who abound the length of Telegraph, singing and pestering, preaching garbage, selling weed, wasting everyone’s time, and all the while sitting on an untouched bank-account set up for them by their parents whose patience is wearing thin.

Under normal circumstances, I would have responded with a quizzical stare to such a question as was now being posed. But with the Gnat, only the unusual was considered normalcy.

“From a practical point of view,” I answered, aware that it wasn’t the answer he was searching for, but unable to contain my irritation, “that ‘fizzling’ street-light is a pain in the ass and it won’t let me go to back to my dreams, where I was doing a whole lot better than here. At least there isn’t any warm or cold there.”

He sparked a match and, cupping his hands around it to protect it from the wind, watched it burn down the stick for a moment before lighting his cigarette.

“Isn’t its pulsating rhythm mesmerizing?” He inhaled and then slowly let out the smoke.

“You could say that; if by mesmerizing you mean distracting as hell.” I cracked.

He gestured a wide arc around him in anticipation to the lesson he was about to impart, as if he were drawing inspiration from the surroundings. The smoke from his lighted cigarette traced the shape of the motion and lingered in the air before a gust of wind made it disappear.

“That light can teach us quite a few things if we pay attention, my good friend Bellero. The light, as you see it, is in a state of transformation. It’s got a certain rhythm to it, a pulse—so to speak-- as if it were alive. Think of it as a man. When the light wears out, is that the end of it? Or does it perhaps keep shining in a different dimension, and still with the same rhythm? Maybe it still shines in darkness, only we can’t see it because our eyes are not adapted to it. Now you see, Bellero, if we focus solely on the light as an individual bulb, an ego-centric bulb, then of course it has died. The light is impermanent… finite. Such is the transience of all matter and energy. But isn’t there something eternal about the pattern of its rhythm? Don’t you feel the constancy of its universe-wide beat?” He spoke breathlessly and only paused to finish his sentences by inhaling smoke into his lungs. Then he would blow it out with urgency, like a man does when he can’t wait to speak his mind, and continue his discourse.

“Say what?” I blubbered out after listening to him up to the point where it just wasn’t making sense anymore. I immediately reflected that this rant, this kind of abstruse conversation, was typical of the Gnat.

“I’m just saying,” he focused his green eyes on me, “that every damn thing in the universe has a rhythm—everything is a ripple in time and space, which is constant even when that thing changes or dies. From a scientific point of view: Death doesn’t exist, it’s just another transformation of energy.”

I finished the cigarette and indifferently tossed at the gutter the spent butt which was now reduced to little more than the filter. Instead of falling through the chasm, it defied the jostling wind pushing it over the brink and clung to the edge of the grating like flotsam stuck on the banks of a river with the cataracts looming beyond. Holding on to dear life even after it was no longer useful.

I tell myself I’m just not the guy who likes to listen to all this nonsense philosophy. Practical things have meaning to me. Earthly needs. If you hand me a cigarette I’ll pay attention. You start talking crazy bull like the Gnat and you begin to lose me. Even worse, the kind of stuff he says—the suggestions—I wish I could help it, but sometimes he provokes crazy thoughts in my head. Who ever thinks about light bulbs and cigarette butts in that way? The Gnat, that’s who, and I believe he enjoys doing it.

“I’m talking about the eternal soul, dummy!” he cried exasperated, noticing my bafflement. I listened partly out of politeness and partly out of curiosity.

After his cry, the Gnat relapsed into a perturbed, somewhat peculiar silence. I contemplated his words for a while as I watched my breath turn into steam. I wondered whether my “soul” would leave my body in a similar way when I died. You see? His questions provoked that kind of thought.

“Why are you telling me this anyway?” I finally asked him, unable to stifle my belated curiosity, “Do you expect me to believe the street-light has a soul?”

“I expect you to believe in the idea of the eternal beyond the illusion of transience. What better subject to lead into the awkward confession I’m about to make? Now I’ve got you in the right frame of mind.”

“What confession?” I inquired, and my face hardened once more into an expression of wary curiosity.

“It’s not easy to explain.” He began with some reticence, as if measuring his words internally. “To be quite honest… well, I suppose it’s best if I just say it—no use in shopping for fancy ways to express it— what’s the matter… the explanation for why I am presently dumbfounding you with such maundering, tongue-tied, incoherence-- well, to be frank, the reason is that I don’t exist. It’s simple and yet intriguingly complicated. I’ll be more precise: I’m a product of your mind, a fiction of your imagination. You have invented me, ergo I don’t exist… at least not in the conventional way. You may be wondering how this can be logically explained? The answer is that you are partly if not completely insane.” He smiled sadly. “You seem perplexed. Perhaps you require an analogy that will enlighten you? For the purpose of finding a topic you can relate to…tell me, what subject interests you the most?”

“Food.” I replied, and just the idea of it made my stomach growl. “I’ve always been an especially big fan of pecan pie.”

“Then let me illustrate it in this way: If your sanity were a pie—let’s see.” he stopped in his speech in order to confect a proper description for the pastry. I licked my lips, but I was soon to be disappointed by his portrayal of my favorite dessert.

“If your sanity were a pie on display,” he picked up, “then it would be so carelessly baked, so bereft of proper texture, so lacking in curvature, so unpleasantly gelatinous, so festering with a malodorous aroma, so diminished in size and so tasteless in appearance; in short, it would be such a lousy pie that it would surely frighten customers away from the store unless the shopkeeper removed it from display in time.”

That was too much. I chuckled at his twaddle. I don’t think I’d ever heard anybody deny their own existence, much less carry out the denial with such genuine concern. It was a talented piece of theatrics, although the comedy bit wasn’t quite as accomplished.

“It’s not like I’ve been delegated the responsibility of convincing you of your own insanity, but I figured you should at least know the truth, even if you don’t believe it.” he gabbed, “I felt guilty after spending all that time around you without mentioning how absolutely bonkers you are. It almost felt like I was taking advantage of you. I was selfishly validating my own existence by keeping you in the dark.”

I scratched my head. I did so because I had a nagging itch; the perplexed state of my mind was only circumstantial and bore no responsibility for that particular action. The Gnat, however, seemed to think it did, so he kept talking.

“I did the decent thing, Bellero. Don’t laugh; it’s not easy for a man to realize he’s only an abstract construction, even for a man whose prospects for the future, here in People’s Park, were meager to begin with.”

“How can you claim that? Don’t you remember the celebrated ‘I think, therefore I am’?” I replied as the irritation on my epidermis subsided.

He wrung his hand together.

“Well, of course, Bellero, that is bothering. The problem is that ego, the conception of self, is really only an abstraction—an illusion. It is conjured by the mind just as I am conjured by yours. It only has meaning in an abstract world, just like a three dimensional painting or a television show only has meaning to an onlooker capable of conceptualization. The word ‘I’ represents something that doesn’t really exist. Thus, thinking and being are illusions, as much of a farce as death.”

He bore through me with his gaze.

“I suppose it won’t help much if I inform you that I perceive my own presence as a mere component of an organic whole? That I can as little unravel my own being from that of all else as I can divide the mesh formed between space and time? Would a single strand in a spider’s web consider itself a separate structure or a component of that larger web? Would a cell in the human body think it does not belong to a greater organism? I am an individual part of the whole universe, and that is why ‘I’ cannot exist without acknowledging that everything which surrounds me is also ‘me’. It’s all very contradictory and disturbing to you, I am sure, but nonetheless true.”

At this point things were starting to click but instead of reassuring me, if indeed he was trying to reassure me, it was making me apprehensive. The kind of apprehension that you get when you’re on a rollercoaster ride for the first time and the car carrying you up is slowly creeping along the starting ramp and everything below becomes more and more distant and you begin to understand that nothing in the world, not even watching from below a million times, is going to prepare you for the actual experience of the ride. Not that I believed a word of his rant about not existing, mind you, but some of the other concepts he elaborated on were beginning to leave their mark on me. And I’m not a guy who can stand too much conditioning in one night. So before the Gnat said anything more that would upset me, I decided to cut him short and chew on what he had already explained.

“Right.” I let out an affected yawn, “Well, I think I’ve had enough of your silliness for one night. It’s time to get back to my dreams.”

“It’s what you look forward to all day, isn’t it? A chance to start again in what feels like another reality?”

“Pretty much. What about you?”

Although our conversation had begun under the auspices of a bright moon, the clouds had gradually converged around it until it was now almost completely occult. A blurry silver edge poked out from the haze, and even that was fast vanishing. Yet its pale light still filtered through to the very most intimate places. It shone feebly on the puddles, on the foliage of the trees—silent guardians of the park—on the gravel pathway winding through the shadow encumbered flowerbeds, on the hoops of the empty basketball court, on the bulges sleeping on the grass, on my dirty old head, and on the Gnat’s.

The last of these items I have mentioned was the most remarkable. His head seemed to absorb all that light and guide it deep inside himself, illuminating his form from the inside. A weird glow began emanating from the holes in his triple-decked suit of shirts, and soon enough every pore in his body was blazing, enveloping his figure in a cocoon of light. His features, limbs, and entire frame eventually disintegrated into the aura. Finally, the aura collapsed into itself and was gone, and all that remained was a hushed silence in the midst of the wind’s whispering.

Under normal circumstances, I would have reacted by rubbing my eyes in disbelief at what had just unfolded before me. But with the Gnat, only the unusual was considered normal. I shrugged my shoulder and began to tuck into my self-fashioned sleeping bag. As if to dramatize the entire sequence of events, at that moment the street light fizzled out completely and went dark. For a few seconds before I dozed off, though, it seemed like the light, or rather-- its rhythm-- was still flashing in my soft-pink eyelids.


===

No more prompts to be added. I'll be closing this competition later today. If you still have something half-written, do what the last two competitors did and panic PM me, asking for more time. Otherwise, thanks to all who entered and see you at the finish line :D

[Shady Stoat]

Competition's over. Thanks to all those who entered. The poll is going up right now. Happy voting :D

[Crunchyfrog]

A brilliant collection of entries there. Great competition, Stoat!

I've narrowed my choice down to three... but it may take me a while to decide which of those to vote for. Will have to sleep on it I think... :)

[D-Lotus]

First vote! :D

Every entry in this competition was very good (plus the fact that there were a gazillion of 'em), so it took me a while just to narrow it down to four that I especially liked.

Well, after reading and re-reading I decided to cast my vote for "The Last Lightbulb". Its intimate knowledge of child psychology is impressive, and even more interesting is the blending of the unbearably cute with the sinister. Add to that a panorama similar to that of the movie 28 days later or I, Legend and you've got a funny yet intriguing snippet. The style of writing is simple and unpretentious, reflecting the personality of its characters, and the story's length is perfect for its kind of tone and humor. It was a good entry for a contest of this type, although it could have possibly been overshadowed had there been a cluster of other entries similar to it. Fortunately for the author of this text, entries with a similar mood/style were restricted to just two: "The Changing Face of the Madonna with the big boobies" and "Lock-in". Because "The Last Lightbulb" was more suggestive, leaving more to the imagination, and its technique more refined, it didn't lose respectability, and it is still for me the winner of this contest.

On the other hand, "Deadly Performance" was a close second. It was very creative and I enjoyed the thrilling flashback leading to the scene of the crime/suicide. Then the Jester coming alive out of nowhere unfavourably suprised me because I didn't understand the connection, and that is probably why ultimately I chose "The Last Lightbulb". But I did feel a chill crawl up my back when the protagonist's sister came to the rescue. And the ending was brilliant.

Anyway, my congratulations to all contestants for making this a great competition, and especially to Shady Stoat for organizing it. :D

[Crunchyfrog]

Well, that was a really tough choice. They're all good but for very different reasons. I tried not to concentrate on the prompts aspect - Stoaty has that covered, but upon the stories themselves. I narrowed it down to three yesterday, and I still couldn't decide between them this morning. Even now, after deciding, it feels like such a close call between the three.

I went for Bellaro and the Gnat, fascinating mind-play and character. I won't say which the other two were for fear of influencing others' choices, but I found them both intriguing and chilling, and well woven.

And if I was asked to bet on which one would win, I really couldn't even guess. I can't wait to see how the result pans out.

o-)

[Shady Stoat]

While I have my opinions on which stories I'd like to see win, I think it's only fair that I hold back my vote in case there's a tie I need to break. With ten stories to choose from, that's quite a strong possibility, so I'll be a spectator for now *munches popcorn*.

On a more excellent note, the city has agreed a special bonus payment for this competition, given the number of entries it's had. Thanks to the Mayor and Mayoress for their contributions, and I have great pleasure in announcing that the following extra prizes will be given out at the end of the poll:

3rd prize: 250 fables

2nd prize: 500 fables

1st prize: A mystery bonus, on top of the prize-per-prompt that they're already winning from my fur hand.

Now all I have to do is pray that the third prize doesn't have to be shared between 8 people ;)

[Lebrenth]

Please tell me you intend to reveal who wrote what after the voting is done! It's tickling my brain trying to figure it out. I've read everything, but I'm holding onto my vote a little longer. I always have a hard time with these competitions when I have a personal stake in them!

[Crunchyfrog]

It's been tickling me, too! *earmarks Lebby as a potential entrant* :grin:

[Shady Stoat]

Yep. List will go up when the poll finishes :)

[D-Lotus]

If Chinaren were here, he would undoubtedly set up a separate contest to guess who's who, and incidentally, he'd find a way to make money from it! :D

And Smee would win... again. :(

[Shady Stoat]

Just a little bump, to remind people to vote.

There are less than half the number of votes, so far, than there are competition entries. Let's use the mighty power of self-interest, my fellow IFians, and get some scores on the boards here ;)

[Crunchyfrog]

C'mon, guys, there's a tie going on at the moment! :D

[Smee]

Finally made my decision - this was a tough one to judge.

Hopefully we'll get more votes before the close!

[Lebrenth]

Are we allowed to start bribing people to vote yet?

[Crunchyfrog]

*earmarks Lebs as a possible entrant* :D



(editz - *realises she said that earlier in the thread - and that senility is closer than she thought.... *) :shock: