I'm back this week to contribute my story for the Flash Fiction Challenge over at Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds Blog
This week's challenge was from a dream he had where one phrase kept appearing: There is no exit.
He writes:
I thought it would make a very good flash fiction challenge.
So, incorporate that phrase —
“There is no exit”
— into the story. Either as a title, a line of dialogue, a theme, whatever.
Go forth and tell the story.
Length: ~1000 words
Here is this week's short story. It is actually a little bit of a back story for another project I'm working on and this prompt helped me to work it out. I came in at 995 words. Helpful comments are appreciated, I'm still learning. Thank you.
“There Is No Exit”
By
Michelle Baillargeon
Aggie sat at the kitchen table and
sipped her glass of diet cola while keeping one eye on the clock. Her heart was
beating a little faster than normal, but it was not from the caffeine. He’s going to be here any minute, but I
think I’m ready this time.
Even though she’d
already done it half a dozen times, she checked to make sure her cell phone was
within arms-reach. She made another silent wish (how many was that now?) that Rider had been able to be here with her.
But, since her friend, a traveling nurse, was several states away at the
moment, it was fruitless. They had talked about what to do today over the
phone, but it would have been more reassuring to have him here with her. While
she waited, she reviewed their plan.
The sound of a thud
traveled to her from the hallway, mentally she placed it at the bottom of the
stairs. She nodded her head yes absentmindedly and waited. Small hairs on the
back of her neck prickled, but she didn’t move from her chair. So far, it was
the same as before, he’d be in the kitchen soon enough.
She heard a man’s
voice, speaking low at first. Just one word, repeated. The man’s voice, filled
with shock and disbelief, wafted in to the kitchen softly. “Freddie?”
The voice then grew
louder and angry, the disbelief gone, “Freddie!”
Aggie flinched in
spite of herself. She attempted to calm her nerves by taking a deep breath, as
quickly as she could, and then blew it out. She reminded herself she had a plan
this time, that he couldn’t really hurt her; but her nerves were still a mess.
Aggie could hear
shuffling sounds in between the angry shouts, the shuffling told her he’d been getting
up from his fall down the stairs and was assessing himself. In no time at all,
the shuffling noises changed to footsteps: heavy, running footsteps. They were
headed her way.
Her pulse quickened and
fear tried to push its way through, but she held her ground. This was her house
now, and he had to go. Courage, girl, you
know what to do.
“Fred…!” The shouting man appeared
in the doorway of the kitchen and came to an abrupt stop at seeing Aggie. He
was out of breath, his clothes disheveled, an ugly depression in his right
temple was gushing blood; it streamed down the side of his face and over a banged
up eye.
“Where the hell is Freddie and who
the hell are you?”
Aggie put her hands up in front of
her in a “stop” motion. “My name is Aggie, this is my house now. Freddie has
been gone for a long time.”
He shook his head back and forth,
not believing any of it. Fueled by his anger and the fall down the stairs, he
approached the table and shook a clenched fist at Aggie “This is my house and I
want you out!”
Aggie tried to appear calm, she
looked him in the eyes as she spoke, “Sir, I understand your confusion, give me
a moment to explain.”
He banged a bruised fist on the
table, leaving a small, bloody smudge on her table cloth. “Get out of my
house!” he shouted in her direction. Aggie followed his hand as it hit the
table and winced. His pinky finger was bent at an unnatural angle. She hadn’t
noticed that before.
She shook it off and
tried to get back on plan. Breathe,
Aggie, Breathe, you can do it. She kept one hand raised in front of her,
gesturing “one moment” at him. It was clear he didn’t want to be calmed down,
but he did pause.
“Sir, Freddie has been
gone for an awfully long time. Actually, so have you.” The man cocked his head
to the right, she had his attention for the moment. More blood dripped from the
depression on his head and pooled on the table cloth. Aggie’s stomach flipped
at the close-up view of his open wound. She looked away (get back on track, girl!) and reached for her cell phone, “can I
show you something that might help you?”
Not waiting for a response, she unlocked her cell phone and queued
up video she’d been saving. She turned the screen to face him and hit play. As
he watched the video, she spoke as soothingly as she could manage. “I’ve been
here for six months, and once a month, you show up. Every visit is the same:
you fall down the stairs, pick yourself up, and run into the kitchen looking
for Freddie. You shout at me to leave your house, bang my table a few times, and
then you – well – you disappear until the next time.”
He looked up at Aggie
once the video stopped playing, confusion staring back at her from his one good
eye. She pressed play again. The video showed a duplicate of this morning’s
events. “I took this video of you on your last visit. You have to understand
that there’s nothing here for you anymore. Freddie is no longer here, she’s
been gone for a long time. You passed away many years ago. The fall cracked
your skull and you didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”
The man reached up
with his broken hand and gingerly touched his temple as Aggie continued. “There
is no relief for you if you stay here, no exit. This will go on and on,
repeating every month. Wouldn’t you like to rest?”
He looked at Aggie,
taking it all in; fist unclenched and shoulders sagging against the weight of
understanding. She played the video again and he watched it play through
completely once more. When it finished he stood back from the table, upright
and sure of himself, and nodded to Aggie.
“I would,” he said.
Aggie watched as the
man disappeared before her.
