RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

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RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:29 pm

So I mentioned in the Things That Are Good thread that I had entered a writing contest and had gotten into the third round of the tournament. Jim asked if I would put the stories up that I'd written, so here's a thread for them. Each of them had their own prompt that was assigned to me; the first two have already been judged/reviewed, and the third got sent in yesterday. I've put the prompt at the head of each story, and the actual stories under spoiler cuts to cut down on length.

Hope you guys enjoy!

Round 1:
Genre: Ghost story
Setting: A boat house
Object: A bag of sand

Spoiler: show
You’re new to the house, boy, and you seem like a sensible lad, so let me tell you the most important thing I can tell you while you work here: do not go to the boat house at night.

The others will tell you the ins-and-outs of everything else, that there’ll be no smoking inside the servants’ quarters, and not to steal grapes from the greenhouse. The master and missus are not unkind, but they won’t suffer fools, either. I know you’ve worked at other estates before, and I imagine you’ll catch on quick enough to the rules of the house.

What I’ll tell you instead is this: should you ever need to ready the boats, go at crack of dawn when the church bells sound, and not a moment sooner. It does not matter what else you may have to do that day, do not go before sunrise, and if any of the others question you, send them to me.

If you go too close to the boat house at night, you will hear the sound of a woman singing. Every night, it’s there, and every night, it’s the same song. Understand this: it will always be just faint enough to hear, just enough to make out the words, but always just far enough away to make you wander closer. Even if you stay in your room every night, like I tell you, you’ll find yourself knowing every note, the verses drifting into your dreams like barely present memories.

Should you ignore me and follow the sounds to the boat house, you may see a woman standing in the distance. She will always look the same, ghastly pale and slender, her hair long and flowing in the night. Her clothes will always be an old grey dress and a heavy winter cloak. Tied all around her waist are ropes, trailing down her skirts, and tied to the ends will be dozens of bags of sand.

You see, the master is a gentleman and a good soul. But his father was a wretched beast. Some of the older maids will tell you the wicked things he did, and the ways he ruined the girls in his employ. You’ll soon meet Martha, the housekeeper, and perhaps one day she can show you where she’s missing teeth because she once tried to refuse his advances.

They say the woman on the lake was named Mary. She was a scullery maid here some years ago, and came from one of the nearby villages. There was a boy she loved who worked as a sailor, and she planned to marry him when he returned from sailing. When she washed or scrubbed, the other servants heard her sing the shanties her beloved had taught her to wile away the time and keep her spirits high.

If anyone warned her about the master’s father, it wasn’t enough to save her. One day, she no longer sang, instead scuttling fearful and quiet through her daily errands. A few months after her singing ceased, the other servants noticed a swell in her belly that she tried to hide with her aprons.

Her beloved was due to come home before there was time to have the baby and give it away. There were rumors that she tried to rid herself of the child in a number of other ways, but none of them took.

So instead, she walked down to the boat house and tied her skirts with bags of sand for weight. When she leapt into the lake, the sand swelled with water and sunk her down like a stone, holding her fast to the bottom. When they found her two days later, it took four men to drag her back up again.
I see it in your face that you feel pity for her, lad, and I do not hold that against you. But I must still warn you not to seek her out or follow her.

I know that some of the more romantic-minded members of the staff say that she stays at this estate because she’s lonesome. That she pines for the man she left behind, singing the songs he taught her in hope that he’ll arrive to marry her at last. The more foolish lads in the past had gotten it into their head that they could be the man to woo her out of her misery.

As I’ve said before, you seem like a sensible boy. Do not let those thoughts cross your head.

You see, if you ever were to spot her at night, she will always be at a distance. No matter how far you walk to follow her, she’ll always be too far away to touch. And yet you’ll still find yourself wanting to reach her, wandering farther and farther even though she always remains just out of your grasp.

And at night, when the household sleeps, there are no lights that reach the boat house. Even when the master holds a party, none of the gas lamps can touch it, and no reflection will glimmer on the surface of the lake.

Do you know how to swim, boy? Most of the lads here don’t. None of the ones who ignored me did. Or not well enough, at any rate.

I could perhaps blame pure foolishness and the dark for their deadly mistakes, but I know it’s her. A body that drowns will eventually float its way back to the surface. Theirs never did. They sunk to the bottom as if dragged, or weighed down like poor Mary was all those years ago.

I know you are a smart lad, so heed my words and take my advice.

And whatever else you do, do not ask me what happened to the boy who held your job before you.


Round 2:
Genre: Thriller
Setting: A cement truck
Object: Rat poison

Spoiler: show
My fingers tremble so badly that it takes me five tries to light my cigarette. Tommy glances at me with a quiet irritation, sitting in the driver’s seat in an easy, professional pose.

“You’re gonna burn yourself if you don’t cut that shit out.”

I say nothing, because he’s right, and because I desperately need to take a drag off of my cigarette. The first taste of nicotine steadies me, and I start to settle. Tommy says nothing else, staring forward with a casual glare as the truck glides down the road.

In the backseat, Johnny says nothing, laying stiff and pale and wrapped in garbage bags.

There’s an unspoken law of the gang that if you reach a certain level of seniority, you can bring in a family member with a lot less of the torturous paying-of-dues that someone else would have to put up with. Johnny’s pops had been a hell of a muscle man until he’d been arrested five years back. While his old man sat in a prison cell, the upper levels had all made sure to smooth the way for Johnny to join up once he’d gotten old enough. If he’d been smart enough to take their good graces and keep his head down, he could have probably gotten the same level of respect as his father in a few years.

But sometimes people don’t recognize good fortune when it’s staring right at them, and sometimes arrogance is a hell of a drug. It wasn’t hard to figure out when chunks of money were a little lighter, or when product was arriving cut with baby powder.

Johnny’d worked with me, so I’d been asked to get him taken care of. Out of respect for his father, he wasn’t given the usual execution. A little rat poison got worked into his food, and after a few minutes’ choking and gagging, he was done. Tommy’d arrived outside Johnny’s apartment building just as the body started going cold, perched behind the wheel of the most obnoxiously filthy cement mixer there’d ever been.

Which led to Tommy and me driving south through New Jersey, unable to see anything but the headlights on the asphalt in front of us.

It wasn’t good to seem rattled. Still, I felt unsettled. I’d never had to carry out a hit before, much less someone I’d known, and all I could think about was Johnny’s face swelling purple when he choked out on the carpet.

I wasn’t even really there to be useful, really. Tommy was the one who knew how to drive the truck, and he knew where to go. There was a chunk of forest in the south part of New Jersey that was good for bodies that needed to disappear. He’d take us to where a convenient hole in the ground was waiting. After that, it was just a matter of chucking Tommy in and pouring some wet cement over him. Any evidence left on him would be near impossible to get to.

As I unwind, exhaling smoke out the passenger window, Tommy pulls the truck over to a small chunk of trees. I can’t see how they were different from any of the dozens of others we’d passed on our way, but he seems certain when he says, “Time to work. Get out of the truck.”

I do as I’m told, shuffling out with cigarette still perched my mouth. When I make moves to start lifting Johnny, Tommy stops me, calling out, “Leave him be. We gotta check on the pit first.”

I shrug and obey, shutting the truck door behind me. He nods towards a drop in the earth and I walk over to it. Sure enough, there’s a hole deep enough to hide three Johnnies if we need the space, and plenty of room for wet cement.

“Looks good to me. What do you need to check - ?”

I hear a click behind me. My head turns back so fast that my cigarette flies out of my mouth, searing onto a floor of leaves. Tommy holds his pistol with a steady, practiced hand, the muzzle trained on me with the casual ease of an expert.

“Tommy, what the fuck are you doing?”

With a casual, disdainful smile, he asks, “You never were a particularly bright one, were you?” Hand steady on the gun, Tommy steps closer; by instinct, I step back, but my heel nearly slips on the edge of the hole in the ground. “Tell me, kid: did you think we didn’t know Johnny wasn’t the only one cutting corners?”

Oh no. No no no no no.

Shit.

I swallow hard, my hands starting to shake again. Johnny was such a brash, careless idiot with what he’d taken. It hadn’t been too hard to just take a little more after he’d had his fill. Just little nips here and there. Nothing that could have been noticed. Should have been noticed.

“Tommy, listen-“

The gun goes off with a bang, and my knee explodes in agony. I tumble backwards, rolling into the pit in a graceless crumple. When I land, I can see Tommy standing over me, a leisurely smile on his face, and for a second I think he’s missed hitting me in a vital spot. But that smile makes me realize: someone with a father like Johnny’s might get an easy, simple death by poison. Grunts like me don’t get favors that way.

“Tommy!”

His face disappears, and I drag myself up onto my elbows. My left leg is a tangle of blood and meat, and I try to claw my way up the steep sides of the hole. Above me is a whirring noise as the truck switches on.

I scream and I scream, but the metallic stirring sounds only grow louder to match my desperation. When the cement starts to pour over me, everything narrows to the feeling of heavy coldness swallowing me down.


Round 3:
Genre: Thriller
Setting: A radio tower
Object: Ice skates

Spoiler: show
The tall one pushes the muzzle of the gun between my shoulder blades while the other one speaks to me in an even, level tone, trying to calm me down. I can’t make out what he’s saying over the sound of my own voice, high and cracked and frantic, the words repeating themselves like a prayer or a mantra.

Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.

The radio tower looms above us, the night sky making it look black as it rises to meet the stars. All around us are thick bunches of trees, crowding and covering us. No one could see us even if they came looking. God, I can barely see anything. Not even the man in front of me, his face obscured by a wool ski mask that matches his partner’s.

I’m still babbling, thinking of anything I can to persuade them to keep me alive. Please don’t let me die. My daughter has ice skating tomorrow. Her ice skates are in the back of my car. If you kill me, she won’t be able to take them to practice. She smiles so brightly when she slides out onto the ice, and I have to be alive to take her to the rink.

The gun barrel jabs into my spine, and the man holding it says something in a language I don’t recognize. I know he wants me to be quiet, but all I can do is dissolve into helpless, pathetic noises.

They got me while I was loading my car with groceries. I’d stopped to text my husband that I was headed home, and then there was the pain of hands grabbing me, striking me, wrapping duct tape around my face. It happened too fast, and I didn’t know how to fight back. They shoved me into the footwell of the backseat, and after an eternity, they dragged me back out. With the gun to my head, I put in the passcodes to let us through the security gates, and we’d marched our way through the trees to the base of the tower.

The only reason I have the access codes to the site is because I work for the land management company. I’m not even anyone important. I work in administration, for God’s sake. I know that the radio tower sends signals all over the county, to government buildings due south and an army fort due north, and my brain runs through the reasons they might try something here: politics? Terrorism? Are there other towers being targeted tonight?

With a gun on my back, it doesn’t matter what the reasons are, or what the plan is. There’s tape residue on my face and blood in my mouth, and all I can do is beg: please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.

The man in front of me is still calm, still trying to seem so very reasonable He tells me that all I have to do is take something from his hands and attach it to the tower. He’ll tell me what to do and how to set it up. And then I can go home. That’s what I want, right?

Yes. Yes, that’s what I want. I want to go home and I want to hug my daughter and give her the ice skates and go back to my life. I want to take her to skating practice and I want to never, ever feel this afraid again.

He hands me an object, and in the dark all I can tell is that it’s metal and solid. I need to believe it’s not a bomb. Maybe it’s a signal jammer, something to interfere with communications. Maybe it’s something to record the radio transmissions.

A cold thought hits me: if it’s not something dangerous, why are they making me handle it instead of securing it themselves?

The shorter man tells me to step closer to the leg of the tower. I obey, still shaking as I hold the device and listen to his ever-so-reasonable instructions. Flip this switch. Flip another. Press it to the leg of the tower.

I realize that the man with the gun isn’t right behind me anymore. They’ve both stepped farther from me, still watching me, still training the gun on me, but they’re backing away. The other man has something in his hands, but it looks like a small box, not a firearm. I haven’t seen a gun in his hands the entire time I’ve been their hostage.

I want to see my daughter again. I want to go home. I don’t know whether obeying them will be enough to make that happen.

The device is metal and solid. It’s heavy in my hands.

When I throw it, it hits home, crashing into the man with the gun, smashing into his face with a burst of blood and a sickening crunch. His finger pulls the trigger, but the shot goes wide, soaring into the night sky while I turn and run as fast as my adrenaline will let me.

I hear the crack of another gunshot behind me, but I don’t stop. The forest is dark and my clothes and hair catch on branches, but I keep going even when bits of my scalp are torn out of my head. It doesn’t matter if I make it out of here covered in scratches or dirt or blood, none of it matters, I just need to make it out.

They’re behind me, but their voices sound further away. Or maybe that’s just desperate hopefulness, or the sound of my heartbeat muffling their voices. I don’t care. I won’t stop to find out.

My legs burn hot fire and my lungs feel like bursting, but I run harder than I’ve ever done in my life, desperate for escape and for the sight of my daughter’s face.

Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.
  • 14

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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby DoglovingJim » Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:31 pm

reallifegirl wrote:So I mentioned in the Things That Are Good thread that I had entered a writing contest and had gotten into the third round of the tournament. Jim asked if I would put the stories up that I'd written, so here's a thread for them. Each of them had their own prompt that was assigned to me; the first two have already been judged/reviewed, and the third got sent in yesterday. I've put the prompt at the head of each story, and the actual stories under spoiler cuts to cut down on length.

Hope you guys enjoy!

Round 1:
Genre: Ghost story
Setting: A boat house
Object: A bag of sand

Spoiler: show
You’re new to the house, boy, and you seem like a sensible lad, so let me tell you the most important thing I can tell you while you work here: do not go to the boat house at night.

The others will tell you the ins-and-outs of everything else, that there’ll be no smoking inside the servants’ quarters, and not to steal grapes from the greenhouse. The master and missus are not unkind, but they won’t suffer fools, either. I know you’ve worked at other estates before, and I imagine you’ll catch on quick enough to the rules of the house.

What I’ll tell you instead is this: should you ever need to ready the boats, go at crack of dawn when the church bells sound, and not a moment sooner. It does not matter what else you may have to do that day, do not go before sunrise, and if any of the others question you, send them to me.

If you go too close to the boat house at night, you will hear the sound of a woman singing. Every night, it’s there, and every night, it’s the same song. Understand this: it will always be just faint enough to hear, just enough to make out the words, but always just far enough away to make you wander closer. Even if you stay in your room every night, like I tell you, you’ll find yourself knowing every note, the verses drifting into your dreams like barely present memories.

Should you ignore me and follow the sounds to the boat house, you may see a woman standing in the distance. She will always look the same, ghastly pale and slender, her hair long and flowing in the night. Her clothes will always be an old grey dress and a heavy winter cloak. Tied all around her waist are ropes, trailing down her skirts, and tied to the ends will be dozens of bags of sand.

You see, the master is a gentleman and a good soul. But his father was a wretched beast. Some of the older maids will tell you the wicked things he did, and the ways he ruined the girls in his employ. You’ll soon meet Martha, the housekeeper, and perhaps one day she can show you where she’s missing teeth because she once tried to refuse his advances.

They say the woman on the lake was named Mary. She was a scullery maid here some years ago, and came from one of the nearby villages. There was a boy she loved who worked as a sailor, and she planned to marry him when he returned from sailing. When she washed or scrubbed, the other servants heard her sing the shanties her beloved had taught her to wile away the time and keep her spirits high.

If anyone warned her about the master’s father, it wasn’t enough to save her. One day, she no longer sang, instead scuttling fearful and quiet through her daily errands. A few months after her singing ceased, the other servants noticed a swell in her belly that she tried to hide with her aprons.

Her beloved was due to come home before there was time to have the baby and give it away. There were rumors that she tried to rid herself of the child in a number of other ways, but none of them took.

So instead, she walked down to the boat house and tied her skirts with bags of sand for weight. When she leapt into the lake, the sand swelled with water and sunk her down like a stone, holding her fast to the bottom. When they found her two days later, it took four men to drag her back up again.
I see it in your face that you feel pity for her, lad, and I do not hold that against you. But I must still warn you not to seek her out or follow her.

I know that some of the more romantic-minded members of the staff say that she stays at this estate because she’s lonesome. That she pines for the man she left behind, singing the songs he taught her in hope that he’ll arrive to marry her at last. The more foolish lads in the past had gotten it into their head that they could be the man to woo her out of her misery.

As I’ve said before, you seem like a sensible boy. Do not let those thoughts cross your head.

You see, if you ever were to spot her at night, she will always be at a distance. No matter how far you walk to follow her, she’ll always be too far away to touch. And yet you’ll still find yourself wanting to reach her, wandering farther and farther even though she always remains just out of your grasp.

And at night, when the household sleeps, there are no lights that reach the boat house. Even when the master holds a party, none of the gas lamps can touch it, and no reflection will glimmer on the surface of the lake.

Do you know how to swim, boy? Most of the lads here don’t. None of the ones who ignored me did. Or not well enough, at any rate.

I could perhaps blame pure foolishness and the dark for their deadly mistakes, but I know it’s her. A body that drowns will eventually float its way back to the surface. Theirs never did. They sunk to the bottom as if dragged, or weighed down like poor Mary was all those years ago.

I know you are a smart lad, so heed my words and take my advice.

And whatever else you do, do not ask me what happened to the boy who held your job before you.


Round 2:
Genre: Thriller
Setting: A cement truck
Object: Rat poison

Spoiler: show
My fingers tremble so badly that it takes me five tries to light my cigarette. Tommy glances at me with a quiet irritation, sitting in the driver’s seat in an easy, professional pose.

“You’re gonna burn yourself if you don’t cut that shit out.”

I say nothing, because he’s right, and because I desperately need to take a drag off of my cigarette. The first taste of nicotine steadies me, and I start to settle. Tommy says nothing else, staring forward with a casual glare as the truck glides down the road.

In the backseat, Johnny says nothing, laying stiff and pale and wrapped in garbage bags.

There’s an unspoken law of the gang that if you reach a certain level of seniority, you can bring in a family member with a lot less of the torturous paying-of-dues that someone else would have to put up with. Johnny’s pops had been a hell of a muscle man until he’d been arrested five years back. While his old man sat in a prison cell, the upper levels had all made sure to smooth the way for Johnny to join up once he’d gotten old enough. If he’d been smart enough to take their good graces and keep his head down, he could have probably gotten the same level of respect as his father in a few years.

But sometimes people don’t recognize good fortune when it’s staring right at them, and sometimes arrogance is a hell of a drug. It wasn’t hard to figure out when chunks of money were a little lighter, or when product was arriving cut with baby powder.

Johnny’d worked with me, so I’d been asked to get him taken care of. Out of respect for his father, he wasn’t given the usual execution. A little rat poison got worked into his food, and after a few minutes’ choking and gagging, he was done. Tommy’d arrived outside Johnny’s apartment building just as the body started going cold, perched behind the wheel of the most obnoxiously filthy cement mixer there’d ever been.

Which led to Tommy and me driving south through New Jersey, unable to see anything but the headlights on the asphalt in front of us.

It wasn’t good to seem rattled. Still, I felt unsettled. I’d never had to carry out a hit before, much less someone I’d known, and all I could think about was Johnny’s face swelling purple when he choked out on the carpet.

I wasn’t even really there to be useful, really. Tommy was the one who knew how to drive the truck, and he knew where to go. There was a chunk of forest in the south part of New Jersey that was good for bodies that needed to disappear. He’d take us to where a convenient hole in the ground was waiting. After that, it was just a matter of chucking Tommy in and pouring some wet cement over him. Any evidence left on him would be near impossible to get to.

As I unwind, exhaling smoke out the passenger window, Tommy pulls the truck over to a small chunk of trees. I can’t see how they were different from any of the dozens of others we’d passed on our way, but he seems certain when he says, “Time to work. Get out of the truck.”

I do as I’m told, shuffling out with cigarette still perched my mouth. When I make moves to start lifting Johnny, Tommy stops me, calling out, “Leave him be. We gotta check on the pit first.”

I shrug and obey, shutting the truck door behind me. He nods towards a drop in the earth and I walk over to it. Sure enough, there’s a hole deep enough to hide three Johnnies if we need the space, and plenty of room for wet cement.

“Looks good to me. What do you need to check - ?”

I hear a click behind me. My head turns back so fast that my cigarette flies out of my mouth, searing onto a floor of leaves. Tommy holds his pistol with a steady, practiced hand, the muzzle trained on me with the casual ease of an expert.

“Tommy, what the fuck are you doing?”

With a casual, disdainful smile, he asks, “You never were a particularly bright one, were you?” Hand steady on the gun, Tommy steps closer; by instinct, I step back, but my heel nearly slips on the edge of the hole in the ground. “Tell me, kid: did you think we didn’t know Johnny wasn’t the only one cutting corners?”

Oh no. No no no no no.

Shit.

I swallow hard, my hands starting to shake again. Johnny was such a brash, careless idiot with what he’d taken. It hadn’t been too hard to just take a little more after he’d had his fill. Just little nips here and there. Nothing that could have been noticed. Should have been noticed.

“Tommy, listen-“

The gun goes off with a bang, and my knee explodes in agony. I tumble backwards, rolling into the pit in a graceless crumple. When I land, I can see Tommy standing over me, a leisurely smile on his face, and for a second I think he’s missed hitting me in a vital spot. But that smile makes me realize: someone with a father like Johnny’s might get an easy, simple death by poison. Grunts like me don’t get favors that way.

“Tommy!”

His face disappears, and I drag myself up onto my elbows. My left leg is a tangle of blood and meat, and I try to claw my way up the steep sides of the hole. Above me is a whirring noise as the truck switches on.

I scream and I scream, but the metallic stirring sounds only grow louder to match my desperation. When the cement starts to pour over me, everything narrows to the feeling of heavy coldness swallowing me down.


Round 3:
Genre: Thriller
Setting: A radio tower
Object: Ice skates

Spoiler: show
The tall one pushes the muzzle of the gun between my shoulder blades while the other one speaks to me in an even, level tone, trying to calm me down. I can’t make out what he’s saying over the sound of my own voice, high and cracked and frantic, the words repeating themselves like a prayer or a mantra.

Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.

The radio tower looms above us, the night sky making it look black as it rises to meet the stars. All around us are thick bunches of trees, crowding and covering us. No one could see us even if they came looking. God, I can barely see anything. Not even the man in front of me, his face obscured by a wool ski mask that matches his partner’s.

I’m still babbling, thinking of anything I can to persuade them to keep me alive. Please don’t let me die. My daughter has ice skating tomorrow. Her ice skates are in the back of my car. If you kill me, she won’t be able to take them to practice. She smiles so brightly when she slides out onto the ice, and I have to be alive to take her to the rink.

The gun barrel jabs into my spine, and the man holding it says something in a language I don’t recognize. I know he wants me to be quiet, but all I can do is dissolve into helpless, pathetic noises.

They got me while I was loading my car with groceries. I’d stopped to text my husband that I was headed home, and then there was the pain of hands grabbing me, striking me, wrapping duct tape around my face. It happened too fast, and I didn’t know how to fight back. They shoved me into the footwell of the backseat, and after an eternity, they dragged me back out. With the gun to my head, I put in the passcodes to let us through the security gates, and we’d marched our way through the trees to the base of the tower.

The only reason I have the access codes to the site is because I work for the land management company. I’m not even anyone important. I work in administration, for God’s sake. I know that the radio tower sends signals all over the county, to government buildings due south and an army fort due north, and my brain runs through the reasons they might try something here: politics? Terrorism? Are there other towers being targeted tonight?

With a gun on my back, it doesn’t matter what the reasons are, or what the plan is. There’s tape residue on my face and blood in my mouth, and all I can do is beg: please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.

The man in front of me is still calm, still trying to seem so very reasonable He tells me that all I have to do is take something from his hands and attach it to the tower. He’ll tell me what to do and how to set it up. And then I can go home. That’s what I want, right?

Yes. Yes, that’s what I want. I want to go home and I want to hug my daughter and give her the ice skates and go back to my life. I want to take her to skating practice and I want to never, ever feel this afraid again.

He hands me an object, and in the dark all I can tell is that it’s metal and solid. I need to believe it’s not a bomb. Maybe it’s a signal jammer, something to interfere with communications. Maybe it’s something to record the radio transmissions.

A cold thought hits me: if it’s not something dangerous, why are they making me handle it instead of securing it themselves?

The shorter man tells me to step closer to the leg of the tower. I obey, still shaking as I hold the device and listen to his ever-so-reasonable instructions. Flip this switch. Flip another. Press it to the leg of the tower.

I realize that the man with the gun isn’t right behind me anymore. They’ve both stepped farther from me, still watching me, still training the gun on me, but they’re backing away. The other man has something in his hands, but it looks like a small box, not a firearm. I haven’t seen a gun in his hands the entire time I’ve been their hostage.

I want to see my daughter again. I want to go home. I don’t know whether obeying them will be enough to make that happen.

The device is metal and solid. It’s heavy in my hands.

When I throw it, it hits home, crashing into the man with the gun, smashing into his face with a burst of blood and a sickening crunch. His finger pulls the trigger, but the shot goes wide, soaring into the night sky while I turn and run as fast as my adrenaline will let me.

I hear the crack of another gunshot behind me, but I don’t stop. The forest is dark and my clothes and hair catch on branches, but I keep going even when bits of my scalp are torn out of my head. It doesn’t matter if I make it out of here covered in scratches or dirt or blood, none of it matters, I just need to make it out.

They’re behind me, but their voices sound further away. Or maybe that’s just desperate hopefulness, or the sound of my heartbeat muffling their voices. I don’t care. I won’t stop to find out.

My legs burn hot fire and my lungs feel like bursting, but I run harder than I’ve ever done in my life, desperate for escape and for the sight of my daughter’s face.

Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.



Oohhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhh, time to get reading.
  • 9

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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby jbobsully11 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:37 am

*reads the stories, shivers*

Especially the last two...
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(Presumably, the only way to stop a bad guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law is a good guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law, and thus transgender-friendly privacy law rights need to be enshrined in the Constitution as well)
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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:01 am

I just enjoy helping everyone with a teensy tiny dose of nightmares. :D

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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Fri Dec 15, 2017 12:27 am

GUESS WHO MADE IT TO THE FINAL ROUND, Y'ALL

gonna go celebrate by watching me some star wars
  • 12

"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not."

Encyclopedia Dramatica wrote:Reallifegirl: Is supposedly a girl in real life, but we all know that's false. Gets highest comment roughly 75% of the time, and has never had a single red-thumbed comment. Ever.
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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Tue Dec 19, 2017 3:55 am

Sorry for the double (triple?) posting, but here is my final submission to the contest, for the final round of competition.

Prompt:
Genre: Any
Setting: An office holiday party
Object: A UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)

Spoiler: show
Brian from Accounting teeters on top of a stepladder to hang up one end of the banner, balanced precariously on tiptoe while he duct-tapes it over the stairwell entrance. It’s a reutilized bedsheet with block letters written in dried-out Sharpie, the words boldly proclaiming: “Welcome to Our Last Holiday Party on Earth!”



When he finishes draping it over the entrance to the rooftop, a cheer goes up from me and my colleagues. Even two months ago, the joke would have been in poor taste, but we’re all too tipsy and worn down to care. We fill our cups with wine that was scavenged from a detonated convenience store two miles away, and we toast with it like it’s the world’s finest champagne.

The attire at the rooftop party is a mixed bag. Julie from HR lost everything when her apartment building got hit, so she’s wearing the same T-shirt and jeans she’s had on ever since. Tom from Account Management has a tux from God-knows-where, and he only laughs and shrugs when he spills wine on his lapels. Me, I’m wearing a green satin dress that I’d bought for my cousin Helen’s wedding. Helen and her fiancé were killed in the first wave of attacks. The dress feels odd on my shoulders when I think about it – a garment to celebrate a union than never happened, to congratulate two charred-out husks in a pit somewhere.

We haven’t gotten radio signals in weeks, so Gus from IT brought a guitar to provide some music. He only knows about five Christmas songs, but that’s more than enough. A group of us stand to the side and sing along to ‘Silver Bells’, swaying in place and crooning ‘It’s Christmas-time in the city...’

There’s only about half of the office here. The smart ones got out a year ago. They loaded up their cars with as much as they could carry, and they drove their families as far away as possible. At the time, there were lots of jokes about how paranoid everyone was becoming, and how embarrassing it would be when they drove back with their tails between their legs.

Now there’s military barriers to the north, telling us to stay put and stay calm and refusing everyone passage out of the city. On every other side, there’s nothing but wasteland. Standing on the rooftop in my high heels, I can see the very edge of downtown and where it meets the desert. On a taller building, I might be able to see the abandoned cars on the roads, and the dried-out bodies of people who tried to flee on foot.

I wish I could say that I stayed because I was in denial, or because I really, truly believed it would all be okay. The truth is that I could see that things were getting dangerous and I still didn’t do anything about it. What a pathetic reason to still be here: I was too lazy to save my own life.

I have no idea whether my family is safe, and if they’re wondering where I am. Mom and Dad live in a retirement community in Florida. My brother and his kids fled to Canada when everything started. I haven’t heard from any of them in six months, but I choose to believe they’re okay.

I’d moved out here alone five years ago, back when that had seemed like such a good idea. Everyone I knew had told me to come because there was so much more opportunity in the big city. No one in their right mind had been thinking about whether that made it a desirable target, because who on earth thought like that?

All around our building, we can see surveillance drones hovering in the sky, dotting the sunset like bugs in flypaper. Some of the drunker members of the company lean over the roof barrier and wave at them, laughing. When a military UAV screams through the air overhead, they whoop and holler, cheering it on as it passes. We don’t even know which side it belongs to, but really, does it matter anymore?

Off to the side, I can see Linda from Sales starting to break down, her shoulders hunching as she begins to sob. Her assistant swoops in, helpful to the end, wrapping her arm around her back to guide her downstairs. Everyone notices, but we say nothing, determined to stay cheerful for as long as we can. It’s not like crying will solve anything, not anymore.

Gus starts playing ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’, and I feel a tug of sadness that threatens to take me over. Before it has the chance, Rob from Customer Service asks me if I want to dance, and I say yes. I lean my face against his shoulder and sling my arm around his waist, and I feel the palm of his hand sitting warm on my back.

Rob used to bring me free coffee when he brought breakfast into morning meetings. After the first attack landed, he’d salvaged batteries from an abandoned gas station and passed them out to everyone in our department. I think that if we had lived in different times, I could have fallen for him. Maybe in some other version of our lives, we have a happy future ahead of us.

I turn my head, still leaning against Rob, and I can see some other pairs of people slowly swaying to the music. In the distance, another UAV soars closer to us, a swelling black blot that’s almost hidden against the darkening sky. A small puff of smoke bursts underneath it, barely visible.

I know what’s coming, and I refuse to let myself care. Rob is warm and solid, and the wine has softened any fear I might have felt. The guitar strings still strum out music, and we all sway in place, and none of us try to run when the payload whistles through the air on its way to meet us.
  • 8

"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not."

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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby AboveGL » Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:10 pm

...RLG, these are bloody excellent.
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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:49 pm

Thank you!! I'm really glad you enjoyed them. I'm really excited and pleased with how far I've gotten in this contest, and I appreciate that people are reading them SO MUCH.
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"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not."

Encyclopedia Dramatica wrote:Reallifegirl: Is supposedly a girl in real life, but we all know that's false. Gets highest comment roughly 75% of the time, and has never had a single red-thumbed comment. Ever.
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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby DoglovingJim » Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:02 pm

reallifegirl wrote:Thank you!! I'm really glad you enjoyed them. I'm really excited and pleased with how far I've gotten in this contest, and I appreciate that people are reading them SO MUCH.


Of course we are reading them so much, because you are an amazing writer. It certainly was a good idea for me to convince you to post your stories here, you certainly brought us a lot of entertainment.
  • 5

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Edgar Cabrera wrote:HOLY SHIT GUYS, IT'S DOGLOVINGJIM!!! HE'S HERE!!!

skoobadive wrote:It's the legendary DoglovingJim! Ohboy, this must be the greatest day of my life!

Cracked.com wrote:Initially, his interest in animals was "primarily a sexual attraction," but as he grew older, he also "developed the emotional attraction." We guess we could call what Jim does ... dog-lovin'
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Re: RLG Attempts a Writing Contest

Postby reallifegirl » Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:00 pm

Thanks, Jim!! I'm happy you asked me to post them, too!
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Encyclopedia Dramatica wrote:Reallifegirl: Is supposedly a girl in real life, but we all know that's false. Gets highest comment roughly 75% of the time, and has never had a single red-thumbed comment. Ever.
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