Rose Petals Spinning in Space [1,040 words]

This short story is posted in Science Fiction.

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It’s time for another of Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction challenges, and this week’s is pretty bizarre. Fairy Tales, Remixed.

I hope you enjoy!

Rose Petals Spinning in Space

by Rick Cook Jr

She was awake for two years all by herself, running system diagnostics, maintaining the ship, checking the garden to ensure the water tubes nourished the plants and flowers. The tulips grew, but the roses never bloomed. Continue reading

Whispering Luck [2,500 words]

This short story is posted in Supernatural.

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Time for another piece of fiction prompted by Chuck Wendig’s weekly Flash Fiction Challenge. This week’s is titled “The Who, The Where, and the Uh-Oh”.

Whispering Luck

by Rick Cook Jr

The day they killed me was the day Lucky Joe’s stopped being so lucky.

I could tell you the story of how I died, but let’s just say I was doing something stupid and dangerous against just pure dangerous and I lost.

But I’m still here. Locked to Lucky Joe’s, or so it would seem. If you remember Beetlejuice, you have some idea of what happens when I try to leave. Only instead of badly-animated graboids it’s a keening, wailing, sucking darkness.

Sometimes, like now, I stand at the doors to the outside world, staring at the blank abyss, and I want to step in. My brother must be beyond that. Maybe my first girlfriend who I’d later found out died in a bombing in Iraq. My grandparents, my ancestors.

Or maybe it is just the nothing it looks like. Continue reading

Minotaur Kid’s Club [2,066 words]

This short story is posted in Fantasy.

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It’s been a hot minute since I posted anything at all, but new year and all that. Time to start fresh with a new short story response to Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge, Roll For Title. Twice as long as the word limit, but I really don’t adhere to that very often.

Minotaur Kid’s Club

by Rick Cook Jr.

“This is it, this time, I can feel it, guys!” Marth whispered, his voice cracking. He was in the back, by torchlight reading yet another map to the Labyrinth. Corley huffed. Wenda wrung her hands together.

They rounded a corner in the sewer tunnels, finding another long, straight stretch. The tunnel walls sagged and crumbled, forlorn with age. Continue reading