Category Archives: Fiction

An Artist’s Legacy [430 words]

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This is in response to a writing prompt over at Reddit, in /r/writingprompts. As of this posting it was the highest rated story for that particular prompt. The prompt was simply “In this world, you can instantaneously teach somebody a new skill and trade or give them a precious memory of yours, but once you give it away, you lose it yourself.”

An Artist’s Legacy

by Rick Cook Jr

I’m old and my time is coming to an end. The Department of Traded Skills has advertisements everywhere, targeted at people like me.

Sell your experience on the DoTS market! Apprentice and Journeyman rates comparable to your experience! Master rates pending evaluation!

Don’t want to wait for those drum lessons? Shred like Neil Peart in a fraction of the time! In the fine print it reads: Results not guaranteed to make you a rock star.

Somewhere out there Mozart still composes. Continue reading →

The Terminator [1,100 words]

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Fair warning, this is less a story and more a narrative. An angry, cursing, rambling, narrative about drinking and fighting. Seriously, lots of swearing. It’s also for Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge of the week A Drink with a Story, A Story with a Drink.

The Terminator

by Rick Cook Jr

I’ve never been able to fight, let’s just get that out of the way right now. The number of times I’ve curled up into a ball to avoid the worst of the kicks is equal to the number of times I’ve gotten into a fight.

I tried to learn karate, or… judo, or something. I don’t know. It was hard. The sensei or whatever was a real dick. I quit and then took a piss in his gas tank. Well, I tried. Just ended up with a kidney punch and piss all over my karate outfit. Continue reading →

Rose Petals Spinning in Space [1,040 words]

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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]

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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]

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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 →

Lilavati’s Morning Routine [1,070 words]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Literature.

A bit of a departure from my regular genre fiction, but here’s hoping someone out there likes it.

A quick shoutout to K.C. Wise of Writing While Black, from whom I borrowed the last two lines. I’m hopeful she won’t be angry with me (or for changing it a bit), but I did really love this line and wanted to use it.

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Her Morning Routine

by Rick Cook Jr

Lilavati did not sleep last night. She lay awake, running her morning routine over and over. Wake before the sun rises, wash her face, brush her teeth, wrap her mundum neriyathum about her body, milk the goat, gather vegetables and herbs from the garden, strike the fire for breakfast, walk along the white sands, pray. Her morning routine never changes, and it cannot change this morning.

The rare drought has come to seaside Kerala, and her morning prayer yesterday should have asked for rain. But she does not wish for rain.

Continue reading →

The First Line Was The Last [890 words][nsfw-drugs]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Writing Prompts.

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The First Line Was The Last

by Rick Cook Jr

Once upon a time, there was a story so short, it was only a single line. That line danced up the straw into my nose, a churning whirlwind of promise. I leaned back, snorting and coughing, holding my nose shut against the tingling urge to sneeze all that powder back out. Everyone around me laughed as I started to sniff. I didn’t feel anything different, except a pleasant numbing sensation. It tasted funny, in the back of my throat. Continue reading →

How I Felt When I Saved The World [2,300 words][slightly NSFW]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, and Grimdark.

If you aren’t familiar with Grimdark, just let me warn you: nothing good happens in this story. It’s full of awfulness and I apologize in advance. Also a little NSFW for mild language and sexual content.

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How I Felt When I Saved The World

by Rick Cook Jr

Our white clothing blended with the whitewashed walls and décor. Sprays of crimson marred the columns on our way up. Delaana wiped her daggers on the corpses as they fell, and we dashed up the interior stairwell before their bodies even settled. Delaana ran ahead, scouting; already her disguise was painted in gore. I strengthened my barriers against the fear and anger borrowed from the guards, letting it wash through me until I was alone with my own emotions once more. Continue reading →

Ferryman’s Bluff [1,350 words]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Fantasy.

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Ferryman’s Bluff

by Rick Cook Jr

They collapsed in a heap on the ferry as it pulled away. Rangold was first to his feet, sneering and jeering at the group of five on the pier, who were shouting and cursing.

“Hah,” Rangold shouted. “This is last time you see us empty-handed!” He turned and dropped his trousers to the group, who all averted their gazes or threw rocks. One bounced off Rangold’s rump and he jumped up, yelping. The surprised expression on Rangold’s broad face almost made Murce laugh. Almost. Continue reading →

An Original Sin [3,100 words] [NSFW-language]

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This short story is posted in Fiction, Science Fiction, and Short Stories.

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Subtext.

Rembrandt’s lost work “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”.

An Original Sin

Eva slipped in through a rusted, decaying vent on the surface level. It came apart with a simple heel stomp and she glided down the shaft, knocking loose a fan on the way. It clattered and tumbled, coming to rest some hundred meters below.

If anyone was in the bunker, her element of surprise was gone. She continued down, muttering.

Soon she reached the shattered fan blades in a juncture in the vent system and lightly set her feet down. The vent moaned, its fastenings creaking. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about how chubby she must be if the vent collapsed under her weight. She began to crawl. Continue reading →