It’s April 26th, 2015. Week sixteen of writing 1,000 words per day of fiction. It’s time for another update!
Days 109 through 114 have been successes, with a minimum of 1,000 words per day written.
Stats for Days 109 to 115: Continue reading
Tag Archives: short story
1K a Day Challenge – Week Fifteen
It’s April 18th, 2015. Week fifteen of writing 1,000 words per day of fiction.
It’s time for another update!
Days 102 through 108 have been successes, with a minimum of 1,000 words per day written.
Stats for Days 102 to 108: 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
Lilavati’s Morning Routine [1,070 words]
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.
The First Line Was The Last [890 words][nsfw-drugs]
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]
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]
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]
This short story is posted in Fiction, Science Fiction, and Short Stories.
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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
Unseen [1,800 words]
This story is posted in Fiction, Horror, and Short Stories.
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Unseen
by Rick Cook Jr
“I hate him I hate him I hate him!” Wanda shouted, punctuating each stomp up the steps with another “I hate him!”
Laughter echoed up, clanging around inside her skull until she shook her head and leaned over the banister at the top of the stairs to cry, “I hope you find a snake and it bites your face!” She stalked off down the hall.
Her mother called from downstairs, “Wanda! You don’t ever-” Wanda slammed her bedroom door, cutting off the remark.
The sound pleased her and she grabbed hold of the knob to yank it open and slam it again. The door wouldn’t budge from its frame.
She screamed her frustration out while pulling on the knob. “Stupid door! Stupid house! Nothing ever works like it’s supposed to in this stupid old dump.” Wanda kicked the doorframe for good measure and heard a soft thump in the adjacent wall. Continue reading
The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms [1153 words]
This story is posted in Fiction, Short Stories, and Writing Prompts.
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This is another short story prompted from Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenges, this time it was called “ABC meets XYZ“. It was fun but incredibly difficult!
Content warning: There are some graphic descriptions of violence, PG-13 language, and sexual discussion if not description. You’ve been warned.
The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms
by Rick Cook JrThe first time I felt truly alive was the moment after I was almost meat, for the first time. I’ve been almost meat more times than I’ve had sex, and I’ve done both a lot. That’s not bragging, it’s just simple truth.
And the sex after the apocalypse is some of the best I’ve ever had. You don’t know release like “Oh my God we escaped the zombies today” sexual release. I’m sorry, but you just don’t. Continue reading
Panning For Clouds 