Category: Flash

Flash: Mannequin

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

Brandson approached the mannequin cautiously. Too many weird fucking things have happened recently. Things appearing to be alive weren’t, things that shouldn’t be alive were, and we don’t even describe what was happening with the dead things. But to get to the other side of the room … to get to the next door which may lead out of this mad house … he must pass within arm’s reach of the mannequin.

“Because of course the door leading out is located directly fucking behind you.” Brandson commented out loud. “No offense darling, you’re beautiful but I stopped dating blowup dolls a while ago.”

All the room’s illumination pointed to the mannequin, making her plastic face shine. Her arms, covered with long black gloves, wrapped around herself tightly in fear; a feeling Brandson was becoming more and more familiar with. An evening gown stretched downward, wrapping her legs tightly together, before spilling down the small dais located immediately before the door he hoped lead out of wherever he was. Threads flowed out, crossing the only lighted path available.

Behind him, he heard a thump and a wet screech. “Yeah, yeah. I know you’re still there you mother-fucking salad!”

He hoped the last nightmare couldn’t uproot from its planter.

Brandson considered taking a step off the well-lit area to avoid the unraveling threads. He peered into the darkness. The four spotlights, each hovering in seemingly empty air, destroyed any night vision.

He returned to studying the mannequin, and jumped seeing her hands had moved. Instead of hugging herself, she was now trying to pull her hair from around her neck. Her complicated coiffure started in a bun at the top of her head, secured with a few sticks topped with cut gems. Multi-color strands wrapped around her head, behind her nape and then again around her neck.

“Shit, are you alive?” he asked, staring. The plastic face and hands made no movement. The eyes seemed to focus on him, pleading rescue, screaming in fear.

Looking down, to make certain he didn’t step on a thread, he discovered the cloth had pulled back to dressy cocktail length. The hem now skimmed the top of her very sexy, plastic knees and her shapely legs continued down to strappy black heels. Her toe nails were painted the same exact bright shade as her lips.

The mannequin looked a whole hell of a lot better than the blow-up his brother bought him as a joke when he went off to college. Shit, if Old Susie had looked this good he may have stayed away from Psycho Miranda. How long ago was that?

The floor raised into a little meter by meter square for the mannequin to stand on. The lighted path only extended a decimeter either side of the step. He debated looking up again to see what the plastic being was doing, but decided against it.

Muttering “No guts, no glory.” he made a run for it. Keeping an eye on his feet and tapping peripheral vision to watch the black skirt and the dark shadow, he rushed by the podium.

A gloved hand grabbed him as he passed and yanked him hard enough one of his feet took a step onto the platform before he could regain his balance. Brandson looked up to see the mannequin’s hair was wrapped around the arm grabbing him. She had pivoted and now faced the door denied him.

As he watched, the multi-color strands writhed where they separated the fingers gripping his arm.

“Please, sir.” The plastic doll begged. “Leave while you can.”

The woman’s face still shined plastic, but now looked like a clear plastic mask glued over a human face. Her eyes no longer were glass orbs, but bottomless green lakes of fear and concern.

“Is this the way out?” He asked. Brandson tried to take a step back only to find her fingers were not letting go. In addition, something had snaked around the foot located on the dais.

“I don’t know.”

The hair crossed from her fingers and started to wind around his bicep. Brandson  yelped.

“Is This The Way OUT?” He asked, his voice getting louder and louder as he used his other hand to untangle the strands.

Tears pooled, turning her eyes pure jade. “I don’t know.”

He dropped his eyes to his foot and discovered his own jeans hand lengthened to merge into the wood platform. “Then what the fuck do you know?” He asked contemplating how to escape the second part of the trap.

Her voice changed, picking up speed from her previous slow cadence, and a gutter hiss punctuated each word. “Dolly dear in spider web, bite your mate so you can live.”

“What the fuck?” He asked, snapping his head up to look at her face. For a second, he saw hairy legs reach out from the bun on her head. Mulit-faceted eyes blinked once on their stalks before returning to their gem-like camouflage appearance.

He felt her free hand unbuttoning his fly. Brandson’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Help me push them down,” she instructed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He said as her hand stroked his dick, pushing the jean fabric apart. After a second thought, he started pushing the cloth down. They both worked the tight denim until gravity took over. He was almost ready for the killing kiss as a release by the time they were through.  He started to lean towards her.

“Sir, … I will not free myself at another’s expense.” Her plastic mask moved as her face tensed. Still staring into his eyes, she brought up her free hand and crashed it down on the arm held in place by the spider silk. The plastic shattered.

With the detached hand still gripping his arm, he fell backwards against the door. His jeans remained attached to the dias.

With her remaining hand, the woman was holding an arm ending shortly past her elbow. Plastic goo froze mid-drip from white shards. Her plastic face, returned to looking like a plastic doll, was twisted in pain.  Four feathered boas rose out of her bun as though supported by wires and bent inward to frame her face. Her gown was once again tight around her legs. The trailing loose fringe hem had all the threads stretching towards his jeans and him.

Reaching up, he used the doorknob to help stand. Keeping an eye on the woman and her captor, he whispered to her. “I wish I could help you.”

He opened the door and stepped through to discover what was beyond.

(words 1,096 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 4/15/2013, published on old blog on 4/21/2013; republished new blog format 9/10/2017) 

Flash: Regret

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

“You are going to regret this.”

 

The words slipped out of Joshua’s mouth, half threat and half remorse, as he watched them circle. Vampires. They were somebodies once.

 

The woman of the brood laughed. “Oh, yes little man, regret rules my every living moment. …. Wait, I’m not alive.”

 

No, she wasn’t. Nor were most people on the planet now. Fuck the Zombie Apocalypse, vampires came first.

 

Joshua watched the woman, keeping his eyes on her. None of the others will move until she does. The thing that rode them, that rode the once-humans, loved the hollow space inside women. From there they could seed dozens of others. But women were jealous bitches. Only one per brood.

 

Some of the vampire broods were smart and started farms so they could keep their blood supply. But vampires were more plague than predator, refusing to find a balance with their ecology. The smart ones turned out not so smart as the others raided the farms and killed their less aggressive kin.

 

Joshua counted only seven in the brood, so the mistress may decide to have her cake and eat it too. Desert and dominion. If so, she would order him stripped before the group feast so she could ride him into oblivion.

 

As usual, the tormenting ended in a blink and they closed before his human thoughts could process. The first bite was hers. He screamed in pain, then screamed again, tearing his vocal cords as pleasure thrust over and above the pain.

 

He didn’t think he would ever get enough.

 

**********************

Dawn swept into the broken building where Joshua had been cornered. He watched as first one then another of the gentle pink death rays disintegrate his attempted killers. He grabbed some of their clothes to replace the ones torn from his body the night before.

 

As with any plague, someone’s immune system was slightly better at fighting off the disease than others. Lucky him. Leukemia survivors possessed immunity in a manner similar to sickle cell for malaria. If you can survive the one, you can survive the other.

(Words 351 – first published 1/9/2013; published in new blog format on 9/3/2017)

Flash: Stone Circle Clearing

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

Another rustle a little further from camp drew Lucius attention. The small Roman scouting party was deep in the unknown lands of this island and he had drawn the second night shift. He squinted through the fog trying to make out the forms deeper in the woods. They had camped on the edge of a forest in the younger trees. Evidentially, the village did not need as much farming land as it did about nine years ago, based on the size of the trees.

The hamlet had made no notice of their arrival, and likely would be a quick conquest once his group reported all they found to the Ferrata Legate. But the woods disturb him. He moved closer to investigate and winced as the armor straps bit into him and the plates clanked together. The rustle moved rapidly away.

Enough.

He grew up herding goats and knew how to move quietly to get in position to kill predators.  He unbuckled the compressing leather. The straps had stretched out in the warmth of the day during their swift march; nightfall had brought the cold and the weird fog. He had seen fog drift across water before, but never rise from the forest floor.

He quietly laid the cold iron aside just outside of camp and muttered a prayer to Mars to keep the Decanus asleep until he had finished his investigation. Being out of armor while awake included many punishments, the least being a reduction in salt. Laying a hand on his broadsword’s sheath to control its movement, Lucius melted into the older growth.

The full moon acted as daylight in the area the forest was reclaiming, but the full branches in this area blocked all but the most persistent light. Even so Lucius was able to place his sandals silently as he followed where he thought the rustle lead. A curious child from the village, or finally a warrior in this timid realm? A silver flash reflected off of cloth passing between the shadows to his right.

Within moments, the solider came into a clearing made by a fallen ancient. He walked around the exposed boulders surrounding the moonlight area. The moss-covered deadwood was taller than his short stature and blocked his view from the other side, but for the first time he heard music. A lute perhaps.

Staying in shadows he made his way around until he saw the two most shapely women he had ever seen. Stunned, he forgot to watch his step and last year’s leaves gave him away. They turned as one towards him. Somehow the haze cleared from his eyes and he clearly saw their faces matched their beautiful shapes and they were wearing traditional Egyptian outfits. Their full breasts fully exposed above flowing gauze.

“Come.” The black haired one invited. Then modesty made her bite her bottom lips for so bold a request. The blonde quickly glanced at the other and then nodded.  Turning her emerald eyes back to him, the blonde offered out a hand. “Yes, please come.”

Lucius didn’t even remember crossing to them. He just grasped the pale hand and pulled the blonde against his body and erection. His leather skirt was left with the armor, so the woman should easily feel his lust through the linen shirt and subligaculum.  As the woman pressed herself more firmly against him, the Roman gave silent thanks to Bacchus and crushed her centurion scarlet mouth with in a ravaging kiss.

Behind him the raven hair beauty stroked his back and commented in Latin accented from his home village. “Do I not get a turn?”

Somewhere his mind whimpered warning as he twisted his head around. The second set of lips met his as his thumbs traced the first female’s nipples. The two drew him down to the forest floor.

His ears felt the sweet female breath. “You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?”

Lucius blinked and saw the women had come into the woods to have a picnic. But not just a simple country meal … before him was spread delicacies that rivaled Ceasar’s table.

“In a moment my lovely” he said as he lifted the gauze from the brunette’s ass. Her sapphire eyes glanced over her shoulders as he mounted her. Her hiss of pleasure was all he could ask for. As he felt cock get squeezed by the pale ass he was penetrating, the blonde kneeled in front of her companion and laid a lark’s tongue across each of her nipples.

Sex and food, what more could a solider want? He leaned forward, going deeper into the woman underneath him and sucked the morsels from blonde’s breasts.

The Ferrata Legio never found what happened to their scouting party in Hibernia. And somehow they never managed to conquer the Isle. It was as if the very spirits of the land worked against them.

 (814 words – originally appearing in Sunday Fun for Breathless Press on 11/11/12; republished new blog format 8/27/2017)

Related story: Captivated

Flash: Balance Sheet

Erin Penn

Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash

Rating: Mature (Language)

“I’m going to kill him; I’m going to kill them all.”

“Really?” Watching her youngest storm up the wooden steps onto her porch, Daphne Gigante rocked her chair forward to set down her needles on top of her knitting basket. The half-done mint green scarf matched the purple one around Albert’s neck. “Calm down.”

“They disrespected me.” Albert muttered while he paced along the boards. “Ain’t nobody disrespect me.”

“So you are going to kill them all?” Daphne shook her head, considering whether to move the conversation indoors. She glanced up and down the street, placing each vehicle and person into friend or foe status. Everything within three blocks was recognizable. Cops really hated surveillance during the winter; the cars got cold when they couldn’t run the engine for heat without giving themselves away.

“Yep.”

She snorted at that simple statement as he stopped moving, legs spread and fists on his hips facing her and the front door instead of watching the street. “Yeah, that is going to learn them all some lessons.” She adjusted the afghan on her lap, tucking the edges back under. The blanket had moved when she had laid the knitting down.

“Fuck yeah.” Albert sneered in triumph, his black eyes sparkling.

“No it ain’t.” Daphne spat. “Sit yourself down right now son.” She waved at the short stool on her right, not the second rocking chair on her left.

The five foot ten inch nineteen year old glared at his mother before he resumed pacing between the small seating area and the white painted railing.

A Smith and Wesson semi-auto pistol jumped in Daphne’s hands, the light of the laser sight dancing across Albert’s center of mass. “I said sit. Don’t you go speak about respect and disrespect me.” Her voice was a calmly lethal as the weapon.

Albert quickly hunched down on the child stool, struggling with his long legs until they ended up crossed in front of him, half keeping him from toppling off the chair.

“Now you ready to listen or do I need to pound you some sense into your thick skull.” She pantomimed striking his head with the grip.

“I’m listening mom.”

Daphne slipped the gun under the blanket, wiggling a bit because the metal weapon had taken some of the ambient air temperature while out. “Right. You don’t go killing randomly.”

Albert surged up, growling, “It ain’t random.”

“I’m talking here.” The gun reappeared, and this time the red dot aimed at his jean’s zipper.

Albert sat right back down, scooting the stool for a better angle to watch his mother’s face.

Giving him an evil eye, Daphne waited until he stopped moving before tucking the gun away again. “You don’t go killing randomly, you hear me?”

After a couple seconds of silence, Daphne cuffed her son lightly on the ear. “Answer me when I am talking to you boy.”

Albert swallowed before asking, “Now?”, the sneer and gangster confidence long gone.

“When else, smart mouth?” Daphne reached for her knitting, confident in her ability to control the situation now the teen anger had been removed. “Do you hear what I am saying?”

“Don’t kill randomly.”

After arranging everything to restart, she gripped the needles in her left and gently stroked her son’s cheek with her right. “Good. This is why you’re my favorite, aside from being the only one not in prison.”

Clicking needles filled the void in conversation for a moment.

“You kill precisely. Got that?” Daphne said conversationally as she started the next row after glancing up and down the street again.

“Kill precisely.”

“You kill too much and people start expecting it.”

Albert nodded.

“You kill too much and it cheapens the killing.”

His thick eyebrows met. “Are you talking economics?” Watching her watch the street, Albert tried to read something in the bland face of the woman who executed her own husband at the order of the mob boss, ten years before she took the fucker out and fixed the gang to her own extracting standards while he was in high school.

“Yeah, supply and demand shit.” She paused in her knitting to stare into his eyes. “Listen up boy, you kill all the time, and you flood the market. Killing becomes like fast food, cheap and quick and you don’t want that. When you kill you want it to mean something. A gift, only a very nasty gift. Got that?”

“Umm.” Albert tried to break eye contact. He didn’t want her to think he was challenging her. But he couldn’t, until she dropped her gaze to her knitting, then he blinked several times.

“Beat up people all you want. Scare them.” Her calm, mother-knows-best voice continued. “But only kill them when you absolutely got to.”

“Because killing gots to mean something.” Albert hoped he had the right answer.

“That’s my boy.” She paused in her knitting to stroke his cheek again. “Now go get some of your buds and hospitalize those blancwoggs.”

Hopping up, Albert nodded at his mother and strode to the front steps.

The clicking needles stopped when he reached the bottom stairs and turned toward the O’Dare house. “Don’t get caught sweetie.”

(Words 862 – first published 8/20/2017)

Flash: Running Until Found

Erin Penn

Today was a slow, rainy Sunday morning – perfect for snuggling. A day and emotional setting unlike what had driven them together last night and kept them up until the first of the rain hit the tent roof.

Lyle petted Barney’s hair as the watery light shimmered through the nylon canvas. The running will stop soon. He had no idea how far they had run before the car ran out of gas, nor how far they walked after that. Someone would find them.

Today, tomorrow, the next. Until then, he planned to keep Barney as safe as he could. As safe as he should have kept him before they ran.

(words 110 – originally appearing at Breathless Press 5/5/2013 for the 2/19/12 Sunday Fun  – The original photo was of unknown copyright so did not put on my site – published on old blog 05/05/2013; republished in new blog format on 8/13/2017)