FLASH CHALLENGE: October '09

[kailhofer]

The "Campfire Ghost Stories" Challenge:



The same weekend as Aphelicon, I was at a family reunion at my in-laws. Even though it was August, it was miserably cold that whole weekend, so just about everyone there spent almost the whole time huddling around a big campfire.

As darkness descended and we looked around at the faces flickering in the firelight, one brave soul tried to tell a ghost story. Then another was offered.

Their hearts were in the right place, but the stories were, well... they were just awful. As I sat in the darkness, it occurred to me that there just aren't great firelight "ghost" stories anymore like The Golden Arm or something lighter, like The Cat that Didn't Purr. At least, if there are, my wife's extended family sure hasn't heard them.

However, flash stories like we write in these challenges are exactly the right length for telling around the fire. Opportunity knocks!

I challenge you to write a tale of the weird and unknown, the kind of "ghost" story you'd like to hear as you sit with your own friends and family around a campfire on a dark, moonless fall night. Send shivers down our spines, I dare you!

See the example at the end of this post for a possibility.


REQUIREMENTS: (1) Your campfire "ghost" story must be composed as if you were telling it around a campfire as the narrator; (2) Your story doesn't actually have to contain a ghost, but does need a SF/Horror aspect in the spirit of "weird and unknown" or spooky; (3) 1,000 words or less, not counting title, byline, or "The End"; (4) The characters, setting, and story must be fictional and not previously published, even in these challenges; (5) One entry per author; (6) Give your story a title and a byline; and (7) Keep it mostly clean, rated PG-13. You'd want to be able to tell these stories to older kids and teenagers, as well as adults.

If, in my judgment, any requirement is missed, I won't post the story for voting. Sorry, but rules are for everyone.

HOW TO ENTER: Stories must be sent by PRIVATE MESSAGE, and NOT posted into a thread. Just click the 'PM' button at the bottom of this post and paste your story in the message. You are responsible for doing your own formatting, and leave an extra line between paragraphs, just like when you see them in the 'zine. I will allow different colors, but not changed fonts or sizes, artwork, or any other embedded or external links.

DO NOT send a regular email to me.

Stories will be posted "blind"--without the author's name on them. All the story titles are literally tossed into a hat and chosen at in random order. When the poll closes after the voting week, I'll post a list of the stories and who wrote them. All entries will then be reposted in the Flash Archive with the author's byline.

Entries from new authors are strongly encouraged. C'mon. Give it a try!

NOTE: ONLY REGISTERED MEMBERS who have posted at least one message may submit a story or "detailed" vote. Without that one post, the system will not let you send a PM.

DEADLINE: Stories should be in by 9 p.m. Central Standard Time (GMT-5), Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. The stories will then be posted for voting at 10 p.m. Voting will close on Oct. 28 at approximately 10 p.m., GMT-5.

VOTING: You must register to vote. One vote per user (that is, per ip address). Voting will be a 2-part affair with a regular poll for favorite and a detailed vote for writing skills sent as a PM. The poll vote will be weighted to match the detailed votes in the final tally, so just winning the poll will not guarantee victory. That should help keep the trolls away.

If more than two stories are tied at the end of voting, there will be a succession of one-day runoff votes until a single winner is chosen or the number of winners is reduced to two.

WHAT YOU WIN: Writers get improved short fiction skills, increasing their chances in the marketplace, without the lengthy investment in time a longer story would take. That, as well as bragging rights and pride--there is stiff competition each month amongst some great stories.

LEGAL STUFF: Aphelion will not try to make a dime off you or your stories. Really. We want to see you succeed but nothing about that will line any of our pockets. We love fiction and we love seeing authors get better to the point where people do pay them for their stories. That's why we're in this.

I'll try to do my best lawyer impersonation: By entering this or any challenge you are technically granting Aphelion: The Webzine of Science Fiction and Fantasy perpetual electronic rights only to post and archive your challenge entry. We'd rather not lay any claim on them at all, but by posting them on a public site, they'd legally count as being published no matter what.

Ok. A real lawyer would have been less interesting. I tried.


Example story, not eligible for entry:


It All Comes Out in the Wash

By:
N.J. Kailhofer



This story happened in a Laundromat, an everyday ordinary place in an ordinary town in the middle of middle income America.

The story was about Claire. There was nothing much wrong with her--she was on the heavy side, but Claire certainly was not ugly. She just hadn't found the right man yet to hook up with.

Claire cleaned houses but didn't make enough to own a washer or dryer, which is why she took her clothes to the Laundromat. She went on Tuesday nights because it was always less crowded. Claire was embarrassed about her weight, and the clear windows on the dryers let everyone see the size of her underwear.

This particular Tuesday, Claire was alone in the shop. She hummed a tune to herself, daydreaming as she folded a load.

Behind her, a voice with a thick Greek accent said, "Excuse me, Miss?"

Claire jumped. Two rows of machines behind her was a very handsome man. He was tall, thin but muscular, and had red hair.

"Yes?" she asked.

The man smiled. "I'm sorry to interrupt your... music, but I wondering if you could lend some advice to me."

She blushed and said, "I didn't hear you come in."

He shrugged. "My name is Pirro Diabolos and I just move here. My Uncle dies last month and now his place mine. He has rug in the basement that I really like... but it stinks. Stinks too much. I not able to get it clean, so I want to try washing machine. Does machines here take over-big loads?"

She pointed. "That one does. What kind of rug is it?"

Pirro reached down and pulled it out of his basket.

Claire gasped. "That's a bearskin rug. You can't put that in a washing machine."

Pirro looked sheepish. "Not go in?"

Claire laughed. "You don't have a wife, right?"

"Why you ask?"

Claire said, "No offense, but all you men know so little about cleaning anything. Try sprinkling it with cornstarch and rubbing it off with a lightly damp cloth. Then vacuum the rest out."

"And that will get it clean? Just starch of corn?"

Claire said, "If that doesn't work, you probably need a professional taxidermist. There's one over in Putwich, but that's 20 miles from here."

Pirro thanked her and left.

The next Tuesday night, Pirro was already there.

"Ah," he said, "Miss smart woman. I very glad to see you. Rug all better. I want give gift of thanks as we do in my country. Xynomavro--black wine."

Pirro gave a winning smile and held up a dark green bottle and a pair of wine glasses. "But smart woman must tell Pirro her name, first."

Claire knew she didn't know this man at all really, and that a Laundromat wasn't a very romantic place, but none of the few available men in town had ever asked to have a drink with her. Plus, Pirro was exotic and very handsome.

"Claire," she said, and she took a glass. They drank and did laundry for the rest of the evening. Claire talked about cleaning things and Pirro talked about coming to America and the opportunity this country gave to someone like him. When she left that evening, she felt happier than she had in years.

[align=center]***[/align]

The whole next week Claire couldn't wait for Tuesday night to come around. His face lingered in her mind, and she let herself dream that maybe Pirro would be interested enough they could go on a real date... and maybe even something more.

When she walked in, he was by his usual machine. One of the dryers behind him clunked with a heavy load.

"Miss Claire, my companion of the laundry. Pirro happy to see you."

She said, "Pirro, you don't have a car here. Where do you live? I could pick you up on the way so you didn't have to carry all that laundry."

He had quite a pile, stacked high. "Oh, no. Is just around corner and down street. No problem to carry."

Claire thought that was odd, since she knew all the people on that street, and cleaned for several of them. Still, perhaps he was confused or was just proud and didn't want ask for help. He was a man, after all.

Claire looked at his huge pile of laundry. "Where did you get all those clothes? Do you need help sorting that?"

Pirro shook his head. "No, no. Uncle leaves mess everywhere. This should be last of him. Pretty Claire does not need to clean for Pirro, too."

Claire asked, "You think I'm pretty?"

He smiled and held up another bottle of black wine. "I think Miss Claire is beautiful woman."

Claire felt her heart in her throat. "I think Pirro is a very handsome man."

He stepped close, and he kissed her. Claire felt her knees get weak. She leaned her head on his shoulder and held him tight. For that moment, Claire felt that everything in her life was finally going to be all right.

The dryer in the back clunked again and she glanced at it just in time to see a severed hand against the window of the door, tumbling in the laundry.

She gasped and looked back into the face of the man who held her in his arms.

He said, "Bits of Uncle everywhere. Thanks for teaching Pirro how to clean him. Almost 150 years now Pirro in this country, but still never learns to clean up right. Pirro needed meet you."

[align=center]***[/align]

The next morning, Claire's car was found in the lot. Inside the Laundromat, her clothes were neatly folded in her baskets and on top of them was a single, green bottle filled with a dark red liquid.

A search of the entire town couldn't find her. The laundry closed for a time, but then eventually reopened with a new name: Diabolos. Of course, everyone was so preoccupied with the rash of disappearances, no one noticed.


[align=center]The End[/align]

[kailhofer]

There!

My example is in place like it should have been on Friday.

[kailhofer]

It's been awfully quiet on this one. Not a single entry so far, which is unusual.

Did I miss the mark on this one? Not catch anyone's fancy?

Is there anyone so dissatisfied with the new voting system that they wouldn't want to participate if I did it again? I believe I can say with some certainty that no false votes were received. As I said before, I can post a form that one could copy and paste, then just put in the numbers.

Or maybe we could do both ways, regular poll and feedback numbers, throwing out the popular poll vote if it seems hinky? Or maybe poll for favorite, but vote for skills as PM, then combine the two?

Opinions?

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

I just finished a first draft of an entry for this one. I have to trim about 150 - 200 words to get it down to size, but should be done well before the deadline.

RM

[kailhofer]

It's been reported to me that at least one person had sent his story earlier but it never arrived at my end. Hopefully, he didn't accidentally send it to one of the fake Kailhofer troll users by mistake. Nevertheless, if anyone out there has already sent their story--I didn't get it. I have only one entry, and I notified that person I had received it.

I haven't heard anything about the PM system being down. With luck, it's not. Of course, with the bank shutting down the company I worked for on Thursday without warning (to me, anyway), luck is not something I have a lot of right now.

I've never been unemployed before. It's a weird feeling.

Nate

[Robert_Moriyama]

I have been unemployed (when the charter airline Wardair's IT functions were fully absorbed by Canadian Airlines), and thanks to a lovely provision in Canadian Employment Insurance (they thought "Unemployment Insurance" sounded too icky, I guess), had to burn through the severance package before I could even file a claim for benefits. I thought I had a few good prospects, but ended up out of work for about 6 months and finally landed in a non-IT job (on the strength of my aviation industry experience more than my IT skills).

At least I had the opportunity to plan for the event (much though those plans did not work out). Nate, will you get any severance at all? Did you have any funds in a company-administered pension plan? It's moments like these when the World Bank and IMF et al. claiming that the recession is over seem pretty laughable. Over for whom? Some investment bank executives are sure making out okay, which is all that matters to the folks who make such pronouncements.

(It's good to know that the banks that handle your company's funds are so sensitive to the needs of the community. They will, of course, raise their service charges to cover all the personal-loan defaults. )

[kailhofer]

At least I had the opportunity to plan for the event (much though those plans did not work out). Nate, will you get any severance at all? Did you have any funds in a company-administered pension plan?

No warning, but I really should have seen it coming from the way folks were acting. Things were never overly prosperous, but when you average 50-70 hours all the time holding everything together, supply chain problems were just part of the gig. That, and you're too busy to really look when you work that much. Little did I know they stopped buying supplies because they knew they were shutting down. I made something out of the scraps that were left to keep things going those 3 days because that's what I do. I improvise and think outside the box. Waaay outside.

However, and this really ticked me off, even though I worked there 21 years and was one of the managers, I was actually the last to be told, after the rest of the employees. The rest of the managers knew 3 days ahead.

It was payday on Friday, so I got that check in the mail. My sister-in-law the CPA says even though the bank closed them down, they'll have to cough up for vacation/holidays that I hadn't used yet. We'll see. Other than that, I have some money in a 401K, but that's it besides savings.

I haven't seen anything yet for management level, so I'll probably eventually find a graphic designer spot for $7-10 less an hour. That will suck, but be better than unemployment. My wife says she'd look for full-time also, so hopefully between the two of us we can fill the gap. We're not in the poor house yet, anyway. We're looking.

Anyone know a millionaire willing to be a patron so I can sit home and write without worrying about bills? No? Isn't that what allowed artists and writers to do great works all the way through to the 18th century? Wish that was a system that could be brought back...

Nate

[kailhofer]

Thanks for everyone's well-wishes. They are very much appreciated.


Update: I have 4 stories now, and counting.