Shorts - Page 62 of 70 - Matthew C. McLean

2017-04-12 • Flash Fiction •

The Yard

The prisoner would occasionally poke at the ankle bracelet with his cane as he walked about his yard. His electronic tether was clasped on with wide and uncomfortable plastic straps, blocky corners forming the black box at its center, constantly reminding him of its presence as he walked around.

The small batch of green that was his front lawn was the closest the electronic tracker would allow him to freedom. What once were annoying chores, such as weeding, mowing, or snow shoveling, were now the moments that allowed him the illusion of being a liberated man. Stepping outside to walk circles on the grass without purpose only put temptation into view: The blue mailbox sitting on the corner became a beacon of normalcy; the tall, splintered telephone pole its own nation on which he could lean and rest his gimp leg; the children playing with their dog shone like a city on a hill.

But all of these things were just beyond his reach. Stepping outside the small, green enclosure of his lawn would only send a signal into the sky, alerting a series of invisible chariots that would race to inform the authorities that he had overstepped his bounds and needed to be punished for it. Enough of those infractions, he knew, would send him some place far worse than this – the red-suited technicians assured him of this every time they arrived to calibrate the equipment, referring to him as corrupt. Or was it perverted? If only he could remember what he had done. But the first time the technicians had arrived they had also brought syringes and drugs and sanitizing equipment. Now he could only feel the faint outlines of his crime, those edges, like those of the black box, leaving him with the impression he was being punished for wanting more.

See the author’s published work here.
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2017-04-06 • Flash Fiction, Kansas, Serial •

Kansas: Chapter 21

ROOK TAKES PAWN

Nick Manoloff was not a well man.

The decades-old French brandy, his imported genuine tobacco cigars, the comforting and rich upholstery of the Garbisch chair; such things usually brought him comfort as he savored them. But this night he slugged his brandy, chewed on his cigar, sweated and squirmed in his chair. Only one thing occupied Nick Manoloff’s mind.

The crushed corner of his brick fireplace.

Dragon, despite his shadowy reputation and intimidating demeanor, had always been cordial to Nick, even when he began losing. But Manoloff loved his excitement almost as much as he had loved his comforts, and he had been so certain his luck would change. When the debts began piling up, when he had borrowed more from the house, he assured Dragon he was good for it. Even then, Nick had somehow deluded himself into believing that Dragon’s civility would outweigh the American’s ugly exterior.

But now he knew he was wrong. Dragon had brought that bull of a man into his home to make a point. And Nick was much more fragile than the masonry of his fireplace.

The money was gone; he could barely afford what small luxuries that now surrounded him. As Manoloff’s mind raced over every angle and option he could think of, some small part of his mind knew with certainty that he was a dead man. The week would end without payment to Dragon, who would then send that monster of a man, and Nick Manoloff would die. The manner that death might take began to torture Nick’s imagination and for a moment it seemed he could hear the future echo of his screams.

Springing out of his chair, cigar smoke trailing behind him like a locomotive, his eyes burned like coals with the desperation that now infused him. Escape, to run, go abroad, yes, yes, that could be the way. Surely Dragon wouldn’t pursue the likes of him for such a paltry sum. What’s a few hundred thousand between friends?

Leaving his sitting room, Manoloff ran in his panic to the study, dropping himself into the chair in front of his faux secretaire desk. Hitting the activation switch, the desktop unfolded into a display which Manoloff fumbled with until he began to manipulate the desk’s multi-touch sensor.

Pushing through information, Manoloff entered in the code for his personal travel feed. Train and flight information floated in front of him, endless possible routes of escape. Then the display blinked and so did Manoloff.

Text, not from the travel feed, appeared in the center of the display.

“You’ll never make it.”

Manoloff blinked again, feeling dread return and squeeze his chest. The text dissolved and reformed itself into new words.

“You’re being watched.”

Finding himself suddenly short of breath, Manoloff pushed himself away from the secretaire. The next words managed to instill hope and terror at the same time.

“We can help.”

Read the next chapter here.

Read the previous chapter here.

Image courtesy of Michael Muller.
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2017-03-30 • Flash Fiction •

Bloodletting

Clean from her teeth to her toes she enters the shed. Taking in the tiny quarters, she stares at the floor, trying to avoid the window that the Leader’s edict dictated Shall Not Be Covered. She knows that the Others are looking into the shed through it, waiting to see when she will begin cleaning the blood stain that the last inhabitant, her father, had gifted the opposing wall with.

Taking the sponge out of the bucket she’s brought with her, squeezing the excess water from it, she wonders what her fiance said to her father when they had come out here to sweat with each other, what words had transpired that had caused their elder to bludgeon him to death. Had her beloved confessed some sin? Some disease of the mind or flesh? Had her father merely found him wanting, or been gifted with some prophecy to see her fiance fail her as a husband some time in the future? Or was it merely the unexplained madness he had emerged from the shed with, that had forced the Others to put him down?

Scrubbing the blood from the wall, she realized she would never know. While blood may never forget, it does not speak.

See the author’s published work here.

Image courtesy of Clark-R.
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2017-03-24 • Flash Fiction, Kansas, Serial •

Kansas: Chapter 20

MARKER

by Bryan Cole

The two figures glided quietly through the kitchen and into the plush living room.

“Nice place you have yourself here, Nick.” The older one said, as he crossed to a chair adjacent to the coffee table.

“Dragon…” The seated man, Nick, stammered out. “I didn’t think…”

“That I knew where you lived? Of course I do,” The Dragon replied. “I make it a point to stay on top of these things, Nick. It would be very bad for business if I didn’t, don’t you think?” Dragon relaxed into the chair, which was upholstered in something pleasant. Might even be real leather.

“Yes, I guess it would,” Nick responded, settling into his own chair that was beginning to feel more like a coffin.

“This is some really nice cognac you have here,” a disembodied voice announced from behind Nick’s chair. Nick spun to acknowledge the would-be connoisseur, and was rewarded with a disgusting caricature of a man, a proverbial bull behind Nick’s living room bar. The thing was looking at his top shelf, the home of his collected liquors and confectionaries.

“That’s VSOP, Ambre du Burgandy from ’02,” Nick retorted out of reflex. He took his pleasures very seriously.

Nick watched with disgust as the thing poured some of his prized cognac into a snifter and then walked around him to stand near the fireplace, off to Dragon’s left. “Hope you don’t mind.” The idiot spoke at him. Nick could only nod from the depths of his disgust as he watched the man casually down half of the snifter.

“Nick, I’m sure you know what this little visit is about.” Dragon announced, after having taken a look around the living room.

“I’m afraid I do. I know I haven’t been in touch, but I am getting the money together to pay you – ” Nick was cut off mid-sentence by Dragon’s reply.

“I know you are, Nick. I truly do. Problem is that you’ve taken a little too long in doing so. My associate and I are here tonight to remind you that you have an obligation. This is the first, and last, such reminder we’ll be delivering.” Dragon paused as Nick took in his two tormentors. Nick couldn’t help but notice that the beast with Dragon had finished the snifter’s worth of cognac and was examining his brick fireplace.

“If you haven’t rectified the debt within the next week, I’m afraid I’ll have to send my associate to pay you a visit.” A grinding, high-pitched sound carried across the living room. As Nick watched, wide-eyed, Dragon’s associate squeezed his brick fireplace hard enough to crush a corner of it. Red dust fell onto crumbled brick remnants as the ruffian released his grip.

Dragon rose from his chair and crossed over to Nick, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I hope to hear from you.” He said as he moved past and towards the kitchen.

“Thanks for the cognac,” the bull-man remarked as he put the empty snifter down on the coffee table in front of Nick.

* * *

The German-manufactured car glided along the rural highway almost completely alone.

“Think he’ll pay?” Hatcher asked Dragon as he brushed the remaining brick dust off of his cybernetic hand and onto the floorboard.

“If he’s smart. That cognac you tried could probably cover half his debt if the dumb bastard could bring himself to sell it.” Dragon knew all too well the nature of these things. Most of the time his debtors had vast hordes of wealth hidden in things that they simply couldn’t bring themselves to part with. It was paradoxical, but unfortunately common enough to not surprise Dragon. He smoothly shifted the car into third gear as they escaped the town’s speed zone.

“I guess most of the time they aren’t too smart then?” Hatcher responded, sensing his ultimate role in this drama.

“Nope. Much as I was hoping you being there tonight would help him see the light, I still have my doubts.” Dragon’s face reflected a dour glow from the instrumentation of the Mercedes.

“If he tries to run?” Hatcher questioned, more to satisfy his own curiosity than out of any genuine concern.

“Then you go after him.” Dragon answered, moving the Mercedes into fifth gear as they topped 160 km/hr. “And you bring him back.”

“Just like old times,” Hatcher said with something that wasn’t quite a smile.

Read the next chapter here.

Read the previous chapter here.
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2017-03-15 • Flash Fiction •

Index Case

Blood tests, cells run through some alchemical process until their secrets were pasted onto a two-dimensional space for all to see, moving through a hidden system until they resulted in a phone call that brought him down to the hospital somewhere in the Bowery.

Michael hadn’t remembered going in for a blood test, or any other kind of test, and now that he walked into the hospital, past its decrepit doors, he couldn’t remember the phone call that had brought him. Only a voice, lone and long and feminine, calling him here. But he walks through the wood-paneled hallways until he comes upon the faceless nurse who stands, myriad arms and legs, knees and elbows bending in the wrong directions, and she tells him that the doctor will see him now.

All those things that are wrong with him, the doubt, the anger, the grief, will be cut away from him in the space of a few dark hours in the backroom. Even those things that he didn’t know were problems, the free will, all those pesky decisions, he’ll be cured of those as well, until there’s nothing left but a clean, calm space in his head that he can take back and share with all those on the outside.
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« 1 … 60 61 62 63 64 … 70 »

The Yard

See the author’s published work here.

Kansas: Chapter 21

Read the next chapter here.

Read the previous chapter here.

Image courtesy of Michael Muller.

Bloodletting

See the author’s published work here.

Image courtesy of Clark-R.

Kansas: Chapter 20

Read the next chapter here.

Read the previous chapter here.

Index Case

“How do I become a writer?”

The American: Trouble with Escape

It’s a Feature

The American: Trouble with Escape (pt. 13)

Oshana Means Friendship

The American: Trouble with Escape (pt. 12)

Don’t You

“How do I become a writer?”

Sundew Homes

Rob the Living

Cat-Shaped Heart

We Will Heal, You Will Not

Cloaked in Gray

The Case of the Biting Decision, Chapter 2

Delete from History

The American: Trouble with Escape

The American: Chapter 73

Kansas: Chapter 37

Depths

Bloodletting

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