from The Beatitudes by Lyn Lejeune

My best friend Pinch was murdered while I slept. The police reported that she was caught off guard; snuck up on, as Pinch would have said. I don’t believe that for one blasted minute. I know she looked her killer in the eye, sized him up, laughed, then spit in his face. It all happened before my very eyes; I had dreamed about her death over the past year. The first dream came the morning after the murder of the first foster child.  Marisa was found fully clothed, wrapped in a pink swaddling blanket, as though dreaming of many tomorrows and games and parties and toys; and then eight more dreams, eight more foster children murdered, all left on the trolleys of New Orleans; then again the same dream after the presumed murderer had been arrested; and finally the last one, after I had lost my job, accused of negligence in the care of two of the slain children under my charge.  And when Pinch was butchered, my dream coming horrifyingly true, my life spinning out of control, I had, for the second time in my life, lost everything, lost control, was unwittingly blown away by the winds of a dispassionate fate.  Or so I thought at the time.

Don’t Quit Quitting by Bryon Quertermous

(This is a story I wrote as a tribute to Tribe and since he had no problems posting his own stuff on the Gutter, I shall do the same. Enjoy.)

 

Folsom Prison Blues is on the radio again for the 25th fucking time as we pull up next to the semi. There’s a 9mm automatic on the seat between us and Aggy grabs it. I quit smoking a week ago. Who the fuck is going to give me a gun?

Aggy’s already up on the step of the truck ramming the gun in the fat trucker’s face. I’m bringing up the rear coughing like a fucking nerd at a track meet.

“You wanna keep your fucking lungs in your chest man? The cops’ll go all CSI and shit on it if you keep it up,” Aggy said.

“Get him to open the truck and lets get out of here. This weather’s killing me.”

Its been raining on and off all day but it’s the goddam wind and dampness that’s killing me. Old man Jack they’ll all call me when they find out I have a trick knee in this kind of weather.

“Shit man, you’re not going to believe this,” Aggy yells.

I’m busy trying to hold my guts inside my chest so I don’t look at him.

“My luck, its probably smokes,” I hacked out.

“Better,” he said.

He’s hanging from the back of the truck like Elliot Fucking Ness and I start to wonder what’s in there. He’s waving at me to come on up but I stay on the ground. The last thing I need is to fall off a goddam truck in front of Aggy. I’m still coughing so he doesn’t ask many questions.

“It’s quitting gum,” he finally says when I won’t talk back to him. “Nico-fuckin-rette, man. How perfect is that?”

I cough again and feel something in my spine pinch.

“What the fuck are we suppose to do with a truck full of non-smoking gum?” I ask.

“Shit sells just as easy as smokes. Probably make more money.”

 He’s too stupid to get it, so I grab his ankle and pull him off the truck.

“There’s no market for this. Who’s going to buy it from us when they can buy it at the Walmart without breaking the law?”

“You can buy cigarettes at the Walmart without breaking the law.”

“They don’t have to pay the fucking taxes on smokes if they buy them from us. There’s no non-smoking tax.”

“But we didn’t pay nothin’ for ‘em. We can sell ‘em cheap and still make money.”

“Go see what the driver has on him and maybe we can call this even. Take a few of these things but I’m not going to try and unload a whole truck of quitting gum in
Detroit.”

“I, umm, well I figured it would be—”

“You fucking let him go, didn’t you?”

“I tried to tell you but you were hacking out your lunch and I—”

“The cops are probably already on their way here now. Shit, man.”

“No way. He won’t say nothin’ and I don’t hear sirens.”

I punch him in the side of the head and knock him in a circle before he hits the ground. I need a fucking cigarette and I can’t have one. Aggy’s gun is on the ground next to him so I pick it up and shoot him once in the head and once in the chest.

“Fucking moron,” I say by way of eulogy.

That was supposed to relax me, it always does, but now I’m antsy, angry, withdrawn, and guilty. I really need a fucking cig—

And then it hits me. The main ingredient in quitting gum.

I haul my old ass up into the truck just to be sure. But there it is on the side of the package like a fucking neon strip club sign. 2m of nicotine in each piece. I empty a whole package in my mouth and start chewing as I load Aggy’s body in the trunk.

This way I won’t get a craving while I burn his stupid ass.

The Bargain Hunter by Gary R. Hoffman

     “Come on, Jim.  You can come up with a better price than $75 on that pallet of miscellaneous goods.”

            Jim Salley was one of the two Jewish brothers who inherited Leon Salley Wholesale Grocers.   “Well, you buy a lot.  How about $60?”

            “How about $30?”

            “What?  You’re killin’ me!  You want me to have another heart attack?”

            “Ok, 40 bucks.”

            “Done.”  He called to one of his men working the floor.  “Donnie, get that miscellaneous pallet by door #3.  Charge Roger here $40 for it.”

            “$40? He’s stealin’ it!”

            “Yeah, I know, but he Gentiled me down!”

Madonna in the Grass by JT Ellison

“There she is.”

Papillion muttered the words, breathing deeply. His eye was pressed hard to the
scope of his rifle, the fine cross lines breaking the scene below into
quadrants. Upper left, a grassy field. Bottom left, parking lot. Bottom right,
a line of people, sweating, stinking masses gathered to pay homage. Upper
right, the prize. Nestled deep on a hard wooden table, surrounded by bleeding
flowers, a sheet of metal imprinted with the image of the Virgin Mary.

A scam, he thought, then instinctively lifted his right hand off the trigger
and crossed himself. Papillion may be a heathen, but he was a respectful
heathen. What if it wasn’t? What if somehow, the hand of God had come down and
touched the slab of iron, imprinting the face of the mother of the Lord into
the very molecules? Who was he to say that it couldn’t have happened?

A realist, that’s who. A man who knew it was a falsehood, a lie perpetrated to
force the means to an end.

He settled his finger back on the pull and used his falcon sight to follow her
progress. Long, wavy black hair cascaded down her back, a subdued headband held
the unruly mess off her forehead. She was dressed in a white skirt with eyelet
lace along the hem that just skimmed her knees, a white button down oxford
cloth shirt with a yellow scarf tied around her waist. The straps of
espadrilles wound around her slim ankles, and Papillion licked his lips. He’d
always been a leg-man. And the sister was a beautiful example of what a woman’s
legs were supposed to look like.

He watched her move through the crowd, saw their deference to her. Lucia. She
was a powerful woman. A woman that more than one faction wanted dead.

Papillion could retire after this hit. But it was a delicate operation. He
needed to wait for Sister Lucia to announce the hoax. Then the shooting could
be blamed on one of the faithful on the ground, someone so overcome with the
emotion of the appearance of their holy mother that a declaration of foolery
would tip them over the edge.

Fatima, this was not.

#

Lucia stared at the face of the Holy Mother. She waited, tuning out the noise,
the heat, the fetid stench of the unwashed. Was she in the presence of a
miracle? Had a great secret been revealed, a battle for good won? She waited,
and felt nothing. Disappointment filled her. Another hoax. The last time she’d
felt the presence of God was in a field, with no attendance other than a small
rabbit. There was nothing holy here.

She rose, shaking her head. The faithful moaned with hatred, denials were
shouted. She simply ignored them, walked back to her jeep. A flash caught her
eye, high on the cliff rising to the heavens to her right. Papillion, she
assumed. He’d been waiting for a chance to take her out for months now.
Lucia stopped. She spread her legs, spread her arms, threw her head back.
Presented herself to him, a target. Waited to feel the slam of the bullet in
her chest. When it didn’t come, she smiled. An honest assassin, Papillion. Or
smart enough to know that when she found the real miracle, she wouldn’t be able
to hide her joy.

She climbed into the Jeep, closed the door on another falsehood. One day, she
prayed. One day.

#

One day, Papillion prayed. One day she will find God, and I will help her meet
him. His eyes were closed; he felt the flash, the burn from below
instinctively. When he could finally pry his eyelids apart, the jeep was gone.
Lucia too. There was only a deep crater in the dirt, blackened and smoking.
Pilgrims were scattered carelessly in the brush. Red and black mingled with the
desert browns, painting the sands with raucous color.

One day had arrived at last.

No by Iain Rowan

“Give me your money.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Give me your fucking money. Do it, do it.”

“No.”

“I’ll cut you.”

“No.”

“I will, I’ll fucking cut you. Just hand over the money.”

“No.”

“You’re fucking crazy, I’ll do you, I will. Give me it, last chance,
I’ll cut you.”

“No.”

“You asked for this, you’re going to get it.”

# # #

“Jesusfuckingchrist, no. Stop.”

“No.”

“Please stop, I won’t oh Jesus I won’t do it oh shit shit shit I won’t
do it again I needed the money, I needed oh Jesus Jesus please stop
doing it I’m sorry I’m sorry…I can’t, I can’t breathe. Stop.”

“No.”

“I won’t. Again. Swear. Please. Please. Breathe.”

“No.”

“Stop.”

“No.”

“Pl-”

“No.”

Detachment Parenting by Christa Miller

Why should she have what I never had? was my thought when I saw my daughter nurse my granddaughter for the first time. What makes her special?

 

This was really why she invited me here. I’m sure she thought she was establishing some kind of mother-daughter bond with me, so I humored her when I accepted. Really I came to watch her screw up, heat the formula too long and fight with her husband when the baby wouldn’t stop crying and fall apart until finally, for once in her life, she needed me.

 

None of that happened. Instead I came to a vision of the perfect household. Quiet baby. Doting husband. My daughter sitting there, like a queen, nursing every few hours without even letting the baby cry for it. I told her it’s good for the baby to cry, keeps them from getting spoiled, but the little snip told me you can’t spoil a newborn. I bet her mother-in-law filled her head with that nonsense.

 

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she invited me here to rub my nose in her perfection. She’s always had to outdo me, tried to be better than me. She refused to nurse from my breast, yet she won’t even pump her milk into a bottle for anyone else to feed the baby. Hell, she holds onto that baby as if she’ll never let her go. As if I never told her about all the times I tried to hold her like that, but she pushed me away.

 

Well, I’ll show her, I thought, watching her nurse.

 

I waited until they went upstairs for a nap. Then I pretended I’d forgotten something—I forget what—and asked her husband to go get it from the store. She’s got him so trained to get her water and plump her pillows that he never even balked. Pathetic.

 

Then I went upstairs. She was sleeping with the baby in her bed, can you believe it? That made it easier to justify what I was doing. If they ever find me, I’ll just tell them I was doing it for the baby’s own good. God knew her mother would’ve rolled over on top of her, smothered her.

 

By now my daughter has probably been crying for hours, wondering why she deserved this. I hope someone tells her it’s not about what she deserves. I look at my granddaughter, sleeping in her infant carrier on the floor of my car. Five hundred miles from home, and all the kid does is sleep. She must have gotten her sleep genes from her father, because her mother sure never had them. She does fine with the formula, too. It’s better for her anyway. When she’s old enough, I’ll tell her she’s with me because I deserved a second chance a hell of a lot more than her mother deserved her.

First Note

Apparently the default setting for WordPress is to moderate comments and I did not know that. I’ve freed all of the comments that were waiting and I think I got it straightened out so that won’t happen again. Thanks everyone for posting stories and commenting.

Cold Comfort by Sandra Seamans

“Do it, or I’ll shoot you myself,” said Chester.

Her ex-husband’s words were still ringing in Penny’s ears, along with the deafening explosion of the gun. She slipped down on the couch, curling her body into a ball. She shivered under the friendly caress of her grandmother’s afghan, comforted by the familiar warmth as she pulled it up around her chin. She felt so cold. Numb.

Damn, Chester, and his stupid drunken games. Forcing her to play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun. Making her press the muzzle of the gun to her temple, pointing his own revolver at her until she pulled the trigger. Click. His obscene laughter filling her tiny apartment as urine stained her jeans, and fouled the air.

“Chicken shit,” he’d laughed. “There’s only one bullet in the cylinder. The odds are in your favor. But, hey, even if it does go off, I don’t get charged with your murder, cause you pulled the trigger. That restraining order of yours ain’t working so well now, is it?”

The blast from the gun had made her jump. Lying on the couch, she watched a trickle of blood slowly drift across the linoleum. Penny knew she should call the police, tell them what happened. But Chester wasn’t quite dead yet.

The Sound by Aldo Calcagno

The sound was deafening echo in my ears. The sky was suddenly red and then instantly black

The End of the Arc by Stephen D. Rogers

The swing set was a contact reminder.

We’d turned her room into a home office, given away her toys,
ignored the stricken looks of her older sister.  The sobbing late
at night.  The stretches of haunted silence.

If she’d never lived, she’d never died.  If she’d never died, she
hadn’t been killed.  If she hadn’t been killed, her parents
couldn’t be blamed.

The swing set wouldn’t stand if we cut it in half, and her older
sister spent all her free time out there, lifting from the seat
at each end of the arc, while the rhythmic screech of the chain
sawed through our souls.

Cop Talk by Gerald So

Partnered with Culkin two months on the overnight shift in Astoria, I’d said maybe two sentences to him.  He’d gone on about the Yankees, his ex-wife, the Star Wars trilogy…

You’d think he’d have less time to talk on nights he drove, and you’d be wrong.  Turning onto 37th Street for the fourth time, Culkin was saying, “…why he had to fuck with it.  No way Han steps on Jabba’s tail.”

“Right,” I said, though I had no idea how it came up.

“But heck, you’re young.  You probably think the digital shite is boffo.”

Boffo?

Edging away from Culkin’s roast-beef breath, I spotted three guys–looked about my age–pushing a car up the street.  As we got closer, I saw the car was a beat-up Olds.

I tipped my head to Culkin, who said, “They’re not jacking that car.”

He anticipated my next question.  ”That’s a Delta 88.  Piece-of-shit since the day it rolled out.  Gotta be theirs.”

As we pulled up, I saw their faces.

“Black, Italian, Chinese,” Culkin said.  ”Minorities on parade.  I saw them in the deli when I got my roast beef.”

Thank God and tempered glass they didn’t hear that.  The Asian guy at the rear looked to be favoring his right leg.  I waited a beat, then said, “Should we help them?”

“Sure.  Roll down your window.”

I did.  The guys stopped pushing and looked over.  Before I got a word out, Culkin said, “Almost there, guys.”

He gassed the engine, but I still heard someone say, “Aren’t cops supposed to help us?”

When I looked at Culkin, he was chuckling.  ”Almost there.  Get it?”

I shook my head.

“The Death Star trench battle, when all those X-Wings bite the dust…”

The First by Dave White

Twister was playing in the background.  That’s what Annie would remember.  That stupid, terrible, suckfest of a movie.

Her boyfriend, Dan, sat next to her on the couch laughing at Helen Hunt.  He didn’t notice the change in her. 

But she did. 

She felt it deep within her, like she felt when Dan kissed on the neck.  When she closed her eyes, let all her thoughts go and just went with the moment.  But it wasn’t exactly the same.  It was . . . darker.

The feeling wasn’t foreign to her.  Annie’d had it before, but hadn’t been able to figure out what it meant.  But now, with the sharp steak knife from dinner in front of her, she knew.  Everything came into focus, like when you adjusted a camera.  She now knew what she wanted to do.

Reaching out, suddenly the steak knife was in her hand.  It couldn’t be stopped now.  Dan didn’t even know it was coming.  He didn’t scream when the knife sank into his throat.

Annie was pretty sure she did, however.  Her blood ran warm, and she kept stabbing, feeling his own run across her fingers. 

It was pure ecstacy.  It was beautiful.  It was art. 

She wondered if this was how Ted Bundy felt. 

Confident.

Invincible.

Annie could do anything at this moment.

Here she was at her most primal, watching her boyfriend gurgle and choke and die.

It was orgasmic.

And she knew one thing.

This wouldn’t be the last.

Submission Guidelines

Flashing in the Gutters did it well. I’m not going to screw with the formula. This is a place for flash fiction. That’s fiction under 700 words for our purposes.  I’ll post whatever I get, cleaning it only up for readability’s sake. No editing, no rejection. Send submissions to flashpansubmissions@gmail.com and include a short bio if you’d like.