~Hey guy. Since Perfect comes out on
a Wednesday and I’m running stuff for that and my b-day for the next several
day, I thought I’d post the flash a day early. Julie’s link will be at the
bottom so y’all can use that to hop when the rest of the flashes come out
Wednesday.
I really didn’t want to skip this,
because frankly, it’s hot right now. And I’m going to keep running it as a
flash instead of cutting it off. I think this could turn into something and I
want to see where it goes. LOL, because I have no idea right now and you guys
comments make me think about plot points. J
Welcome to the Wednesday Briefers
flash group. The short stories have a maximum of a 1000 word count plus links
at the bottom to the other flashers. The prompts for this week are:
"As time goes by..."
or use a winter theme
or use: snow, peeved, water
or "When did you tell me..."
or use a rainbow in your story
or use a rainbow and a unicorn
or use: handcuffs, silver, basket
I’m using: snow, peeved, water
All That He Desires #5
“Man, I just saw your
mom. She was filling out a change of address form. They’re moving, Jules! How
strange is that?”
Jules ran his hand over
his bare belly, shocked at what he heard. Frowning, he looked down. On his
belly were four lines; scratches really. The dream came crashing back as he
dropped the cell. “Oh my God.”
He heard Miles crow
into the phone. “I know, right? How weird is it that you were just saying you’d
wish they move? And here they are—”
Jules snatched the cell
back up. Fuck, his hand was shaking like a leaf. “Ah yeah, man. Look, I got to
go. I’ll call you back later.”
“But—”
Jules hung up, cutting
Miles off, his hand still fiddling with the scratches. Miles probably thought
he was peeved since he woke him up, but he couldn’t worry about that right now.
No, he had something much bigger to worry over, like that damn dream that was bouncing
around in his head. He’d put it down as a nightmare, except the proof something happened was etched across his
belly. There was no way he’d scratched himself last night while asleep; his
nails were nonexistent.
Shit.
Fear bubbled in his
chest, his heart pounded, and his vision wavered. Sweat broke across his
forehead and his scalp itched. He jerked his hand back from the scratches. For
a moment he thought he’d throw up; spit flooded his mouth. He grabbed the glass
of water on the end table by the bed and he drank until the urge passed.
This was crazy, just
plain nuts. Things like this happened in the movies or books. He glanced back
down. The scratches were still there, they hadn’t miraculously disappeared like
he hoped. Kinda hard to argue with that… something had been with him last night.
Oh
shit.
As tempting as it was
to bury his head in the sand, he didn’t have time to play deny reality right
now. Whatever the thing was that visited him last night said it’d be back
tonight. Jules ran his other hand through his messy hair while he sat in bed
trying to think logically. Logically. He was tempted to laugh hysterically.
Logic just flew out the nearest window.
What was he going to
do? Find a priest? Perform an exorcism?
Join a monastery? Oh wait, he couldn’t have sex if he did that, right? But then
again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing at the moment. He could run for the
hill. Buy a cross? What about a gun? Maybe never fucking sleep again?
Oh fucking shit.
Was it panic time yet?
One part of his brain was yelling there was no better time, while the other
side said get a grip and think this through. Information was power. Right now
he needed all the power he could get, because something intended to pay him a
visit tonight.
I’m
about to losing my fucking shit.
He bailed out of bed,
stumbling across a pair of boxers on the floor and nearly face-planting on the
carpet. Could this day get any worse? Don’t
go there, Jules. He yanked them on and rushed to the computer sitting on
the desk in his bedroom. What was the name his dream—man, thing, creature—used?
“Right, he said he was áimear—one of the dark lords. Okay, that
sounds threatening. What the hell is a dark lord? Nothing good, I bet.” Jules
booted up his laptop and went searching. It took a while because he kept
misspelling the damn word, but he finally ran across something.
Jules scowled at the
searches that were pulled up. “It’s Gaelic for opportunity.” Jules yanked at
his hair to keep from snarling at the computer. “Deep breath, dude. Just take a
deep, deep breath. Throwing the laptop across the room isn’t an option. Okay, this
isn’t helping much. Whatever that thing was… it was more than a word, that’s
for sure. He felt entirely too flesh-like.”
And had played his body
like a violin. “Yeah, so not thinking about that right now.”
Finally he gave up.
There was nothing that really applied to his situation. Jules shoved back from
the desk, rubbing his neck. Man, he was stiff. His eyes were drawn to the
window. It was snowing, and he hadn’t even noticed. Life altering events tended
to do that. The landscape looked silent, pure, and so very white… so normal.
Generally he loved when it snowed, but right now he wanted to bawl. His life
had been turned on its ear, so why didn’t the world reflect that?
Jules stood up. “Need
coffee. Everything looks better with caffeine zipping through the ole system.”
Jules stalked to the
kitchen and promptly goggled at the clock. He’d been at it for over two hours. No
wonder he was stiff. His stomach growled now that he had his head out of the
laptop. Everything he knew had been rearranged on him, but hey, his stomach
didn’t give a damn. Rolling his eyes, he fixed some cereal, then got dressed.
He had class this
afternoon, and then there was Miles. He most likely needed to apologize to his
best friend for hanging up on him. He had to be pretty pissed since he hadn’t
called back or shown up. But then again, maybe it was better Miles stayed far,
far away from him. But the way his luck was running Miles would show up right
of the heels of that… thing.
Jules sighed. He
couldn’t risk that. And it alarmed him to no end that he accepted this was all
real and happening. Just one more thing to handle before the big reveal tonight,
but at least this little job made sense. Nothing else did at this point.
What was he
going to do?
TBC
