- Dame Rinda
Readers on Deadline (ROD) is a monthly Deadline Dame feature where we post an intriguing image and invite readers to be inspired and share the results in up to 250 words right here in the comments. The Dames will pick the one that most intrigues us, post that entry in the next month’s ROD along with a link to that writer/reader’s site. And you get a prize!
I must say, there were a bunch of fantastic entries last month. It’s thrilling to see the kind of talent hanging out at the Dames. The winner for ROD #6 is Shelly Holder! What an intriguing use of metaphor! I’ll admit, I got goosebumps.
Murderous, it took everything from her. Stripped her body and soul and made her as cracked and parched as the desert. Twin scars from the permanent I.V. lines marred the inside of both arms. A new open, unhealed hole gaped in the center of her chest where the unfamiliar Hicman Central Line snaked along muscle and bone into her heart, delivering poisoned medicine directly into traitorous veins of cancerous blood. Veins pulsing and throbbing and killing her one dying cell by one dying cell.
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Tags: prizes, Readers On Deadline, Rinda Elliott, writing
Congratulations, Shelly! What a great choice by the Dames. When I read yours in the comments last month, it sent shivers through me. Love your entry.
[...] Deadline Dames has posted their monthly Readers on Deadline contest. Contest ends September [...]
Congratulations Shelly, that was terrific!
“ I told you! I told you that we would get stuck!”
“ Yeah, well, if we chose a better fucking rental car , like the one I wanted, then this piece of shit wouldn’t have gotten stuck!”
“ Oh no , don’t you go blamin this on me!”
“ Why not? You love to scream and point fingers at me! Why in the hell can‘t I do it to you?”
“ Fuck you John.”
“ No, Fuck you Marla. Fuck. You.”
“ Don’t walk away from me! John , you hear me! Don’t walk away!
“ I’ll walk any where I damn well please.”
“ John , get back here! John!”
Congrats Shelly.
Rinda, thanks for the writing prompt. I’ve been stalled for a while.
~*~*~*~*~
Exhausted from her latest op, Dee rubbed her bloodshot eyes, muttering, “Where’s my damn car?”
Trudging through the newly fallen snow, wandering through the parking lot, expending the nervous energy shooting through her.
Searching eyes stilled. Beating heart paused. Grumbling mouth choked on salty tears.
Falling to the ground, imprisoned memories crashing and cresting over her well-constructed wall, overwhelming her.
Pummeled by her past, she cursed, “Damn you Mac, damn you…”
Curling into a fetal position, feeling the emptiness of her soul, shredding her sanity.
Darkness falls. Engulfing her in its deathly embrace once again.
Thanks Deadline Dames! And thanks everyone! I’m so honored!
Congrats Shelly! Email me your address and choice of deadline mug and coaster and I’ll get those out to you! Just direct email at RElliott4@aol.com.
Now that she’d found the car, Kayla didn’t quite know what to do. She approached it, cursing herself for not thinking this far ahead. Her cautious steps slowed to a halt as she considered another possibility.
Maybe, the car had found her.
She pushed the thought aside as unhelpful, just as Ryan had taught her. Although, he hadn’t believed her.
No one believed her.
Your life is not a Stephen King novel, she chastised herself as she forced a step, and then another until she peered through the side window. Splayed across the backseat, he looked exactly as she’d left him. The frigid winter had preserved the body well. Even his final expression – surprise – remained creased into his forehead.
The body sat up. Vacant eyes landed on Kayla. It smiled.
She entertained the odd thought that if his teeth had been this sharp yesterday, he wouldn’t have had all that trouble ripping through her sweatshirt.
She ran. The roar of a cranky motor and hot stink of exhaust pursued her over the slippery parking lot.
I was right, she thought.
A satisfying crunch sounded beneath the tires. Ryan slammed the car into park and stepped from the decrepit vehicle. He knelt next to Kayla’s corpse. With one, long finger he dragged her face from the pavement so he could examine the expression.
Satisfaction. Well, satisfaction and pain.
“Yes, you were right,” he murmured, caressing a shattered, bloody cheek. “And I couldn’t very well let you find another believer, could I?”
They stood facing each other at the end of the chilly, nearly empty parking lot. The white… what was the make? Ford? Nissan? … thing sat next to the immortal, who stood with his shoulders back, like a proud father. The car was rusted around the edges and sunken inward, a wilted flower past its prime.
Silence. She had to say something. He wanted her to speak; he would probably eat her if she didn’t. She struggled to find words.
“…You bought a car.” She meant to make that a question, but her voice only managed an incredulous accusation.
“It’s a new development,” The old fae explained cheerily. “All the humans have them nowadays, and I was starting to stick out for not having one.”
“…Really.”
He grinned, revealing glimpses of too sharp white teeth. Wisps of white breath escaped from his lips, and one hand rose to slap the top of the monstrosity affectionately. “Like it?” His tone was light, but his gaze biting, knowing she could not lie to him.
She stared at him, shivering. “It’s…” A rusted piece of decaying junk “…very you.” It looked like it had weathered the changing roads for centuries, worse for the wear but somehow still managing to stay in one piece and in working order. Actually, she wasn’t sure it would work.
She dearly hoped he never realized he bought a lemon, or woe to the poor car salesman who had sold it.
I am alone now.
No longer am I of value. I am old, antiquated. Worthless. I’m not as beautiful as the next, not as sleek, not as hip. People watch me with disdain, wondering why I haven’t been disposed of. You were the only who cared, who kept me, who looked after me. I let you inside me, allowed you to enter my body and soul, because I trusted you. Because I loved you.
And now here I am, abandoned in the cold.
You left me to the cruel unforgiving winter. You left me to the isolated prison of my mind, at the edge of oblivion, with nothing left to lose.
Life is not worth living if there is nothing left to lose.
So as I sit here, in the resounding silence of a world gone deaf and ignorant, I spread my wings and soar into the vast heavens, leaving it all behind. I will always miss you, my one, my only. I will miss your touch, your laugh, and your love. I will even miss your curses, your anger, and your abuse. I was faithful to you, even then. I loved you, even then.
But, alas, I am finally free.
Winter was settling in. A cold breeze pulled at my hair and found its way to my bones. Snow flurries drifted from drab, gray clouds. I pulled my winter coat closer and quickened my step. Work had been long and I was ready to go home and relax in front of the fireplace.
As I approached my old, dilapidated car, I couldn’t help but smile. My father had left me the car that had been his pride and joy. It may have seemed like a rusted eyesore to others, but to me it was the only thing I had left of the man who had lovingly raised me after my mother left us.
The Trabby reminded me warmly of my father. Not only had he rebuilt the engine and everything else within the car, but it was an unintentional reflection of who he was. The exterior of the car was deceiving with its chipped paint and dented doors. It was under the hood where the real magic laid. Likewise, under the gruff, intimidating exterior of my father was a gentle man who gave more than he took.
Stepping into the drivers seat was like stepping into one of my father’s hugs. I felt his presence so keenly within the metal frame. His love had been poured into every inch of this vehicle. Even years after his death, I felt him here with me.
Congrats Shelly
********
I stared horrified at the thing in front of me.
“This is it?” I turned, staring at Jace.
He gave me a lop-sided grin, obviously enjoying my chagrin, “Yep.”
I turned back to the car, “This old banger is the source of all our trouble?”
I couldn’t believe it, no matter how sure Jace seemed. Nothing, demon, Faery or otherwise would want to live in that rusted tin bucket.
Jace made to move closer, drawing out a knife.
The reflective glimmer made the sick wrong feeling in my stomach intensify. I grabbed his arm, “No Faery would survive in that. The amount of metal would kill it.”
Jace nodded, and gave me another wicked grin, dangerous sparkles glittering in his eyes, “I never said we were hunting a Faery.”
I’d never fought demons before. Fear started to join the wrongness in my stomach, the bad feeling that was screaming at me to turn and run. It might be a disgusting clump of junk, but there was something bad about it.
Jace though, headed straight towards the car, he held out his hand, pulling power from the nearest Ley line to him. His eyes filmed over with Magick, and the air around the car shimmered.
The darkness within responded, bursting out the hood, and causing the car to rattle violently.
A Wraith, shrouded in flame and shadow stood before us, red holes burning as eyes, and mouth gapping open in hunger.
We’d been set up.
“Jace,” I screamed, running towards him.
Shadows crisscrossed over my face as I snuck into the car park. Cars sat parked in lines, exactly where their owners had left them, where they were supposed to be; unlike me.
And then I spotted it, alone on the other end of the car park, worn white, spotted with rust.
I trudged through the watery mush that was the melting snow, getting it up my trousers, in my shoes, soaking my socks. But I didn’t care, I could finally escape from the cold.
Maybe, just maybe fate would be with me for once.
I staggered to a halt, slipping in the mush, my hands searching frantically for something to hold on to. But my hands passed through air. Thin, lifeless cold air.
My hopes shattered, and I didn’t bother trying to regain my balance. My body dropped–cold and heavy–into the snow, my face slamming into the frozen grit. Not that I cared. The pain was welcome, a distraction from yet another disappointment.
I was dead, and I knew it. I’d known as soon as the hallucinations had started. The cold was making me crazy. If I didn’t get somewhere warm quick, then I’d freeze to death, something that was bound to be painstakingly slow and…horrible beyond words.
Rolling onto my back I stared up at the cloud-streaked dark sky. The lampposts were my only source of light, illuminating my death scene.
I laughed. This was going to be way more dramatic that I’d thought it would be.
Her breath, she assumed, was fogging in the chilled air. She couldn’t see it but the dropping temperature assured her this, just as it ensured her that she would not live to see the following morning. The trunk of the car didn’t come with an inner latch with which she could free herself, and even if it had, her bound hands would have proven too difficult to maneuver.
And so the temperature dropped, and there she lay, bound in the trunk of an old beat up car. When she had first seen it, she hadn’t been alarmed but had thought the rust around the headlights reminded her of tears, as though the old car was crying for being forgotten.
Only a broken body could properly fit into such a small space. He had done his job well in making sure she did indeed fit. She didn’t want to give such an evil man kudos for a job well done, but he sure seemed efficient in his tasks. A whimper of laughter escaped from behind her cracked and bruised lips. Yes he was certainly efficient.
She was grateful she could not feel her body, the pain too great to bear. Her breathing was slowing down, gradually but noticeably. Her last words came out hushed and slow, “Lord, save me….”
I was fiercely determined not to judge Caleb for his beat up matchbox of a car, because, after all, this was my first ever make-out session. On the other hand, this was my first make-out session EVER, and I deserved to be able to tell my grandkids that it was somewhere cooler than in this trashed Pinto, even if it was with legend hottie Caleb Jones. Who was currently sitting next to me, barely 6 inches away (cramped cars are good for something!), and looking extremely… hot. As per usual. I tried to not to fidget in anticipation, but my skirt had hiked up when I climbed in, and now looked on the shady side of trashy, winter tights or no. Which was not the impression I wanted to give, even if I was shamelessly only sitting here in order to get kissed. A multiple number of times. Hopefully.
Please, God, if you exist, can’t you see fit to give me a little bit of action?
They Only Come Out At Night
Susan stared at the Mini parked in front of the apartment. She’d definitely seen better and worst unfortunately. Now was time to move, before the truly scary things came out for the night.
“Jill, we need to go.” Susan yelled down the hall. Her preternatural senses were screaming; the full moon was coming. They should have been gone by now.
She paced, afraid if she’d stopped her beast would take over, ripping her body apart. She knew what was coming, but that didn’t make it any better.
“Jill, damn it, we need to leave now.” Susan stormed into the bedroom and stopped dead in her tracks. Her best friend lay as if a sleep, but her eyes were wide open staring sightlessly at the pocked marked ceiling. Fresh wounds marked her body, blood still dripped. What the hell was going on! She raced to the car, slamming the door, engaging the locks.
She felt a breath caress her neck, making her beast roar. And then it was too late. She was in it’s embrace and there would be no escape, not this time.
Rinda, It’s 9:53pm where I’m at, don’t know what kind of date/time stamp this will get.
I was too late. Fire-eyed hounds guarded the Yaquina Bay bridge. Beyond them, wreathed in fog, I could see the twin set of obelisks flanking the gateway. Grandad’s childhood tales about the power sources contained within echoed in my mind. I prayed they were true. From within the Peugot, I could sense nothing.
When the engine revved, I patted the dash for comfort. Or luck. Stepping cautiously from the car, the sharp Pacific tang filled my nose. The hounds growled, looking like horror film daemons in the curling fog. They were frightening real to me. I remained half-hidden by the car door as they raced towards me, paws thudding across the sandy pavement. I muttered a quiet thanks to Grandad for the lessons as I nocked my bow and quickly shot blessed arrows into the hounds. Too close. The final hound skidded across the pavement to exhale its last against my legs. Daemon dog spittle, yuck.
With the way cleared I stepped up to the obelisks and reached out with my senses, seeking power. Amazing. Grandad told the truth. Breathing deep, I chanted the rhymes learned at Grandad’s knee. Both sets of obelisks glowed blue-white, the fog between swirling and parting to reveal a castle in the distance.
I gulped and got back in the car. It’s engine roared eagerly with anticipation.
“C’mon, Grandad. Let’s go find Rianna and get you out of this thing.”