Flash Fiction: NINETEEN SECONDS

[My second collection of flash fiction, Thirty More Stories, seems to have been related to time, as there are several stories strongly-related to that dimension. Maybe it was because I was so focused on finishing it, on time, with time running against me and time being of the essence to write each story. Then again, if it was a matter of exposure, several of the stories could have had coffee as a common theme...]

NINETEEN SECONDS

            Nineteen seconds…

            A lifetime… in nineteen seconds…

            Harry London slammed chest-first into the rubble, his helmet flipping up and banging against a chunk of concrete as ragged as a scream. Heavy machine-gun bullets chewed the air and dirt around him as he struggled to merge his flesh with the cover he so desperately had run to.

            Across the charred and mangled street, strewn with several bodies in uniform and gray tweeds, Gunther Meis swung his heavy Vickers machine-gun in a deadly spray, trying to catch up to the British soldier racing desperately across the clearing to leap for cover. The Vickers was unwieldy, the narrow tripod legs slipping on the dusty floor inside the crumbled building that once housed a druggist and his medicines. Gunther cursed as the soldier skidded behind a concrete slab, the bullets spanging to fly off in unknown directions. He stopped firing to scan the street again, and the empty windows of the few remaining houses across the way. He checked the belt and grunted, satisfied he had ammo to fire a full minute’s burst if he cared to. He shifted his weight, peered quickly over the parapet and ducked as a bullet whinged off to his left.

            Harry curled up, holding his helmet steady. The strap was broken. He breathed a sigh of relief as the bullets stopped. Rolling slightly left, he peeked at the machine-gun’s nest and saw the German soldier adjusting the gun’s position. Harry quickly sighted his rifle above the parapet and stopped breathing, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Suddenly, the German raised his head and Harry pulled the trigger. The bullet went high and Harry cursed, rolling fast to his right to avoid the onslaught of bullets he knew was coming. He twitched a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and held the explosive in his hand, silently counting One… Two…

            Gunther turned his head away to avoid the dust coming off the wall and lunged back to pull the Vickers’ trigger. Bullets tore at the edge of the concrete slab, reducing it by chunks and cracks from vertical ledge to air. Gunther roared as the Vickers fired, slamming the gun to the left to rip at the top of the slab, then down, hoping to bounce the heavy bullets into the enemy. He saw a green-gray object fly up from behind the slab, arcing its way across the dead street towards him, and without thought, yanked the gun up and to the left to intercept the grenade--the grenade!--his roar becoming a mad shriek of rage.

            Three… Four… Bullets shredded concrete to dust behind him, then walked like heavy rain across the slab to tear it above his head. The bullets then dropped to smash brutally into the slab’s lower edge and pieces of cement peppered Harry’s backs and legs. The slab was no cover there! Five… He threw the grenade in a stiff-armed toss, just like he was taught in Bingham, the thick-bodied metal apple curving up and away. Harry imagined it was flying straight and true, aimed with deadly precision at the machine gunner. He heard the bullets rise, then rise again as the hammering they caused became buzzing until suddenly a shriek of rage became--

            An explosion. The grenade blew up as Gunther’s aim crossed its path. The shriek of rage rose to become…

            Harry acted without thought, rolling to his feet as the explosion shredded the air everywhere, tucking his rifle and leaping to his feet, his mouth erupting into a shriek of rage that joined the German’s shriek…

            Gunther saw the British soldier rise like a spectre, like a demon, from the blast’s cloud, rifle at the ready, shrieking just as he was…

            Harry saw the German, heard him shrieking and pulled the trigger…

            The shriek ended as the bullets tore through Gunther’s head and neck.

            Nineteen seconds… A lifetime. In nineteen seconds.

Flash Fiction: THE FINAL BATTLE

I do like to write about swords and battles, even though I think if I ever had to fight a melee-style battle, I'd either freeze from the overwhelming realty of the experience or I'd act like a total raving maniac. Certainly not as poised as these two warriors.

THE FINAL BATTLE

            The carnage was immense. The best of men from two kingdoms lay strewn on a battlefield first soaked with blood and gore and now drenched with the thunderous cold rain of a raging storm. Lighting bolts, furious shrieks of light, slashed across the sky in rapid sequence, their gut-wrenching booms as if groans of anger at the illuminated death-ground.

            Elegan the Wrathful, of Anthor, rose from his knees, his armor dented so badly he could barely rise, the sluice of near-freezing water slapping his breath away. Swaying from exhaustion, wounds and cold, he looked out across friends and foes, searching for a sign of life. His sword barely gleamed in the flashes of angry lighting, covered in blood so thickly that not even the pounding water could wipe it clean. He could barely see, but in one streak of the heaven's hammer, he saw...someone.

            Jal Ka-tul of Lebensac stumbled over a corpse, and then another. His armor was ruined, bashed and now so wet that it could never be fixed. Blood seeped from his wounds, aided by the cold water that kept him from falling inert upon a fellow soldier...or an enemy. His morning star, once a thistle of death, was now an anchor that snagged on armor or roots, its spikes flattened or bent. Jal Ka-tul staggered again, cursing the battle, the storm and--suddenly--he saw the enemy across the field, holding a sword aloft.

            Elegan couldn't tell who the enemy was, only that he was big. The lightning flashes blinded him more than they helped, but he could tell where the enemy was and that they were moving towards each other. Nothing else moved, and the stench of death was no a distant memory.

            Jal Ka-tul could see that his enemy was one of their elite, for his armor had the markings of nobility. Jal spat in contempt and almost moaned as he felt his jaw shift the wrong way. He paused to look around, careful warrior to the bitter end. Nothing else moved, and the final death was but seconds away.

            Elegan and Jal Ka-tul stumbled to within ten feet of each other, wretched remnants of the greatest armies in two kingdoms. Elegan raised his sword, but his battle cry was a choked grunt as he felt the wounds of the day clutching at his body. Jal kept quiet, marshalling his strength, weaving his morning star from side to side in rhythmic anticipation. Seconds passed, the deluge strengthened, lighting scarred the sky and thunder crashed all around.

            With guttural grunts, both men lurched  forward, Elegan slashing across and Jal smashing his morning star at the other's arm. Before the weapons could clash, lightning slammed into them, sizzling and crackling from one to the other, a skull-shaking thunderous roar slamming them both back and to the ground with the fury of a god denied.

            Minutes passed. Then Jal groaned, followed by a coughing spasm from Elegan. They both rolled over, taking several seconds to breathe. Then they began searching for their weapons. Each crazed flash helped them, until they grasped their weapons and slowly, painfully, made their way to their feet.

            Thunder boomed again and again as they faced off. Both men looked to the sky, then at each other. With a silent nod, they stepped back and dropped their weapons. Each began the slow, impossible process of removing his armor. The rain and wind became knives on their exposed flesh as piece by piece, ripping crusted wounds and causing new ones, Elegan and Jal Ka-tul stripped themselves of their armor.

            Standing in loincloths, bloodied, bruised and shivering weaponless in the screaming rain, they stumbled forward to fight the final battle on the death-ground of two kingdoms.

            Hours later, in the morning sun, the winner grabbed his weapon and staggered off with nary a glance at the corpses in his path.

Flash Fiction: WHERE THERE'S A WILL

I wrote this story within minutes of completing another, totally-unrelated story. As I closed the file on the first story, the images of this story flashed in my mind and I started writing, knowing I had only about 20 minutes to wrap it up. (I never stop writing flash fiction pieces in order to complete them later.) I barely finished in time, though I can't remember now what it was that I had pending then. From "Thirty More Stories."

WHERE THERE’S A WILL

            “You must be completely insane to think we can win a war against them!”

            Nolan of Bergen blinked. “You must be completely insane to think we have a choice.”

            The burly arms of Kanden of Varth thrust out, partly in anger, and partly, the kafeth saw, in despair. “They number six, seven thousand units. We barely amount to 200. We cannot win!”

            The kafeth stirred, a low rumble running through the cave’s dark niches. Nolan turned to trace the stirrings, letting his rival’s words sink in. With a mild shrug, he spoke softly. “You say we cannot win. I say we have no choice but to win. Your way means we run until we are hunted down in whatever hole we hide in. My way means we fight to stay alive.” He stopped Kanden by raising his voice. “And we keep hoping a solution appears to end the war in our favor.”

            Kanden snarled. “And what if no solution appears? What then?”

            Nolan let the stirrings die down. “And what if one does?”

            Long past the final debate’s end, the kafeth was already planning. Split into eight saskereth of roughly 25 members each, the groups had plunged deeper into the caves to discuss their plans to defeat the enemy, or plan a way to survive. Lalery of Conat slipped quietly next to Nolan and leaned close. “Did you arrange Kanden’s group?”

            Nolan smiled. “No. He did it himself, with his words and fears.”

            Lalery pulled her long hair back under the furred hood of her heavy parank. “You know his saskereth left the cave? And they took most of the dried food and water skins.”

            Ureg of Bergen squatted next to Nolan. “He knows, Lalery. The foodsacks they took were full of bark and straw. And as for the water skins, they are full of piss.”

            Lalery’s mouth dropped open as Nolan shared a laugh with kinsman Ureg. The first action to end the war had begun...but not against the true enemy.

            Two of the remaining seven groups were destroyed in the cave-riddled mountains, the strongholds they thought they’d built becoming death traps as the Mecataks sliced rocks to make their kills. Nolan told Lalery that at least three groups needed to survive, to avoid inbreeding creating a much weaker race. Ureg’s group became the third saskareth destroyed when the Mecataks ringed the deep havenath forest of the north. But Nolan’s deep howls of mourning were touched by tones of pride because Ugen’s dormant volcano trap had taken almost 3,000 enemy to a hellish end. Four saskereth left, barely 100 and nearly 2,000 Mecataks remained on the world. Nolan knew the war was near its end, needing but one final action to settle Fate.

            A captured Mecatak artifact lay next to an odd array of metal panels and mirrors. With trembling fingers, Nolan flicked the equipment “on” and raced, chest thudding, across the clearing knowing that the attack would come in mere seconds. The first blast landed behind him and he ran in terror, across grass and onto rocks, scrambling as he moaned in fear of death. Another blast tossed him amidst rubble, his chest broken and thus he saw the end of the war. Suddenly the Mecataks above turned to form a circle, landed and mistakenly blasted each other as enemies with actinic rays that sizzled air and earth. In a minute, the remains of more than 600 machines littered the Juvenar Plain. And Nolan smiled into the darkness that blanketed him.

            “Sir. Over 750 Mecataks were destroyed. We’re down to 1,154. Planet still shows active indigenous life in several quarters.”

            Commodore Langley cursed silently. “Recall the Mecs, Ensign. This planet ain’t worth it. On to the next one and let‘s make it happen, okay?” While I still have a command, he thought.