Week 490 (October 1 - October 14 ) Stories Topic: See Image CLOSED

[C.P., Windrunner]

You have until the 14th of October to post a story and from the 15th to around the 21st of October, we’ll vote for which one we thought was best!

Please post directly into the topic and not a link. Please don’t use a story previously used in this group. Only one submission per person is allowed.

Your story should be between 300 and 3,500 words long.

REMEMBER! A short story is not merely a scene. It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

This week’s topic is:



The rules are pretty loose. You could write a story about anything that has to do with the subject/photo but it must relate to the topic somehow.

Most of all have fun!

[C. J., Cool yet firm like ice]

Love it. Great idea, Courtney!

[Anne]

Title: The Captain's Treasure
Genre: Fantasy

Captain Mike sat in his usual spot enjoying the sun – on an old piece of driftwood at the grassy edge of the marina – and watched the boat drift in and pull up to the pump. He chewed on his pipe and stroked the trim brown-gray beard on his chin. Two men from the boat strode along the gangplank, talked with the attendant for several minutes, then strolled over to him.

"Hey old timer," the one said. "Know anything about that shipwreck off the lighthouse?"

"I might. Name's Mike, Cap'n Mike." He spoke with an odd accent.
The two men introduced themselves as Jerry and Sam. Both wore T-shirts announcing themselves as a salvage team.

"Ye boys heading out there?"

"Yep. Heard there's still undiscovered treasure."

"Mebbe." The old man's bright blue eyes burned. "But you won't be able to get at it."

"How so?" Jerry stepped closer and crossed his arms.

"No one's ever been able to. But they die trying. Ye got a right fine boat there, all rigged up. Shame to lose it. Or your crew. Go and dive and explore all ye want. But don't take anything away from it."

Sam looked uncomfortable enough to ask, "What are you saying? Someone's gonna come out and kill us? Sabotage the boat?"

Jerry added, "We're loaded. No one's gonna mess with us."

The captain pointed towards the sea with his pipe. "No need to. Nature."

The men scoffed. Jerry said, "Well, it ain't gonna happen this week. Blue skies, no clouds, no wind. It's a perfect day and will be every day."

The captain nodded. "Ye say that now. We'll see."

The young men looked at each other and decided he was a harmless crank with too much time on his hands who enjoyed winding people up.

Until the captain said, "Ye like to hear the story of the treasure?" He looked at them in turn.

Sam shrugged, "Sure, why not. We've got time to kill while the crew fills the tank and loads up supplies."

The captain leaned back and crossed his legs in front of him. He stared off into the horizon.

"It was in 1715. The new governor of the tiny island of Santa Maria had been a wealthy merchant in Spain and when he decided to stay, he arranged to have his wealth brought over. Two ships escorted the San Pietro but sank in a fierce storm before they arrived. So when the ship was attacked by pirates, it had only its own canons to defend itself with. Three attacked the San Pietro and there was no hope of evading or destroying them, although they did inflict enough damage to slow the pirates down and keep from being boarded. To keep the treasure out of their hands, the captain aimed for the shoals off the lighthouse and sent his crew ashore in the dinghies. When the pirates caught up with him, the hull had already been torn open and the ship was rapidly sinking. Captain Miguel was last seen atop of the sinking mast, brandishing his sword and cursing the pirates, swearing no one would ever lay their hands on the treasure. He has kept that promise."

The two men scoffed. "What, are you saying his ghost haunts the shipwreck?"

"He doesn't need to. He spends every night at the top of the lighthouse."

"Ah, so the lighthouse is haunted." Jerry winked at Sam. "And, he what, does something to keep the divers away from the treasure."

"Ah, you don't believe me." He sighed. "They never do." He shook his finger at them. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

He watched the men swagger away. Their boat left the marina and headed out past the lighthouse, where it stopped and the men began diving.

At dusk the captain left the marina and flitted across the water to the lighthouse, where he stood watching the divers. Two days later a fierce gale stormed the boat, sinking it atop the others who had met a similar fate. The captain sat and waited for the next treasure seeker, as he had done every night for over 300 years.

[Garrison]

AUTHOR: Garrison Kelly
TITLE: The Scatomancer
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
WORD COUNT: 1,622
RATING: PG-13 for violence, language, and toilet comedy



The lighthouse bathroom was the only one available for miles at Cheney Park. Not a good night to have overstuffed intestines…and an even worse night to be trapped in the men’s room with Johnny Lockwood. The black hoodie-wearing youngster sat in the middle stall with his knees to his chest and amber-colored magic swirling in his hands. His wide grin counted as a bold attempt to stifle his laughter, a low bar to clear for a man with an immature mind. “This is going to be good…this is going to be so good…” A tiny chuckle escaped his throat, but he quickly suppressed it when he heard the steel door burst open and business loafers tapping across the tile floor.

Judging from what Johnny could see underneath his stall door, the thick legs filling out business slacks suggested that whoever burst into the bathroom had a lot of…ammunition to work with. He put his non-magic-wielding hand over his mouth to keep his giggles in check. The corpulent corporate rushed into the stall next to Johnny and pulled his pants around his ankles long before the door could lock. Johnny’s giggles were laced with spitting noises as he saw a yellow stain in the front of the man’s white briefs.

The scatomancer went to work right away, forming symbols and gestures with his hands to cast his first spell. On cue, the stranger’s bowl movements sounded like a bomb going off, the splatter of toilet water suggesting the same. The man’s moaning didn’t deter Johnny from casting another spell, this time shooting feces from his pudgy cheeks like a fire hose. The poor bastard’s grunts and groans sounded more like a dying opera singer performing his magnum opus. Johnny held his aching ribs while struggling to keep his laughs under control.

For his final trick, Johnny pointed his fingers upwards and trembled as the amber magic did its work. The man screamed and hollered as he tried to give birth to a rock-hard wrecking ball, causing little droplets of blood to tap the floor. “Get out of my ass!” he shouted, causing Johnny’s laughter to make him lose control of the spell. The intestinal boulder collapsed into the toilet and completely destroyed it, spreading muddy water all over the floor and moistening its sticky surface. The man wiped his ass with toilet paper, but not without crying out like a torture rack victim. He didn’t even stop to wash his hands. He got out of there as fast as his hulking body could take him.

Johnny howled and hooted with laughter as he exited his own stall, holding his spine the entire time. “Ouch! Ouch! Oh my god, that was gold! Holy shit!” Even after seeing his scatomancy teacher standing across the bathroom with his arms folded in disgust, the hee-haws never stopped. They slowed down, but without making a complete stop. “Owen, did you see that? I got him good! Come on, man, laugh!”

Owen Murphy, a dark-haired middle-aged gentleman with a cloak covering his body (but thankfully not touching the floor) spat back at his protégé. “Multiple generations of potent magic has all come to this, it seems. The lost art of scatomancy has been reduced to a goddamn JOKE!”

Johnny’s laughter abated and his smile sagged into disappointment. “Joke? You mean it wasn’t a joke before? I’m literally a shit wizard! Most wizards like to shoot lightning bolts and fireballs from their fingertips. I control shit!”

Owen slapped Johnny across the face and killed the last remnants of laughter remaining. “You do more than just control shit. You have the power of life and death in your hands. Your little middle school prank could have killed him! Losing that much weight within seconds could have dehydrated him to death!”

Johnny waved him off. “Don’t worry, Master Murphy, he’ll gain all the weight back after he stuffs down a couple more chocolate-covered pork roasts.”

“So not only is lethal diarrhea funny to you, but also obesity. You truly have the mind of a toddler, Johnny. If your father didn’t have so many goddamn connections, you would have been fucked off a long time ago!”

With wide eyes and a hunched spine, Johnny said, “Dude! I’m a shit wizard! You taught me how to manipulate shit! Those jokes pretty much write themselves! So an army of dragons comes breathing down our necks. So what are we supposed to do about it with all of this cosmic knowledge we have? Do we make the dragons shit themselves to death? Oh, that’ll go over like a fart in church! See what I did there?”

Owen death gripped Johnny’s shoulders and made him hiss in pain. The master’s face oozed with anger, seriousness, and a little bit of psychopathy. In a gravelly whisper that could force giants to quiver in fear, he said, “I don’t have time to re-teach you the applications of scatomancy. You’ve had years to process it in your head. It’s more than just shit magic, Johnny. It’s biology. It’s pathology. It’s a pathway to information we wouldn’t otherwise have. So excuse me if I don’t share your immature sense of humor over magic that shouldn’t be toyed with!” Owen gave an extra tight squeeze and Johnny yelped.

He swatted his master’s hands away. “Alright, jeez, you don’t have to bite my head off! I’m sorry, okay! I won’t do it again! Like you said, I’ve had years to process this.” Owen’s mask of rage softened. “But then again…Fudge Tunnel McGee had years to process his string cheese and hotdogs and look how that turned out. Phew! Smells like chemical warfare in here!” Owen face-palmed. “Hey, there’s another useful application for shit magic, I mean, scatomancy: chemical weaponry! More powerful than a nuclear bomb and more radiation cancer! Huh? Yeah!”

Still with his face in his hands, Owen said, “I have lost all respect for you, Johnny. You could have been the chosen one of our sacred order. You could have lived up to your potential as the greatest wizard of your generation. All that time teaching you…it went to waste.”

“You’re damn right it went to waste! It’s all over the goddamn floor!”

“Goodbye, Johnny. I never want to see you again. If your father gets nepotistic on me, I’ll be sure to tell him that you’re a bigger piece of shit than what came out of…no, I’m not giving you comic fodder. You don’t deserve to laugh. I’d tell you to give up magic and get a job making pizzas at a gas station, but…”

“But my hands are too dirty for the job?”

Owen sighed, tucked his chin in disillusionment, and trudged out of the bathroom, dragging his wizard’s slippers across the murky floor. Johnny shrugged his shoulders before Owen poked his head in again. “Oh, and by the way…that gentleman you just pranked? He’s on the Board of Magic Education. His name is Bill Grass. If you want to laugh about how his last name rhymes with a certain expletive, be sure to tell him that to his face.” Owen slammed the door behind him.

“What does he mean by that?”

Somebody behind Johnny cleared his throat and the magician got a lump in his as he slowly turned around to face him. There he was: Chairman Bill Grass, complete with hands on his wide hips and a gorgon death stare on his bearded face. Needless to say, he wasn’t in the mood for comedy.

“Hey, Chairman…” Johnny looked down as he twiddled his fingers and thumbs. “How’s it going?” Bill tapped his foot with impatience. “Eh, I already know how it’s going, if you know what I mean.” Johnny placed his hands over his own mouth, as if trying to put the joke back where he got it from.

“You like jokes, Mr. Lockwood? You like making people laugh? Here, let me help you out with that.” Bill scooped Johnny off the ground, the young wizard begging and pleading to be put down. And so Bill did as he body slammed his attacker onto the scatomantic sludge. Johnny’s back and ribs pulsated with pain as he struggled to take even the simplest of breaths. He wouldn’t have wanted those breaths anyways since they all tasted and smelled like an intestinal plutonium rod.

“Go ahead, Johnny. Get up! Leave the bathroom! I dare you! You’ve got an entire student body gathered outside. You want people to not be so sensitive and have a sense of humor? Well, they’ll be laughing at you for years to come, my friend. Enjoy the attention! You’ll never shake it off again. Oops! I said shake it off in a men’s bathroom. Silly me!” Bill horse-laughed as he exited the bathroom, leaving Johnny in a painful heap on the ground.

Johnny had the choice to punch up with his sense of humor rather than punch down. He could have made something of himself. After that body slam by Chairman Grass, he’ll be the stuff of legend for as long as he lives, but not in the way that Owen Murphy had envisioned for him. Johnny rolled over onto his knees and pounded the ground in frustration, shouting a few curses for good measure. The splash of the toilet water got into his mouth and he immediately puked his guts out all over the floor, becoming an even bigger legend in the process. The best he could have done was laugh with his contemporaries, but his ribs and spine were too sore for that. In a way, his bones were one in the same with his spirit: broken down and never to be fixed again. The only question of the evening was…who’s laughing now?

[Sally]

AUTHOR: Sally M. Chetwynd
TITLE: The Lighthouse with a Ticklish Foot
GENRE: Children
WORD COUNT: 1,304
RATING: families

THE LIGHTHOUSE WITH A TICKLISH FOOT

Assateague Lighthouse was a tall, solid lighthouse built long ago in 1867. Its stone and concrete foundation was set twelve feet deep in the high sandy bluff where it stood above the sea. Its conical red-brick tower, one hundred and forty-two feet tall, reached high into the sky, taller than a twelve-story building. It was so tall that sailors could see the bright beam of its first-order Fresnel lens, the biggest size made, from nineteen miles out to sea.

Some of the glass panes of the lantern room at the top of its tower were ruby red so that the sailors could tell, when the beam changed from white to red as it turned, exactly which lighthouse they saw at night. The beam’s flashing pattern and changing color guided ships away from dangerous shoals and safely to ports and harbors.

The big lighthouse was proud of its work, but lighthouses live in lonely places. So, when its keepers talked about a new light coming to live nearby, the big lighthouse looked forward to having a neighbor. It expected big construction crews to arrive with equipment and building materials, but where were the men to prepare a foundation? Where were the blocks of stone, cut with dovetails to fit into each other like jigsaw puzzle pieces? Where were the palettes of bricks? When the men came, they delivered none of these. They brought only a pile of lumber. In a few days, a wooden structure stood a mile and a half away at the end of Fishing Point, a small, sandy spit of land.

Assateague stared in disbelief. THAT was a lighthouse? Fishing Point Light Station was nothing more than a few tall, wooden poles, stuck into the muddy sand, with a pint-sized glass housing for the light fixed to the top. It didn’t even have a house. Assateague frowned. It wouldn’t be easy to teach Fishing Point how to be a lighthouse.

Assateague Lighthouse was designed to look out to sea. It could see Fishing Point easily, on the right side of its angle of view. But it was disgruntled. It had plenty to do already without having to mind a beginner lighthouse too puny to be called one. It had to keep an eye out for ships approaching the dangerous Black Fish Shoals and Winter Quarter Shoals, shallow waters over long sand bars fourteen miles out to sea.

Besides that, Assateague’s three light keepers – the head keeper, Mr. Anderton, and his two assistant keepers, Mr. Quillin and Mr. Hopkins - had more than enough work to take care of Assateague’s lamp, its tower, its keepers’ house, its oil house where fuel for the lantern was kept, and all the other buildings and the grounds that belonged to it. Just to take care of the new little light station, the U. S. Light House Service had to hire a third assistant keeper, Mr. Colllins, who rode a horse to Fishing Point every evening to light the lamp for the night. And the keepers’ house bulged with the Anderton, Quillin, and Hopkins families who already lived there, so they had to build a bungalow for Mr. Collins.

There were no problems at first, when Fishing Point was close by. But Fishing Point got the wanderlust. A couple of years went by before Assateague noticed that the little light station had moved a half-mile farther away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Assateague said.

“To get near the water,” Fishing Point replied. The point had grown.

Yes, the spit of land where Fishing Point lived grew all the time. Assateague Island was long and skinny, almost forty miles long, but never wider than one mile. Strong ocean currents that always ran along its outer beaches picked up and carried sand from its beaches. When Fishing Point Light Station first arrived, the southern end of the island had two short branches, like the tines of a stubby fork. When the currents got to Fishing Point, the outer tine caught them and slowed down the currents so much that they couldn’t carry the sand anymore. It fell to the bottom and built up the end of the spit.

***

A few years later, Assateague noticed that Fishing Point was on the move again, headed south and a little west. It took up residence two and a half miles away.

“Why are you changing places again?” asked Assateague.

“The edge of the water keeps moving, so I need to go after it.”

The point had become shaped like a fingernail trimming.

***

A few years later, just about the time Assateague got used to Fishing Point’s new place, off the little light station went again, headed southwest.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Assateague called.

“I have to follow the point of land.”

Now Fishing Point was three miles away. The spit of land had formed a widening beach that reached west.

***

More sand came. More years passed. The spit took the shape of a crescent moon. It had originally been called Fishing Point, and the little light station was named after it. But now that it had created a protected bay behind it, called Tom’s Cove, others called the spit Tom’s Hook.

Fishing Point jumped again. This time, it stood in the water, two feet deep at low tide.

“Come back here!” Assateague shouted across the three and a half miles between them.

“I can’t help it. I like it when the tide tickles my foot.”

“Crawling crabs and crayfish are doing the tickling,” Assateague grumbled to itself.

***

“You’re doing this on purpose!” Assateague yelled the next time Fishing Point moved. Not only was Fishing Point three and a half miles away, but it edged more westerly all the time. It was headed north, following the spit of land, which was now shaped like a fish hook. It was almost out of Assateague’s angle of view.

“But the water is too far away again. I must guide the fishermen into the channel. They need to get to the factories over here.”

It was true. When the spit grew long enough to create Tom’s Cove, men built large factory buildings inside the hook to process the fish that the boats brought to the long docks and piers. The factories turned the fish into fish meal, fish oil, and fertilizer.

Assateague’s light keeper, Mr. Collins, had a longer and longer ride every evening to light Fishing Point’s lamp for the night.

***

“Will you stop bouncing around?” Assateague hollered.

“Not until the land stops growing!” Fishing Point hollered back.

***

“When will you come back?” Assateague bellowed across the distance.

“When the ocean currents take the land away again!”

Fishing Point was so far away that Assateague couldn’t hear the delight in its voice. But the big lighthouse knew it was there and that the little light station would never behave. It was too happy-go-lucky to settle down.

***

For almost forty years, Fishing Point hopped about, chasing the tip of Tom’s Hook as it grew and grew. Finally, the spit grew so big, shaped like a tear drop, that sand collected inside the cove and made it too shallow for the fishing boats to dock at the fish factories. The factories had to close.

Without the fish factories, Fishing Point had no job. It wasn’t long before the United States Coast Guard came and took Fishing Point down, which had lit the entrance to Chincoteague Inlet.

Assateague missed Fishing Point. It could never to convince the little light station to behave like a real lighthouse, but it had become fond of its wandering neighbor. Fishing Point Light Station did do its job, although its method was most unusual.

Assateague wondered. Was Fishing Point Light Station the only lighthouse that wouldn’t stand still?

[C.P., Windrunner]

I just wrote this in twenty minutes, so it's not polished or really even complete, but I wanted to share something so here you go!

title: the rocky shore
word count: ~770

The children played on the rocks at the base of the cliff, the lighthouse sitting over their heads. The sky was pale pink and blue and gray, sunlight dipping away. Laughter and the bark of a giant white dog floated on the salty breeze as the children and their canine companion slipped their way over the moss covered rocks, mist from the waves splattering their clothes.

All the adults were inside the lighthouse, tending the light or cooking a meal. The dog was the only supervision the children had, but he was all they had ever needed. The boy raced ahead of the girl, calling some taunt over his shoulder as his feet found first the sand of the shore and then the rocky steps leading up the cliff side. His words were lost to the wind, but the girl must have heard them, because she doubled her effort to catch up, irritation stark on her face, her short brown curls hanging almost straight from the weight of the sea water.

The dog — ever faithful companion — bounded beyond the girl, barking as he chased the boy up the rock strewn steps. The wind was growing in strength, the waves lapping a little harder. A storm was forming somewhere on the great expanse of sea, building and pushing toward land, toward the lighthouse. The children raced each other, raced the wind, and laughed in the face of destruction, not knowing what might be coming for them in those darkening clouds.

As she reached the top of the cliffs, clutching a stitch in her side, the girl spun a circle in search of her companions. There! At the point of the cliff, a few dozen yards beyond the lighthouse, the companions stood awaiting her. With a glare, the child began to run again, stitch in her side all but forgotten now that her quarry was in sight once more.

The boy waited by the edge of the cliff, looking down at the water crashing dozens of feet below. His hand played with the ears of the white dog absently. He couldn’t hear the girl’s footsteps, but he heard her call his name, irritation clear in her voice. He smiled as he turned toward her, taking an involuntary step back as he saw her barreling his way. His toe caught the cliff’s edge and slipped, his eyes growing round as his arms clutched to catch hold of something — anything — that might help him catch his balance.
There was nothing. He fell.

The girl screamed her surprise and terror, but the wind pulled her voice away from the house and out to the sea. The ocean was a careless of her shrieks. The girl could see her friend sprawled at the base of the cliffs when she peered over the edge, waves washing up and over him, covering his motionless form. The dog howled his fear, whimpered his anguish, but to no avail.

Slipping and sliding, the girl climbed down the cliff. The boy still lay where he fell when she got there, pulling his head from beneath the water with trembling fingers. The dog howled overhead, unable to come down. The girl held the boy, crying and screaming, blood coating her hands from the gash in his head. She tried to move him, wanted to pull him to the dry spot by the cliff’s edge so she could run back for help, but her arms trembled with the effort, barely able to move him an inch. The best she could do was hold his head out of the water and hope, as her arms grew tired and her muscles wavered that someone from the house would find them.

The dog continued to howl.

Inside the house at the base of the lighthouse, the adults listened to the radio. A storm was building not far from them, soon the water would rise nearly over the edge of the cliff. Where were the children? What of the dog?

They found the dog howling on the edge of the cliff. The children were nowhere to be seen. They searched and searched, atop the cliff and around its base, on the rocks and in the alcoves, but they never found the children.

A different lighthouse keeper is there now. He says if you look over the edge of the cliff when a storm approaches, you can see the outline of two children. A girl with her hands around the head of boy, holding his ghostly visage out of the water. Though there is no dog there currently, you can hear the howl of that faithful hound.