Morgan Delaney

Dark, strange and fantastic fiction

Flash fiction

Blackmail

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My short story collection, People Skins, Volume I is out now. To celebrate, I’ve teamed up with 23 other writers to bring you the Flashes of Fear book bundle. Get TWO DOZEN free books, including People Skins by clicking on the picture above or here!

If that sounds like it’s just too many books, then stick around for this week’s piece of thrilling flash fiction, instead. Enjoy!

He didn’t want me to kill the main character, a rising criminal lawyer called Kate Field, who was clearly an idealised version of myself.

“There’s been too much killing already,” he said. “And no one seems to have profited from it.”

There it was. He knew how much of the story was real, and how much was fictional. And how much I’d have to pay to keep him quiet. His own story for the creative writing class featured a superficially charming Talented Mr Ripley type who knew how to get away with anything.

The rest of the class liked my story, however: Kate kills her abusive spouse, and hangs the murder on the suspect of another crime. He accepts the punishment as there isn’t enough proof to convict him for the crime he did commit, which he regrets.

“Let’s move on to your piece, Brian,” said the teacher. “Have you made any changes since the last feedback round?”

“I’ve polished the language, and considered the rest of the points,” said Brian, which meant *no.*

He’d been bringing the same story to class for months: a man blackmails another writer with a story about what that writer has done with her husband’s body.

“He still gets away with it, at the end?” asked the teacher.

“Oh, yes,” said Brian. “It’s the perfect crime.”

“Famous last words,” I murmured.

“Brian has dropped out of class,” said the teacher the following week. There was a half-hearted mumble from the students. I joined in, then pulled out a brand-new story to be critiqued.

Forces

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Painting of two ladies whispering beside a sleeping man
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

To introduce this week’s flash fiction, I’m going to paraphrase the beloved English poet, Mick Jagger:

You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you deserve.

What (the hell) am I talking about?

Read on!

It came from the girl. The pull was irresistible. She shifted position in her cage, and the chains she wore for market auction clinked.

Kat pressed up to the cage’s bars and stared, drinking in the lank hair, the dusty face and worn clothing of a labourer. The girl’s mouth moved, as if reciting something.

This was the first time Kat would buy servants for her family’s household. It was her present on her 16th birthday, she could by whoever she wanted.

More than anything, she wanted this girl. The handler opened the bidding at 100, half what Kat had, and she needed to buy half a dozen servants. Then the handler, with a quick look over his shoulder, corrected himself: 20. She waited, made herself wait, for the handler to start cajoling. When he was almost pleading, she lifted her purse. He pointed, confirming the offer. The girl’s eyes were on her, her mouth moved. The need pouring off the girl was magnetic. She’d likely not last long. She was barely 10 or maybe 12 under the dirt, but she was her present. Sweat coated her nervous hands when the handler released the girl. Kat took her with her as she bid on the other servants they needed: a man for outside, two girls for the kitchen, a woman for laundry, and a boy to serve her father, who hated that women so outnumbered him in his own home. The girl would be Kat’s servant once she’d find out how to stop the girl’s move mouth moving. The girl stood respectfully behind Kat. The breath from her mouth made Kat uncomfortable.

Her family remarked on the similarity between the servants Kat had bought, and congratulated her, like she had displayed great judgement in purchasing a matching set. And there was something forceful about them. They would last a long time.

If only they’d stop whispering.

See you next wee—

You’e back to the weird stories again, are you?

You found it weird?

We found you weird!

Thank you! That’s probably because you’re normal.

That wasn’t a compliment.

Correct! See you next week.

(Both parties exit the stage, muttering under their breath)

Airborne

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An empty toilet roll
Photo by Jasmin Sessler on Unsplash

As the world slowly comes out of lockdown, we’re all going to have to get used to flying again. I hate flying!

It wasn’t that if even the slightest thing went wrong, he’d plunge to his death after an interminable and exhilarating dive from above the clouds. It was the tiny bathrooms he hated most about flying. He managed to finish and wash his hands without brushing up against any of the puddled surfaces.

When he tried to slide its silver bolt, the door wouldn’t open, though the bolt moved easily. All he’d managed to do was turn off the light in the cubicle-ette.

“Hello?” He called. People were gasping and shouting outside as the plane tilted again. This time the right wing went up and something – somebody – hit the door hard, even as Miles threw out his arms against the walls, catching both elbows nasty jars in the cramped box, to avoid being tossed against the toilet.

The Intercom crackled and spat white noise before, very clearly, he heard a gunshot. The screams outside increased in volume and pitch, and the plane veered sharply down, nosediving as if to get away. Miles listened furiously in the dark toilet cubicle. This was the worst thing about flying: plunging to his death, while stuck in the toilet. Outside, gunshots, screams, and wind whistled, papers snapped as bullet pierced the Perspex windows.

After they landed, Miles was bundled out of the plane with the other passengers, his hands held high. Watched with, he thought, a touch more suspicion than the passengers who’d been seated. They were subjected to searches. Ugh, thought Miles, security checks. This is the part he hated most about flying.

I prefer trains. See you next week!

Make

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A red safety hat for construction sites
Photo by Ümit Yıldırım on Unsplash

For today’s flash fiction, I reminisce about my time as a building manager.

They could sit at the edge of the unfinished fourth floor because the safety guy wasn’t there. It wasn’t like you could really fall off the edge while you are having lunch, and it felt good to enjoy something you had made. Brick was dying out in favour of concrete, even though concrete was so much worse for the climate.

“Oh, shit!” Rick pointed with half a beef-tongue sandwich. Andrew, the safety guy, was getting out of his car at the edge of the building site, and he was staring straight at them.

They scattered, stuffing a last bite of food into their mouths and grabbing their things. Down below, Andrew was running towards the building, his clipboard in his hand. Rick raced to the roof. He could hide in the unfinished chimney, though it wouldn’t be comfortable. The rest raced for whatever hiding place they could find. Brett headed for the stairs and was intercepted by Andrew’s “Hey!” Paperwork finished him off.

The safety guy was coming.

Paul waited for his footsteps to get close, then slipped down through a hole left in the floor for pipes, twisting his ankle when he landed.

“I know you’re here,” said Andrew. Dave and Charles looked innocent, pretending to measure the gap for the window on the other side of the building, but Andrew didn’t fall for it and bombarded them with forms.

Up on the roof, Rick’s grip was loosening on the board over the chimney. There was only another thin one below his feet, and it shook as Andrew’s voice reverberated up through the hole. He was close.

Andrew got four of them altogether. Not a bad score. It was for their own good. He had just decided to call it a day when a lunchbox shot out of a chimney close by. What were they playing at now? He poked his head into the chimney to see what was going on, just in time to break Rick’s fall.

Stay safe out there, I’ll see you next week!

Set

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A dark bar with two upholstered benches
Photo by Carson Masterson on Unsplash

Welcome back! This week’s story is about a mysterious group of men who seem to have figured things out…

They called themselves The Gentleman. The name, I feel, was aspirational. Three large men who played dice at the back of Hoagie’s bar each Thursday.

“Another round for The Gentleman” called one and the waitresses would play their own games of chance to see which of them had to deliver it. Not bad men, not cruel. Just wrong.

Hoagie had tried closing on Thursdays. But The Gentleman came, whether the bar was open or not, and he felt it would be dangerous to leave them unattended, unwatched.

We all assumed they were dead. Ghosts, or some such, and there were legends about how they had been regulars and kept showing up, even after death. No one believed it. They had never been here before they started showing up. If you know what I mean?

But maybe there were some secret to the game they played. Their dice rattled like bones. It put one into a certain style of thinking.

I don’t think many men would mind “living on” drinking and gambling, so Hoagie took notes. A big notebook full of numbers: dice throws and the eyes that landed face up. Even got an overweight kid from the University to look at them, but there was no sense that anyone could see.

Holly started rolling his own dice. I just picked out dice and laid them face up on my table. The kid from University had some formula how many dice he needed each throw to copy the numbers the Gentleman had thrown.

After a while we started doing it at the same table, sharing our results like gentlemen.

I’ve got BOOKS coming very, very soon! My advice: get yourself signed up to my newsletter so you don’t miss out! You can do that here!

Problems

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Tree huggers
Photo by Simon Wijers on Unsplash

Hi all,

this week we’re off to the hospital for a check up. I hope everything’s okay…

If only there was an on/off switch for life. Reset the system when there’s a problem, or switch off until the bad is over.
A life-support system or something is beeping from one of the other rooms, nurses’ chatter, footsteps. Otherwise the hospital is as silent as the grave.
That’s not an appropriate metaphor.

I’d love to pull some of these tubes out of Henry, without the staff interfering, or Beth and Kyle noticing.

They’re both asleep, one in each arm. Kyle’s foot twitches as he dreams. I like to think he’s dreaming about soccer, but who knows? It would scare them if mummy unplugged daddy’s life support machine. They’re scarred enough already, and I can’t get near any of those buttons without waking them. There should be an app for my phone, that’s what I need.

“He’ll be fine, don’t worry,” says a nurse behind me. I didn’t hear her coming, although her shoes squeak when she walks out again. I must’ve fallen asleep. Beth and Kyle are awake now, too and look terrified.
“She was just trying to be nice,” I say. “The nurse is wrong.”

I need to do it before the next nurse checks.
“Go on,” I tell the children. “Hug daddy goodbye.” His breath is laboured as I put my four-year-old and six-year-old on his chest. They automatically put their hands around his neck, like he likes to be hugged. “That’s it. Harder, so he can feel it before he slips away.”
The machine starts to beep and flash.
“Harder.”

This one was supposed to be funny when I started writing it. Weird.