Well hello there. It has been a little while since I last posted here - not through lack of trying though.
I was on a roll for a while there, posting short stories for you to read and then life got busy (as it does) then once settled in at our new place, I started thinking about writing something long form again, and when that happens my brain tends to focus on that.
But that’s not what today’s post is about, todays post is about those short stories that getting when following a prompt; and by prompt I don’t mean what gibberish an “AI Artist” types into the theft machine, I mean when a publisher wants to put out a particularly themed anthology - for example “The End of the World As We Know It” which is an anthology of short stories based on Stephen king’s “The Stand”
While I am not submitting my shorts to those lofty heights, it is still a challenge for me to write to a set “theme” but earlier this year I saw a few submission calls that piqued my interest for multiple reasons; the theme sounded cool, the theme provided a significant challenge (who doesn’t want to be challenged?) and most of all, if I am being completely honest, acceptance in some of these anthologies could potentially expose my writing to a bigger audience, which is also sort of the goal here, really.
So, after reading a few of these submission calls, off I went into the writer’s wilderness, and as someone who is very much a "Pantser" this can be a fraught process.
But it was an experience in writing in slightly different genres than I am used to; one was 80s Alien/Sci Fi themed, one was Crytpid and another was Weird Western, all of which are fascinating genres in and of themselves, but generally not in my “wheelhouse”
When it’s all said and done and your happy with what you’ve conjured up from the ether, off you send it - along with likely hundreds (if not thousands) of other writers, all hoping for the same shot as you.
Yay… Fun …. Joy….
The excitement of doing all of that is very quickly outweighed by the waiting that then happens. Publishing is a notoriously slow game.
So, you wait.
Then you wait some more.
Then you wait just a little bit more.
Then in a flurry of excitement you eventually hear whether your piece was selected and in case you haven’t already guessed Dear Reader, in this case - the answer was no..
Now you’re asking yourself - “why is he telling us all this?” mostly for context, as now I have a few shorts that have been written to a particular theme, with no real home apart from here.
That was my long winded-ass version of basically saying “Hey, here’s another free short story!”
So, with that, I will share the first of these “orphaned” stories here, this one is in the “Weird West” genre. It is called “Keep Out Clara”
I had a lot of fun writing it, getting out of the comfort zone is a worthwhile experience.
Until next time, enjoy
D
Keep Out Clara
It had been a long while since Clara Adler had made that long walk up to the mine entrance. The mine had been empty since last year, but her job was simple; walk up there every six or so weeks and resurrect the “keep out" sign.
She gathered her bucket and brushes and swung a shawl around her shoulders to fend off the bitter desert wind. The dust kicked around the bottom of her skirts as the sun hung low in the sky that morning.
‘Mornin’ Miss Clara.’ called old Ben Johnson from the porch of his house where he sat on a small stool, his belly spilling out of his dust covered overalls. The sun shone directly into his eyes as he shielded them, ‘Going on up to that mine are ya?’ His beady eyes followed her path past his run-down shack.
‘Yessir!’ She was rushing so it came out more petulant than she had hoped.
She waved him off as she trudged up the hill towards the mine.
He went straight back on to draining a bottle of whiskey on his porch, such as he was wont to do most days. All the while ignoring the hogs he kept underfed in his yard.
His was the last shack on the dusty road that led out to the endless plains.
The railway line stopped just five miles from this makeshift town, but it was hardly a town; just a collection of shacks, a few attempts at farms and a now nearly barren well, its bucket lay on its side, its meagre contents spilling out and evaporating in the sun.
Most people had upped and left when the mine closed, leaving only dust, and some devils, in their wake.
Cacti littered the brown dusty bowl that sat before the cliff face entrance. Bones of unknown animals lay strewn about like thrown-away toys
A switchback made its way up the rock face, like the spine of a sickly dog.
Within those rocks and winding caves some forty men lost their lives just over a year ago, Clara’s husband Dwight included in that number.
This job of hers was both occupation and pilgrimage; a trek to face her past and an attempt to move through it.
But she knew what truly waited for these men, in the deep, dark places of the world. In that maze of cold, twisting, firelit caverns.
She knew what waited, what dwelled beneath because it spoke to her; both in her dreams at night when her husband's grip slipped like sand through her fingers, but also it spoke to her in her waking life.
As she got closer to the mine’s entrance, that voice, distant at first, became louder, pounding in her mind, that same old refrain, “Keep out Clara, keep out. Keep out Clara, keep out.”
It repeated like a mantra in her mind, rhythmically timed with her tired and trudging footsteps as she climbed the last of the switchbacks to the entrance. She, however, was calm in the face of its unseen presence.
The sun had truly crested the horizon now and was hot on her back as she dropped the bucket into the dust, her brushes clattered around inside the metal pail.
She tied her long greying hair back into braids and as she did, she eyed the boards in front of her. The warning sign, the sigil, she had painted last time - no trace of it remained.
Taken by the dust, or something else.
It needed to be redone, to rebuild the wall between the world of Clara out here and the world of what lay in the depths inside those cold, dark rocky tunnels.
She heard its voice again, like a cold sea crashing against rocks, loud and clear, “Keep out Clara, keep out.”
That statement was her primary intention as she rolled up her shirt sleeves. Her pale right arm, laced with scars upon scar was held aloft. It now bore the full warmth of the sun.
The blade flashed as it caught the sun, glimmering briefly as it scored a deep unwavering line through her flesh, like the parting of cloth. Her offering, red and warm, trailed down and around her elbow and began to fill the bucket at her feet. At first it was one thick drip then the staccato “patter” of her blood began.
She stowed the blade away and knelt in the sand before the door.
She had to write the sign, the sign purely for her, “Keep out Clara, keep out..”
That was what the thing below wanted… what it needed.
It needed to keep Clara out.
For Clara was far more ancient, far more powerful than what dwelt in the depths. From below, the thing throbbed and twisted in anguish, its fear now palpable as Clara’s blood formed the sigil and sealed the invisible yet unmoveable barrier between them.
It did not sound a warning, but an uttered and fearful request from beneath.
“Keep out Clara. Keep Out…”
I love the twist on the repeated phrase! Great story.