Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy,
speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just
about every genre it can lay its hands on. C.M. Simpson explores new worlds,
new settings and lets loose some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of her
head.
If short stories are your thing—and the
shorter the better—you can find tiny tales from a wide variety of genres in 365
Days of Flash Fiction.
Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy,
speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just
about every genre it can lay its hands on. C.M. Simpson explores new worlds,
new settings and lets loose some ideas that just needed to be gotten out of her
head.
If short stories are your thing—and the
shorter the better—you can find tiny tales from a wide variety of genres in 365
Days of Flash Fiction.
Some of them are tales of urban fantasy,
but not the romantic kind. Take this tale of pixies, for example:
The
Pixies at Wickman’s Cave
Written on February 16, 2014, for the February 11
entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction,
this piece expands on the pixie dust world. Enjoy.
Pixies! Who needs ‘em?
I saw a half dozen
headin’ into Wickman’s caves, but not under their own steam.
See? I like
potholing. Caving deep, man.
I was off to
Wickman’s for a bit of a delve, but what I saw stopped me cold. Pixies, man,
bein’ carried in cages, janglin’ like fairy bells gone wrong as they were taken
into the dark.
Blokes holdin’ the
cages were bad ass, but even they were bein’ careful not to touch the sides.
Pixies bite… and that’s not all. Usually, I steer clear of the little mothers,
but there was something real wrong seein’ them caged like that. Figured they
could do with some help.
Anyways, I saw
what else was bein’ carried into that cave and I set my phone to 000, left a
message and hid the damn thing under a bush so the police could track it to the
cave, and then I set about findin’ another way in.
This wasn’t my
first time to Wickman’s. I know the system pretty well. I knew a back way. Only
one cavern I could think of would be big enough to hold that many cages and the
industrial-sized microwave they just dragged in. I might not like pixies, but
no way was I goin’ to let them do that to the little varmints.
I got into the
rear of the cavern and watched them set up. Watched ‘em test the fryer on one
of the pixies and figured it was one too many. There weren’t goin’ ta be no
more… well, not if they all went home and left the work ‘til mornin’.
I watched ‘em
string lights and then bring in more pixies, start stackin’ cages along the
rear wall. Ducked my head until I was below light level. Waited some more.
No one leaves
guards inside. I learned that from… well, never you mind. These guys weren’t no
different. I watched ‘em leave, unstacked the first two cages and headed back
up to the surface. Set ‘em up by the edge of the hole and headed back in. Came
back with two more.
By then, the first
two were mighty pissed. I got the gist and started openin’ doors. I had a piton
and hammer in my gear. It made short work of the locks. Trouble is, it looks
the same when you’re reachin’ for the door as it does if’n you jes’ closed it.
The unicorn hit me hard from behind before the pixies could let it know I was
helpin’. Good thing the damn mules can heal as well as hurt. I’da been a gonner
otherwise.
So, the unicorns
took out the guards at the front, and made sure no-one else came in unless they
had cop ID. Who knew they were aware of what those looked like? But they did.
It went faster after that, although I nearly got myself shot for monkeying
around the cages when the special squad arrived.
The pixies flew
between them and me until the squaddies didn’t seem inclined to ventilate me no
more, and then I discovered I was some kind of hero. Only thing was, I had to
postpone my Wickman climb a whole month while they cleaned the rest of the mess
up.
Not cool, man. Not
cool.
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