Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Sneak Peek 2: 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.

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.


365 Days of Flash Fiction is scheduled for release on October 4, 2014,  and pre-ordering should be available soon.

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