This bit of flash fiction is based on a visual prompt from Miranda Kate’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge #263. You can join in, too, if you’d like! My offering, colored towards the horror end of the spectrum, has only 426 words (well under the 750-word limit). It is titled Scripture.
I’m also bringing back a character I’ve developed over my years of writing: Wendell. I haven’t dragged him into any stories lately, so I thought it was time I did. For those who only know my writing from my few posts here on Substack, Wendell is a fellow who tends to get himself in trouble, often quite innocently. I’ll leave it at that.
Scripture
After searching for weeks through the old man’s houses and haunts, clandestinely, of course, he had finally found them: the very pens Bertram Cornish had used to write his amazing stories. He’d managed to beat the author’s cult-like followers and souvenir hunters to the prize.
Wendell had read the author’s tales since he’d first discovered them as a young man. The stories took place in so many different times and places it was difficult to grasp how Cornish could write so realistically and with such detail in each. It was as if he had expert knowledge of every subject and setting in which his tales took place. The literary world offered a collective gasp when he unexpectedly retired and checked himself into a remote Swiss sanitorium.
The pens had become part of the mystique surrounding the author when in an interview he’d been asked how he produced such magical stories. He replied, “Oh, my pens have all the magic. I just guide them along.” Wendell recalled the wry smile he offered with the answer.
Wendell didn’t believe in magic; it was the chance to touch, to hold, the very same pens his favorite author had used that excited him beyond words. One had a map of the world, likely used for his travel and adventure stories. Another had gears. Could that have been the pen used to write his steampunk epics? They were all so ornate, so beautiful. He lightly stroked the carved surfaces; his fingers trembled as if electricity flowed through them.
Wendell could understand all the markings except one. The meaning of the design eluded him. The carvings seemed disjointed, helter-skelter, and meaningless. There was paper nearby, however, and ink; he could not resist trying it out. He lifted the pen from the case, opened the ink bottle, and dipped the point into darkness.
When the pen touched paper, ideas flowed from Wendell’s brain, pouring out onto the clean, white sheet. Sentence after sentence, page after page, the words came. This was the pen for horror, Wendell’s favorite genre. He could feel his heart pounding within his chest. His mouth was dry. Though terrified by his own words, he continued on.
When the story was about to reach its climax, he paused. He couldn’t seem to see beyond that point to finish the tale.
He sat back, stroked his chin, and said, “How does this end?”
It was at that point Wendell realized he was not alone. He looked up to see the very figure of Death itself, scythe raised, ready to strike.
“Oh.”