Tag Archive for: drabble

Carry the One…Hundred

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by T.J. Gallasch

I’d checked my calculations, twice, and then again, wanting to be absolutely certain before I threw the switch. I’d been working on this machine for years, but finally it was time to give it a try.

“Alpha equals Delta over Gamma, carry the one…” I murmured, checking the whiteboard a final time.

The machine whirred, lights flashing, and then out from the archway came another me.

“Hello,” it said as it shook my hand.

Then came another, and another.

“This isn’t right,” I muttered, confused.

And that’s when the first clone, marker in hand, added two zeros onto my one.

 

T.J. Gallasch

 

Number 57

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by Tracy Davidson

The other me is here. Sitting at my table, chatting with my wife and kids.

I don’t know how he escaped from the lab, how he got home before I did. I gave him life, and he tries to steal mine?

He won’t be the first clone I’ve had to destroy. 56 before him malfunctioned too.

My family laughs at something he said. They never laugh like that with me. Traitors!

My fists tighten around the hammer in my hand. Can’t remember where I picked it up, why it’s bloody. Or why there’s a tag marked 57 around my wrist.

 

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.

Next Gen

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by Kristin Lennox

Trey marvelled at the monitor. The man in the examination room looked exactly like him, down to his unruly cowlick.

“So he just goes about his life, oblivious, until I need him…?”

Dr Wilmer nodded. “Yes—he has a fully implanted memory, no idea he was cloned. If you need one of his organs, let us know. Sign here, please…”

***

Chip watched Trey sign the form on his screen. “So he has no idea I’m about to get his heart…?”

Dr Campbell shook his head. “None.”

Chip ran his fingers through his cowlick. “I feel bad…”

“Don’t. Sign here, please…”

 

Kristin Lennox

Kristin is delighted to have had several drabbles published by Black Hare Press. She’s also a voice actor, and when she’s not talking to herself in her padded room (home studio), she tries to get the voices out of her head and onto the page.

It’s Just Business

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by Don Money

What harm could it cause? I thought. A secret two week getaway to Cancun with a clone covering my job at the office. The clone was easily enough to come by in the back alley laboratory. A month training “Steve” and everything was ready.

A week later, I sat at the bar watching the news. “The shock is reverberating across the business world as stock analyst Steve Moore was named CEO of multimillion dollar Golarx Industries.”

I rush back to my hotel suite. A stranger stands in the room with a gun. “Mr Steve says he has it from here.”

 

Don Money

Don Money writes stories across a variety of genres. He is a middle school language arts teacher. His stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies and magazines.

Spores on the Wind

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by Chris Clemens

When the mushroom sickness takes over, you’re conscious for a while. Awake. Paralysed. There’s a frantic back-and-forth while it seizes control of your muscles, puppeting limbs like an unfamiliar vehicle. Convulsions on the kitchen floor. If you’re lucky, loved ones will find and kill you.

If not, you might watch yourself vomiting fungal mould into your toddler’s Cheerios, stirring in the mess before anyone wakes up. Bones snapping, you’ll contort impossibly through neighbours’ crawlspaces and vents, retching out cinereous spores. You’ll shudder at the cunning of this alien intelligence dominating your body. At least the mushrooms can’t stop your tears.

 

Chris Clemens

Chris Clemens teaches courses about popular/digital culture in Toronto, where he lives with his wonderful family. His flash fiction has appeared in Invisible City Lit, Apex Magazine, and elsewhere.

Contaminated

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by G.B. Dinesh

When the contamination happens, the genetic engineering laboratory is sealed off automatically, containing the turbocharged plastic-eating bacteria and the three microbiologists within the laboratory.

Ted begins hyperventilating.

“It eats plastic,” John says. “It can’t survive in our bodies.”

“I’m worried more about the quarantine process we’ll have to go through,” Anna says.

But then John coughs up blood and collapses to the floor. Soon Anna’s nose starts bleeding.

“It’s in our food and water,” she says.

Ted feels a stabbing pain in his chest. “What?”

“Microplastics,” she says. “Along with the plastic lodged in our bodies, the bacteria’s eating us.”

 

G.B. Dinesh

G.B. Dinesh is a young writer and software engineer from Chennai, India. Say hello on X (formerly Twitter).

Twitter: @dinesh_bob_

Birth

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by Sophie Wagner

Men and women alike writhed in pain on the ground of the birthing ward as babies slithered between them, smearing black goo everywhere.

Monica screamed in agony as her arm pulsated, the purple gargantuan pouch attached to it nearly bursting. The man beside her was already cold, despite his birthing-sack popping moments ago. A good thing; he would’ve died from the skinning, anyway. The parasite looks like you already, but it craves warmth and fresh flesh is best.

As the world faded to black, Monica saw her old colleague being injected with the disease.

Something in his stomach began wriggling.

 

Sophie Wagner

Sophie Wagner is an emerging student author who has had multiple short story and poetry publications. You can find her work at The Macabre Ladies, Black Ink Fiction, Eerie River Press, Iron Faerie Publishing, Black Hare Press and more. She hopes you have a horror-filled day!

The Frenzy

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by Jessica Gleason

Candace, using her neon polished nails, picked a cornflake-looking scab from her sallow arm. The black wound beneath smelled of rotten fruit, sweet and rancid. She dug a finger into the gaping hole and revelled in the pain it brought.

Coughing, she wiped blood and spittle from her mouth, and laughed as another of her loose, rotted teeth fell free from her angry gums. She rolled the tooth around in her mouth, enjoying its jagged surfaces, and then swallowed it for fun.

Six days ago she’d have been repulsed by such an action, but today she felt feral and free.

 

Jessica Gleason

Jessica Gleason writes horror, sacrificing sleep to expel unkind monsters from her aching head.

Metallicum Caro

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by Don Money

It was only a matter of time until viruses caught up with technology. From the moment Griffen woke and his right hand clanked against his bare chest, he knew it was the virus, Metallicum Caro, metal flesh.

The news coverage of the nanite virus that jumped from artificial intelligence machinery to human host began a month ago, and the panic, as well as the virus, spread like wildfire.

What started along Griffen’s entire right arm and upper torso engulfed both legs by the time the quarantine technicians arrived. His last feeling was the cold of the metal engulfing his brain.

 

Don Money

Don Money writes stories across a variety of genres. He is a middle school language arts teacher. His stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies and magazines.

Growing Strong

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by Kai Delmas

Sammy found the body in the woods. We didn’t believe him at first, but he led the way and showed it to us with a proud smirk.

Mushrooms were growing from its eyes and ears. Some fat and brown, others poisonous, red with white dots. We should’ve stayed clear.

But Daryl dared me to go up to it. I wasn’t afraid. The body wouldn’t do nothin’. But when he dared me to touch it, I refused.

Then he double dog dared me.

I made sure to touch him back the next day when the first ‘shrooms sprouted from my fingertips.

 

Kai Delmas

Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest, his fiction is forthcoming in Zooscape, and can be found in Martian, Etherea, Tree and Stone, Wyldblood, and several Shacklebound anthologies. If you like his work you can support him at:patreon.com/kaidelmas and find him on Twitter.

Twitter: @KaiDelmas