He stared at the rainbow in the puddle as he took a deep drag from his cigarette. Even a cop goes back into happy childhood days when he sees a rainbow. He was out of Route 66, about 50 miles west of Flagstaff. He had stopped at Jim’s Service Station for a fill-up and to talk to an old friend. He walked in to see Jim dead on the floor, a hole in his chest big enough to teach an anatomy class. Sawed-off shotgun. Based on the fact that blood had just begun to stop flowing meant the perps were nearby. Shit was knocked over where Jim turned the pumps on. He didn’t call it in, using the peel-out marks to catch their heading, and slammed the cruiser into overdrive. He caught up with them in a half-hour, and sent them into the dirt with a PIT maneuver. Out of the cruiser, 40 Glock in firing position, he didn’t dare give them a chance to respond. Quickly they were out of the car, in cuffs and in the back of the cruiser. Flagstaff was east. He sped of east, and damn near flipped the car around, making a sharp U-turn west. Back to Jim’s.

The rainbow gleamed disapprovingly. It was God’s covenant to Noah that he would never destroy the earth again by flood. But also, He warned Noah not to kill another man, for men were gods, and to do so would be to destroy a part of god. Amidst the cries, he knelt down before the rainbow to pray.

“Yo, where you takin’ us?” one of them said. “We ain’t done nothin’!”

He sped up even faster, ignoring them.

“I got rights, man!” The other one said. “I want a lawyer!”

He smiled. “I’m a lawyer.” He said.

“No, you’re a cop.”
”….and a lawyer,” He replied, “and in my legal opinion, you two are fucked.”

“Yo, where you takin’ us?” the first guy, a wiry man with tattoos going down his arms, repeated. The agitation was becoming fear.

“To a higher court.” He said.

The wiry guy looked to the other one. “Yo, this cop’s crazy!”

He pulled into Jim’s. He let the two thugs out, and undid one handcuff on each, securing the free one to a solid iron bar that ran between the pumps. He walked back into the service station. He forgot one thing; he knelt beside Jim’s corpse and, with one finger, closed his eyes, taking the sweaty rag out of Jim’s back pocket. He had no family; no one would miss it. Then he looked at the pump controls again. They forgot to turn them off.

He ran through every prayer he knew, even making up a few. He looked at the rainbow; it seemed oblivious to his petitions for justice, forgiveness and grace.

He left on one pump after he left the service station, and pumped about a hundred dollars worth of gas all over the perps, soaking the ground all around the pumps. He took extra time dousing the perps. They resisted furiously at first, then they started inhaling the vapors, and before long they passed out. He removed the cuffs at that point.

He stared at the rainbow swirling around in the puddle of gas at his feet. He carefully unpinned his badge, tucking it in his shirt pocket. He knelt to dip Jim’s rag in gasoline, and stepped back from the pump toward his cruiser. He used his Zippo to ignite the rag, and threw it into the puddle. Flame soon surrounded the pumps, and immolated the perps as he sped off east. He drove for a few miles before pulling off in a patch of empty desert. He took his badge out of his pocket, and re-pinned it. When he heard the explosion, he hopped on the radio.

“Officer Gonzalez requesting back-up for a possible explosion at Jim’s Service Station, fifty miles west on 66.”

Five Random Words

For this Flash fiction challenge, you must use the five words “Mobile Phone, Wig, Flirt, Dusk and Figure” in a flash of less than 1,000 words. See link below for the specifics.

4G

The approach of dusk hid a shadowy figure by the alleyway, arms folded, with his cell to his ear. A working girl walked up to him, flirted a little, twirling her pink wig in her fingertips as the other hand slid down her fishnets. He shooed her away, like he couldn’t be bothered. He should’ve given her a twirl. The story would’ve ended here.

She was a babe underneath the make-up and track-marks. He wouldn’t have had to pay, even. I paid her. He had something I wanted, and it would’ve been preferable to get her to steal it than for me to take it. I had enough bodies on me. It was that damn cell phone. Really, it was the phone. It was a 4G, top-of-the-line, but that wasn’t it. We pulled those off of trucks everyday. It wasn’t the phone, but what was in it. Embedded in that phone was a two gigabyte operating system called ELYSE. Stood for something, forget what the hell it stood for. But I’d have ten million in the Caymans if I could pry it out of the man’s hand and swap it for a clone, minus ELYSE.

I knew what ELYSE was; I didn’t have rules like Jason Statham in those Transporter movies. He never followed them anyways. If I was lugging Plutonium, I wanted to know what potholes to avoid, ya know? But ELYSE was another story.

ELYSE was a self-aware computer system. Decrypt her, and she would take over every electronic system in milliseconds, and we’re talking global. The guy on the phone was the prototype builder. He had an unauthorized copy.

The girl spun her wig, layin’ on the flirt pretty good. He was annoyed. I could tell from where I was sitting. He had the phone in his hand at his side, the other hand pointing at her. I was her pimp; not really, but that’s the story I was about to go with. I walked over and got up in his face. He turned ashen, and stammered that he was gonna’ call the cops. I grabbed the phone out of his hand and pushed him with my other palm. He fell back, enough time for me to make the swap. Then I threw the cloned phone on him after I pocketed my ten mil’.

“C’mon, babe… This guy don’t appreciate beauty.” I walked her down the street and around the corner.

His phone would fool him long enough for me to make a clean break. Darla, the working girl, looked up at me with her green-shot eyes. If she cleaned up, she would’ve been beautiful.

“You still gonna’ pay me?”

I thumbed a hundred out of my wallet. “Here.”

She smiled, traced my jaw with her nail. “Ya’ know, I could still work for this…” She winked.

I chuckled. “You’ll never see me again.’ I said. “And I wouldn’t cruise this block for a couple days.”

I walked away into the dusk as it crept ever slowly towards the darkness of night.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/04/15/flash-fiction-challenge-five-random-words/

Georgia sat in the waiting room of her OB-GYN. She was six-months along, and so far everything was good. She was thankful; her and Todd had to use IVF to conceive, and she’d heard more than her share of horror stories about IVF, some told by people who actually knew what they were talking about. But in her case, everything was as good as it got.

The old TV was on a tall bookcase in the corner. The news was on, as could be expected. Paul Deligard was going to be executed that day. He had kidnapped, beat, tortured and mutilated over sixty women in the Metro area over a span of two years. No one slept, not women anyways. His highlight was putting a partially dissected womans remains on the front steps of City Hall around Christmas of last year. It proved his undoing; they caught him because he left evidence. He plead guilty, waiving his appeals. As some kind of sick joke, he got married two months ago. Whoever would marry him deserved to be locked up too, she thought.

Dr. Brennan motioned for Georgia to come inside. He didn’t have a good look on his face. He had called her last night, which made her nervous. Now, she was even more nervous.

She went into the room and went to sit on the table, but Dr. Brennan asked her to sit in a chair.

“Is there something wrong with the twins?” She asked. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. Something was wrong.

“The twins are fine, don’t worry about that…” He said. “I don’t need to examine you; I need to talk to you. There been a mistake.”

“Mistake?” She asked, “about what?”

“I just heard from the IVF clinic.” He said. “You and Todd wanted an open donor, so you would know who the father was, in case he had any medical problems.”

“Yeah, Keith Benson. We’ve met him.”

Dr. Brennan was quiet. He held a chart up to his face. She couldn’t even guess the expression that lay beneath it.

“I’m not going to dance around this,” He rubbed his chin. “The donor information and the vials of donated sperm are matched by a number. Keith’s sperm had a twelve digit number that was assigned to it. But his sperm wasn’t put into your egg. A technician misidentified the vial by one number.”

“So someone else’s sperm was put into me, you’re saying.”

“Yes.” Dr. Brennan was rubbing his head bald, as it was almost bald up front to begin with.

“So, who is he?” Georgia was mad, but if the donor was okay medically, she’d forgive the mistake.

“The man is dying, and he donated the sperm so that his wife could conceive.”

“Wait, he’s dying? What does he have? How long does he have?”

Dr. Brennan slumped in his seat, his fingertips at his temples.

“He’s physically healthy.” Dr. Brennan said. “And he’s dying today…”

“…he’s being executed.”

Marley watched the teenage kid in his ball cap and oversized hoodie as he cruised through the doors of the visiting area. She was pleased to see the plastic shopping bag in his hand. Her moment had finally arrived.

He gave her an impish smile, his eyes shining with the excitement of what she’d asked of him; bless his little sheep heart.

Marley smiled sweetly as he sat down beside her. She placed a hand on his fat thigh, feeling the heat of his skin through his jeans. His mother sat in a stiff vinyl chair in front of them, underneath the reinforced wire window. She watched them through eyes like two black stones, though she didn’t see a thing her mind was so far removed from reality. Behind her the world outside looked blissfully welcoming with its clear autumn sky and sunlight cracking the gloom of their environment. Marley ached to be out there, breathing in the sublime taste of freedom she’d been denied for so long.

“I don’t know if it will fit,” Jordan said. He slide the bag on the floor toward her with the toe of a green Chuck Taylor.

“That’s fine. You did good.” She looked around the room, her razor-sharp eyes scoping for nurses. They were understaffed today by more than three. She’d been studying the lapses in staffing forever.

The plan she’d worked out was a good one; painless and uncomplicated. At least it was better than killing a guard and being carried out on a stretcher wearing his face. She’d thought of that too.

“Has she been eating anything?” He leaned forward and stroked his mother’s boney arm.

“Couple of crayons yesterday and a plastic spoon,” Marley said, giving him a perfect one-eyebrow raise. She watched the other patients interacting with their visitors. There were remarkably few family members that came on these afternoons, as if out of fear of leaving contaminated. No family or friends ever visited Marley. They were too scared. Scared of her or of this place, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was the combination. That, and of course, the memory of their standoff in the kitchen with a carving knife in one hand and a broken wine bottle in the other. They were such babies. Nobody had died. Most of them only received flesh wounds, although her sister had to have thirty-two stitches in her stomach. Then a bout of necrosis had sent her back to the hospital. Big deal. It healed eventually. It’s not like she lost a limb.

An Asian kid wandered over and stood beside Jordan, smiling at him around the thumb in his mouth. The smell of pee and sweat wafted around him.

“Shoo, Lenny!” Marley glared at him and watched delighted, as a look of fear passed over his face. He turned and hurried off, obviously remembering the time she’d stabbed him in the back of the hand with a sharpened pencil. It had gone clean through to his palm, she’d used such force. Three years in this place could make you crazy like that.

“Your Dad leave for his vacation?” She turned to Jordan and slipped the pants from the bag; a pair of jeans flecked with paint and holes in both knees. Discreetly she pulled them on over her pajamas as if it was nothing unusual.

“Right on schedule. You’ll be safe at my house. God, my heart is pounding,” Jordan said and released a giggle.

“Just play it cool Jordan, okay? I’m depending on you.”

He nodded and took a deep breath. His upper lip was sweating, and his chubby cheeks burned as if he’d been bitch-slapped.

The shirt was blue flannel buttoned up the front. She looked around cautiously. Nobody was even taking notice of her as she slid her arms into the shirt. The shoes were old sneakers with dried mud in the treads, also too big.

She pulled on the ball cap and tucked her ponytail inside, tugging the peek down low on her forehead. Marley looked up at Jordan’s mother mumbling to herself. Her black hair slimy as algae, like she’d last washed it in a previous life, was pasted to her misshapen skull. The blue sky behind her head beckoned. In a matter of minutes Marley would be out there like a bird taking flight.

“Time to go.” Marley patted his leg and stood up. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of the jeans to keep them from falling down. The plan was either going to work or it wouldn’t. Simple as that. If it failed it would cost her several hours in a five point restraint, maybe even as long as a day. No food or water either. It was worth the risk. Anything was worth the risk of getting out of this toilet they called a hospital.

Marley shoved Jordan in front of her and motioned for him to join the group of visitors walking toward the exit. There was only one nurse at the station whom they had to walk past and she was busy talking on the phone. Perfect.

The nurse looked up briefly, then buzzed open the door for them to walk through. Up ahead she saw one of the doctors walking their way with a patient. Marley kept her head down but not enough to warrant suspicion. She held her breath as they past, focusing on blending in with the people surrounding her.

They turned a corner with the group and continued on down the corridor. The exit doors were only a few yards away. Jordan moved ahead and pushed down on the metal handle. The rush of cool air and brilliant sunlight hit her like a wave and then she was outside, moving fast across the concrete toward the parking lot and Jordan’s car. She felt herself connecting to the world, to the sky, to the trees. Marley slide into the passenger seat of Jordan’s car, closed and locked the door and then released a squeal of joy.

“What do you want to do first?” he said, turning the key in the ignition. He gazed at her with adoring puppy eyes.

“Ice-cream,” she said, grinning, and  squirmed like a five-year-old. “I want that soft vanilla kind of ice cream, chocolate dipped. After that everyone who put me in that fuck-hole is going to die. But first I’ll start with the ice-cream.”

Bio: Julia Madeleine is a thriller writer and tattoo artist living on the outskirts of Toronto. Her latest novel, No One To Hear You Scream, is set for release May 2011. She blogs here: http://juliamadeleineauthor.blogspot.com/

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