This month’s theme:
California school district bans weed killing chemicals

Man, this month was tough. A few simple short-shorts, and I had the worst case of writer’s block. So the day after deadline, I resolve to take the first headline I saw online and write shorts about each word in the headline. I’m just glad there wasn’t “the” in there. Here you go. There were seven words, so this is a little long.

 

“California”
Zombie
By David M. Fitzpatrick

California never fell into the sea. People used to think that it would, though. But The Big One did hit, and it did separate part of the state from the mainland. Good thing.

From the western shore of what is now California, you can see the eastern shore of what was the United States. It’s just a few hundred feet away, and you can see them running around on the shore, trying to figure out how to get to us. From here, you can see the blue color of their faces. The whole continent is crawling with them. They’re not people anymore—more like animals. It’s like in those old zombie flicks, except they’re not dead. They’re… devolved, I guess. Countless millions of them, devoid of any semblance of personality or humanity—barbaric, blue-faced creatures bent on eating anything that moves—or mating with their kind.

My beautiful wife Celia wife came up behind me as I was looking across the strait, and she wrapped her arms around me. “There seem to be more these days.”

“They’re reproducing. Tend to their young like good mothers, and raise them to eat anything else that moves. The young are up and running in just a few months, too. At some point you’d think they’d run out of animals to eat, but apparently they’ll eat plants, too.”

We couldn’t nuke them all, because we’d have died, too. And there were just too many of them. We got lucky; we eradicated them from our new island. Other islands were not so lucky, and neither was the mainland. The continents were overrun by them, and those who were bitten but escaped eventually turned into them. Even if you weren’t bitten, you might catch it and turn anyway. Biting just makes it happen very quickly. It starts slowly—just a bluish rash at first, but it spreads until the whole body is blue.

We’re safe over here, sort of, because the creatures are afraid of water—just like their primate cousins. But the disease, or whatever it is, hasn’t left us. We survived, but occasionally one of us changes. We have to be ever-vigilant. Let one go too far, and the mind goes. Then you’re lunch.

“They make me nervous,” Celia said. “What if they learn to swim?”

“They won’t.”

“I keep checking everyone I see. You know, their faces… looking for the rash.”

I turned to her, smiling, and kissed her. “We just have to be on the lookout at all times.”

She smiled up at me, pressing her body against mine. The feel of her breasts mashing up against my chest was always nice. “Want to go get lucky?”

“Not really in the mood.”

She pouted. “You never are anymore. What, are you worried I’m infected, and I’ll give it to you?”

I kept the smile on my face as I looked at her. She was so pretty, with such a wonderful smile. And her beauty wasn’t marred at all by the blue rash on her forehead. It started a few days ago. She didn’t know it. I broke the only mirror in the house as soon as I saw it starting.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too,” she replied. “But, wow… I am sooo hungry…”

 

“School”
Dystopian
By David M. Fitzpatrick

“Looks like we have a school, mates.”

The group of men stood in the dark alleyway, gathered around an old wooden crate, atop which was a pile of cash.

“This ain’t school, man,” one of the guys said.

“I’m from Australia, mate. That’s slang for a group of gamblers. And we’re chockers here today! Everyone’s anted up, so there’s a big pile of cash. One of us wins bloody big tonight. The other loses bigger.”

From his pocket he pulled out a fresh deck of cards, still in the plastic wrap. He peeled it off, and all eyes were on his hands as he shuffled them vigorously and repeatedly. Then he fanned them out and laid them on the crate.

“No way to cheat, mates,” he said. “We each draw one card and don’t look at it. When we’re all ready, we reveal them. Aces high. Highest number wins the whole pot. Lowest number has a bad day. If there’s a tie, it’s spades over clubs over diamonds over hearts. That simple—piece of piss! Fair go for all. Now, if you don’t want to do this, now’s the time to back out.”

No one said a word. Everyone shot glances at everyone else, but ultimately all eyes settled on the big pile of cash on the crate. There had to twenty grand there.

“Oi, then,” the Aussie said, and he reached down and slid one card out, snatched it up, and held it against his chest. He gave them all knowing looks. One by one, clockwise, they pulled out cards, snatched them up, and held them against their chests, until all dozen men had drawn.

“On three,” the Aussie said. “One… two… three!”

The men snapped their cards down, and immediately it was clear that the Aussie had won: He had the Ace of Spades, which beat everything. He whooped, loud and victorious.

“Ripper!” he hollered. To a man with the Ace of Clubs, he said, “Not close enough, mate!”

He grabbed up the stack of cash and stuffed his pockets with it. When he was done, he said, “Now, on to business…”

All the men turned their attention on a young man with a ghost-white face and wide eyes. His hand shook as he held the Three of Hearts before him.

“Too bad, mate,” the Aussie said. “Lowest card here. That’s how it works. And that’s the price of playing for the pot of gold.”

“No,” the kid said, his voice cracking.

“Don’t whinge, you bloody bastard,” the Aussie said, his face darkening as his brow furrowed. “Take it like a man.”

The group closed on him like swarm of bees and attacked. His screams didn’t last long, and when the crowd dispersed, his beaten body, bloody and lifeless, was left behind.

When the others had left, the Aussie and the Ace of Clubs split the haul.

“Good thing these idiots don’t know basic sleight of hand, mate,” the Aussie said. From his sleeve he produced a Two of Hearts.

Ace of Clubs sucked in his breath. “You drew the lowest card.”

“Right! To think they buy that whole plastic-wrapped-deck bit! Like we didn’t remove those Aces before wrapping them…”

 

“District”
Science fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

It was a fistfight over a girl. Both of the men wanted her at the bar, and she flirted, and suddenly the punches were flying. My partner and I arrived and took them both into custody; they’d cooled down by then, but even if we hadn’t seen a Watcher hovering nearby, we could never take the chance that there wasn’t one somewhere.

“Please don’t do this, officer,” one of the men said from the back seat of our patrol cruiser. “We’re over it now. We just had a little too much to drink.”

“Sorry, sir,” I said. “The law is the law.”

The other one was shaking as I started the car. “You don’t have to take us to the District. We won’t tell anyone.”

As if on cue, the Watcher flew down right next to his rear window. He jumped a bit where he sat, as the spherical metal creature stared at him with a giant, glowing blue eye, its mechanical iris spinning, contracting, expanding as it studied him. We all held still while the Watcher did its thing. Then it abruptly flew off.

“Just tell the truth when you get to the District,” said my partner, Officer Kelly Brand. “No one died or anything. Tell the truth, and it’ll probably be minor punishment.”

We drove in silence save for the low-volume radio traffic. We left the downtown and headed to the city limits, where the businesses and houses gave way to an empty, dark rural road. Soon, we topped a rise, and we could see the District below, perfectly square and gleaming like stainless steel under the full moon. It was about a mile on a side, just a few stories tall—a silver building without any sense of architecture.

When Kelly and I got out of the cruiser, a dozen Watchers immediately flew in from the darkness to join us. We let the two men out of the back and unlocked their handcuffs. The Watchers hovered around at various altitudes, staring at us.

“I can’t do this,” of the men said.

“Enough,” I snapped.

A humming sounded. I knew it well. We all turned as a door opened in the side of the silvery wall. You couldn’t see where there was a door, but whenever we brought someone in custody to the District, a door would just magically appear. Beyond was nothing but absolute blackness.

The guy panicked, turning and fleeing from the District. He ran, screaming, through the night, and most of the Watchers shot after him in silent flight. Three remained, as if guarding the rest of us. We could only watch as the flying spheres quickly overtook the running man, and then a lone Watcher hit him in the head with a blaster shot from its eye. He pitched forward into the dirt and grass and stopped moving.

“You never, ever run,” Kelly hissed to the other perp, who nodded in terrified silence.

The Watchers returned and we all turned to face the black doorway. We could hear the metallic footsteps from within, like a big armored knight clanking down a dungeon corridor. The perp trembled where he stood.

Then it became visible. It never ceased to amaze and frighten me. It stepped out into the night, towering nine feet tall, vaguely humanoid but like something out of a science-fiction nightmare—big, powerful metal legs, a barrel chest, massive metal arms, all gleaming metal. Its head was like something out of a pulp 1950s movie: round but angular; a mean red eye, narrow and wide, glowing fiercely; vents where a mouth should be, giving the appearance of metal teeth.

“I will take the prisoner into custody,” said the synthesized voice.

“Step forward,” I told the guy.

“It was just a bar fight,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“Do as they say, and you might get out of this,” Kelly warned him. “Your friend already blew it. They might give you a light punishment. But they won’t if you make this difficult.”

The panicked young man suddenly lit up, a smile crossing his face. “It wasn’t me. He threw the first punch. I was just defending myself! And he’s dead, so… it isn’t like he can argue it. Right?”

The giant robot seemed to think about it for a moment, but then a Watcher flew up and its eye projected a 3D representation of the inside of the bar into the air above us. It played the scene that it had evidently recorded: of this young man clearly throwing the first punch. He’d started the fight. He’d thought he could blame it on the dead guy, but the Watchers were always watching…

“For lying to the state,” the robot bellowed, “you will be executed.”

“NO!” the man cried, but a Watcher opened up with a blast from its eye. He crumpled into a heap.

The robot turned and clanked back into the District, even as the Watchers dispersed. We stood still until the magical door sealed and was just gleaming steel again, and then we got back into the cruiser and, without a word, drove back to town.

This is what happens when you make the machines smarter. This is what happens when their job is to protect us, and to administer our laws. This is what happens when they’re given too much power and use their impeccable machine logic to devise all the right ways to keep order.

They might just have tortured the kid… but you never lie to the machines.

The crime rate is certainly down. Eventually, it will be a paradise on Earth—or so the machines say.

I felt Kelly’s hand reach over in the darkness and clasp mine. I snatched my hand away.

“We can’t,” I said. “We’re not married. If a Watcher…”

She began to cry as she withdrew her hand.

 

“Bans”
Dystopian
By David M. Fitzpatrick

“What made the list for this week?” Jake asked, breathless as he’d just run downstairs from his room.

“Quiet!” his father barked, turning the volume up on the TV. “The lottery is just beginning.”

It was five minutes to nine. The lottery girl in her one-piece red dress and bright-purple belt smiled at the camera as Jake’s mother grabbed her husband’s arm tightly. Jake’s two brothers and three sisters, ranging from age eight to seventeen, gathered around to see what the lottery results would be.

“Welcome this Monday morning,” the blond lottery girl said, all white teeth and sparkling eyes and carefully applied makeup. To her right, the giant popper air-fluffed what seemed like hundreds of little white balls; to her left was a man in a suit and tie, overseeing everything. “We’ll draw ten balls for this week, and these will begin on the hour and run until nine o’clock next Monday morning.”

She hit the plunger and the popper began sucking balls into the chute. One by one, they rolled down the tube and exited. The girl grabbed the first one and held it up, smiling.

“The first banned thing this week… Catholics,” she announced. “No Catholics are allowed in public for the next week.

Mom and Dad breathed a sigh of relief as the girl grabbed another one. “Second thing banned… lesbians. No lesbians allowed out this week.”

Darla, the teenage daughter with the dyed-green hair and big earrings, cried out, “NO! They can’t do this! I can’t go a whole week without seeing Lydia!”

“Enough!” Dad snapped. “You know this is how it works.”

The lottery girl continued, announcing bans on video games, which annoyed Jake; anyone wearing or displaying the color purple in any form, which annoyed the eight-year old, who had fresh purple fingernail polish on; and the exposed faces of adult women.

“Oh, darn it,” Mom cried out. “I hate keeping my face covered. The things we do.”

“And the sixth thing banned this week,” said the lottery girl, who had just quickly removed her purple belt in advance of the ban, as she pulled out the ball, “is… oh, we haven’t see this one in some time. There is a ban on talking in public. Neat!”

“Well, that will make for a quiet seven days,” Dad said, nodding his approval.

“And the seventh thing… no sex!” The girl laughed and smiled at the camera. “I hope everyone got it out of their systems over the weekend!”

Mom and Dad sighed.

“The eighth is… atheists. Looks like it’s not just the Catholics this week, folks…”

The family watched as the ninth ball came out. The lottery girl held it up and gleefully announced, “And the ninth thing is a ban on all motor vehicles! That’s no cars, trucks, or motorcycles for a whole week. So, folks, along with no talking, it’s going to be REALLY quiet this week.”

“Damn it!” Dad cried out, waving the remote. “I drive a truck for a living! There goes a paycheck!”

“Maybe they’ll find some warehouse or mechanic work for you,” Mom said.

The lottery girl grabbed the final ball. Behind her, the second hand was ticking toward the top of the hour, when the bans would go into effect.

“And the final ban for this week…”

She held it up and read it silently, and her face turned white and her smile vanished.

The man next to her leaned in to see, and smirked. “Read it,” he ordered.

She swallowed and said, “And the tenth thing… ladies, remember those head covers this week, but… that’s it. The tenth thing that’s banned is… is women’s clothing. Women, if you are in public, you must be… unclothed.”

The seconds ticked down. The lottery girl furiously began stripping off her clothing, and quickly wrapping her red dress around her head so that only her eyes were visible.

“We’ll see you next week when these bans are over, and we pick ten new ones,” she said, her voice muffled under the blouse. “Remember, violation of any weekly ban is punishable by immediate execution...”

“Madness,” Mom said under her breath. “I have to cover my head, and I have to go naked. And without a car, I have to walk six miles to work.”

“I know it’s tough,” Dad said to his family, “but this is necessary. We have to make everyone happy, so we have to ban things to give everyone a chance to be satisfied. That’s what compromise is all about.”

“And that’s what makes a civilized society,” Jake piped up.

“You got it, son.”

Outside, the sound armored vehicles full of soldiers on patrol abounded.

 

“Weed”
Horror
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Ginny tended to her flower garden daily, as she had since long before she’d retired three years before, so rarely did a weed get a chance to grow to any size before she plucked it from the ground. So when she went out in the morning to water the flowers, which was needed given the long dry spell, she was surprised to see the weed.

It was big—a good foot high and full, almost like a miniature bush. She grimaced when she saw the ugly thing, and she headed for it, grabbed it with both hands, and yanked. It didn’t budge immediately, so she had to find some leverage, grip it tighter, and really pull. It finally came up, and she tumbled back onto her rump, holding the weed in both hands and looking with surprise at the huge mass of roots.

She clambered to her feet and headed for the compost pile to discard the weed. Now if only the garden could get some rain…

*   *   *

The next morning, she headed back out for her daily garden maintenance. It was already hot, and there had been no rain overnight and none expected that day. She’d need to water everything again—but she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, water hose in one hand and spade in the other, and gawked.

“I’ll be damned,” Ginny said.

The weed was back. Not regrown—it was the exact same weed. A quick glance at the compost pile confirmed this. It was back in the same spot, and now it was a good two feet tall and looking like a bush. She surveyed it for a long minute; clearly, someone was trying to be funny by replanting it. Still, it was impressive how quickly it had grown.

This time, uprooting the monstrosity took some serious effort, but after a lengthy wrestling match she managed to pull it free. It left a big crater in the middle of her garden, and the root mass, significantly larger and heavier now, was clumped with dirt.

Ginny headed for the compost pile, but this time she stopped off at the shed and got her pruning shears. She spent five solid minutes clipping the giant weed into a thousand tiny pieces, and then she dumped them onto the compost pile, fetched her spade, and turned the pile until she couldn’t see any remnants of the weed.

She spent the rest of the day sweating off some pounds, tending to her flowers and watering them with the hose. She’d tended her flower garden for forty years, and her flowers were her greatest passion. If there weren’t going to be rain, she’d at least keep their thirsts quenched.

In retrospect, she was impressed at how big the weed had grown overnight without any rain.

*   *   *

Sleep came hard. It was hot all night in her bedroom, even with the window open. A nice, cool rain would make the whole night bearable, but it wasn’t to be.

After a lazy morning, she knew she had to get out and spray the flowers before the dry conditions started wilting them. She finally got outside just before lunch; as she approached the flowers, hose dragging behind her, she suddenly had the notion that she’d somehow find that weed back there again. The thought made her uneasy, so she moved slowly, brandishing her hose like a flamethrower, creeping around the roses and past the tulips…

…and the spot where the weed had been was empty. Just dirt.

She breathed a sigh of relief and laughed aloud. She’d cut the thing up—of course it hadn’t returned! Whoever the joker had been yesterday couldn’t possibly dig all the pieces out of the compost pile and tape the thing back together!

Then she turned around—and sucked in her breath.

The weed was growing right up out of the compost pile. It was unmistakably the same weed—like a much-larger version of what it had been. Ginny tipped her head back to take it all in. It stood a good ten feet tall.

She knew that she should have been frightened, but instead she was furious. She dropped the hose, headed for the shed, and fetched the chainsaw. It took a few pulls, but she revved it to life and she advanced on the beast. The base of its stem—trunk?—had to be four inches thick. Not for long.

She leaned in to cut, and suddenly a long, branchlike frond swung down and smacked her like a bat hitting a baseball. The impact knocked her ass over teakettle—she was lucky she didn’t land on the chain! She yelped and let go of the saw and clambered to her feet, and she faced the weed.

It stood in silence, but there was no wind to have made that frond smack into her. It had knocked her down of its own accord. She faced off with it, glaring at the thing. It stood there, defiant. In the mass of fronds and leaves, she could swear she saw a face.

How had it grown so big and so quickly—especially without any rain? Granted, the compost pile was the ideal place to regrow, but still… it had to have water.

“So you wanna fight, do ya?” she shouted at it.

With renewed purpose, Ginny grabbed up the rumbling chainsaw and rushed in at a sprint. She pulled the trigger to get the chain spinning and screamed at the weed as she chewed into its base. Fronds slapped at her, flailing like tentacles trying to grab her, but she dropped to her knees, braced herself, and bore down. Over the whine of the saw, she swore she heard something else—an alien scream… a plant scream?

She cut through the stem and the massive weed toppled, and it was over.

*   *   *

It took her an hour to cut the thing up and stuff it into the barbecue pit, and almost that long just to dig up the truly gigantic root mass. It was the size of a beach ball; she had to roll it to the pit. She finally doused the weed’s remnants with lighter fluid and burned the whole pile. Blue skies without a single cloud in sight oversaw her triumph; she smiled as the vegetation burned to ashes.

When it was just smoldering remains, she headed back to water her flowers. Her garden was what mattered, and no weed—whether normal or bizarre—would get in her way.

*   *   *

Ginny awoke with a start at two in the morning. Above her, she could hear the frantic pattering of rain on the roof. Finally! And it wasn’t just raining—it was pouring. It was really coming down.

But that wasn’t the only sound. She hurried out of bed, threw open the window screen, stuck her head out, and sucked in her breath when she saw it.

The weed towered forty feet high, far above the garden and her house. It walked on two massive root clumps that no longer needed to be underground; its body was a good five feet thick. In the moonlight, she could see the massive, flailing frond tentacles. Its clearly defined face, created by its leaves, looked like a demon from plant hell. And it roared—was that the word? Roared, as a plant could, anyway.

It was moving toward the house, but more importantly, as it did so it was stomping on her flowers.

“You bastard,” she snarled under her breath.

A minute later, Ginny stepped outside in her terrycloth bathrobe and bunny-head slippers as the giant weed stomped on her roses. She hauled the pump-action shotgun up before her.

“No one messes with my garden,” she hollered.

The weed roared as she charged into the garden.

 

“Killing”
Dystopian
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Felix Jones shot John Kramer in the chest and stood over the dying man while he begged Felix to stop. I could see it all through the observation window to the execution room, presiding as a warden was required. Felix just watched through his round glasses as the blood flowed, as Kramer’s heart pumped it right out of his body. He grew pale quickly, gurgling and spitting up blood, and soon he was dead. As usual, Felix left the prison as the medics rushed in; and, as usual, his face was a blank mask, like a robot, as if what he’d just done didn’t affect him in the slightest.

Felix returned to the prison the following Saturday, right on schedule. He never missed an Execution Day. I was already in the gallery as he was checked in and brought into the execution chamber. The prisoner was already chained and shackled, and as soon as Felix entered, wearing his conservative brown suit and tie, the prisoner began crying.

“Please don’t, Mr. Jones,” the murderer pleaded. “Not again.”

Felix held a long blade in his hand, which raised my brow. Felix Jones usually preferred something quick—a shot to the chest was typical. But once in a while he really lost control. Today was one of those days.

Felix stepped closer, until he was just two feet from the prisoner.

“Please,” the man begged.

I pressed the microphone button and spoke.

“John Kramer, for the crimes of kidnap, rape, torture, and murder, you have been sentenced to a weekly death at the hands of Felix Jones. May God have mercy on your soul.”

Felix raised the gleaming blade to point at Kramer’s gut.

“For Christ’s sake, please don’t,” Kramer cried. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jones! I’m so sorry!”

Without a word, Felix shoved the blade into Kramer’s stomach. The man howled in agony, but he was so restrained that he couldn’t even pull away. All he could do was squirm as Felix twisted the blade before yanking it out at an angle, hauling intestines with it. And then he just went crazy, plunging it in and out of the man’s belly, over and over, and then into his chest, again and again, and all the while Kramer screamed and hollered and begged for mercy and forgiveness and for an end to his pain. Just when I thought Felix couldn’t possibly stab the man one more time, he pulled the knife out and, in one swift motion, slashed it across Kramer’s throat.

He stood there as Kramer gurgled, and as the man’s blood sprayed on him, even as Kramer’s entrails spilled out of his open gut and onto the floor. Felix didn’t move until Kramer was dead. Then he let the knife clatter to the floor and he straightened his tie. Then he turned and left. The medics rushed in to get Kramer’s body to the regeneration ward, where he’d be revived and returned to his normal physical state. He’d be alive and well, but the memory of the pain he’d suffered in dying would always be there.

They took Felix somewhere to clean up, and I met him as he was leaving the prison.

“Mr. Jones.”

He looked at me with that blank face. “Warden.”

“Forty-second time you’ve killed him,” I observed. “Tough one today.”

He thought about it, then shook his head. “Not for me. Sometimes just killing him isn’t good enough.”

I nodded.

“You know what he did to Miranda, right?” he said, as if seeking absolution. “The horrible things that he did to her, for days while he held her? And how he tortured her before she finally died?”

“It’s okay, Mr. Jones,” I said gently. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You’re legally entitled to kill John Kramer every week for the rest of his natural life. No one is judging you.”

He wavered where he stood, and I saw his eyes watering up behind those round glasses. “Why don’t I feel better? I used to, at first. Now I never do.”

He turned and half-staggered down the corridor and out the door.

The punishment might exceed the crime… but maybe even that’s never enough.

 

“Chemicals”
Science fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

“This whole place is crawling with them,” he said. “Look at the little buggers. They’re everywhere.”

“Low levels of intelligence,” she observed. “But we can’t have them clogging up our gardens.”

She hefted the hose, which was attached to the giant canister on her back. The pests scurried everywhere as she pressed the trigger and let loose with a steady stream of pesticide. The pests overrunning the garden tumbled over and trembled as their nervous systems tried unsuccessfully to fight off the nerve agent.

“Yeah, kick, you little bastards,” he said. He had a similar canister, and he let loose in the other direction. The little buggers scurried by the hundreds, the thousands, and the pair could hear their pitiful cries. They didn’t help.

“Agriculture, engineering, physics, the beginnings of space travel,” he said. “The earliest beginnings of civilization. But too primitive to bother with. Look how they’ve treated their planet.”

She nodded, leaning against a towering edifice. Through the windows, she could see them scurrying.

“This planet is a paradise,” she said, looking a hundred feet down, where the bodies littered the city streets. “Ruined by these tiny, dimly sentient creatures. That’s what these chemicals are for.”

“We’re sure they won’t harm anything else?”

“They won’t. They’re geared to the nervous systems of these bipedal pests. Once they’re eradicated, we’ll have a nice vacation spot. Think we should get rid of these cities?”

“They’ll crumble on their own. Plenty of green spaces on this planet to enjoy, anyway.”

The giants lumbered between the buildings and toward the waterfront. A giant green statue of one of the biped pests stood on an island, arm raised, holding a torch.

“Gotta get rid of that ugly thing, though,” he said.

“You’ve got that right.”
 

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.