And The Winner Is...

You'll never guess.

This was such a tough decision. There were so many terrific stories! I’m absolutely astounded by all of your talent. I just want to say up front that, if you didn’t win, it doesn’t mean your story was bad, so don’t be hard on yourselves. There were specific qualities I was looking for and this story hit them all, seemingly without trying.

I have to admit, reading this made me feel a little self conscious of my own writing.

So, without further ado, the winner is…

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Shelter by Allison Reagan

We crawled into the shelter, hands then knees. Denim and cotton clotted with filth. We waited without saying for what. We stopped measuring time in blinks after the first night’s sleep, and in my sleep it happened again.

A figure plunging out of the woods, tugging my periphery. Sirens unhinged their jaws and blurred features settled into a face, his sunken eyes rimmed the color of stormclouds. He hurtled toward me, grabbed my arm, grip pinching and sharp where it had been firm and fleshy weeks ago. We ran without words past the house, down to the gutter, and crouched low, sloshing through mud clinging like mucus. The shelter was room enough for four, but the two of us were ready and first.

How will we know when it is safe? I asked.

We’ll know, he said.

I was prepared to count the sounds of violence but there were none. Even the sirens quieted after enough sleep, but the silence we’d awaited was menacing. Terror dulled with time. I laid my head in the saddle of his lap and counted the hairs gouging his thinning neck and chin. Every few grayed, more than I remembered. In the night the dirt under his fingernails was bitter in my mouth.

When he'd been bigger he would wrap me in arms like coiled constrictors, dragging me into sleep with him. Now he wasted faster than I did; there was more of him to lose. In time my skin became loose, but his evaporated into the air.

Awake we touched hesitantly, hands fearing the strangeness of diminishing bodies. Hunger climbed the walls of our stomachs. Lettering wrapped in black ink down his arms dulled without muscle swelling underneath. His fingers slender rake tines in the dirt.

Do you think it’s safe? I asked less and less frequently.

As long as there is a question, he said, we are not safe.

When won’t there be one?

That’s another question.

***

I avoided his eyes; I avoided the blinking. Every blink marked another five seconds. Another five seconds to wonder how many more five seconds we’d pass and how many more five seconds were worth passing. But evading his gaze long enough drew my eyes the way swaying on the edge of a cliff feels like falling. I saw knobby bones and veins inching through inked skin across his body, but I saw stoic hunger only when I met his eyes.

I braced myself the first time I did it, spine curled into the cavernous earth behind me, feet planted on the ground, forehead pressed to my knees. I’d slipped the knife out of his pocket the night before, one hand over the carved hollow of his chest, lips pressed to his hair. I braced myself against a scream. I blocked up all the air in the bottom of my stomach as I pulled the knife through a flap of skin connected to the meat of my upper arm.

I held it in my palm, presented as a gift. A sliver of meat, skin-down, blood pooling around it, slipping through my fingers. This was not a discussion, the absoluteness a relief.

This is what we will do. This is how we will survive, I told him and pushed the meat past his lips. He chewed automatically, a circular grinding of the jaws. Placid tears slipped between his lips and blended with the meat tearing between his teeth. He swallowed and placed the flat of his hand against the exposed meat of my arm but said nothing.

You can’t leave it there forever, I said.

***

Unconsciousness leaked in one ear and out the other and sleep happened without our knowledge or permission. When his eyes closed I watched his face, his orchid petal eyelids, thin and purple-veined. When his eyes opened I turned away.

Me now, he said and one boot lurched to indicate the knife. Take it from my side.

I peeled his shirt back and counted the ribs pushing at his skin. I left the knife by his feet.

I can’t, I said. There’s nothing left.

Take anything, he said.

I rocked back on my heels and stared at the dirt below. I don’t need anything, I said. I need you.

Here, he said. With the violence of a last reserve of energy he heaved himself upright and took the knife from the ground. He wiped it on his pants, one side, other side, and I should have stopped him. I should have peeled the skin from his heel like a potato to appease him. But I didn’t, and so he kissed me, then dragged the knife across his face faster than I could register. It seemed a practice stroke until, after a moment’s delay, blood poured a narrow brown sheet down his chin, his front. He groped for the chunk of flesh on his lap and pinched it between his fingers, holding it out.

I rolled it on my tongue where I could feel papery flakes of chapped skin like curled Bible pages before swallowing, a swollen grub worm of a lip.

***

While he slept, bottom teeth jutting from his cavernous face, I cut off parts of my body. I no longer recognized the pieces I peeled from my torso, and eventually stopped recognizing my own shape. I arranged the chunks between us on the dirt floor: a strip of meat from my hip, a strip from the underside of my arm, a half-moon from the inside of my thigh. I carved until I was numb, carved out all feeling. He would find a feast upon waking.

My chest seized when he opened his eyes. I approached him with a slab of one calf and tucked the meat into the side of his mouth, where it could be held between cheek and teeth without slipping.

He was too weak to speak but I dared to meet his eyes. I did not find the expected protest.

I was chilled by a look of lustful greed.

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Allison, please send your mailing address in an email over to ricky@rickyolson.net and I’ll get that package sorted for you.

Honestly, I don’t even know what to say because I feel as though anything written here will be doing the story a disservice. I re-read this probably ten times in pure disbelief. I mean, my god, what beautifully haunting imagery. What a way to create this sense of security in such a dark premise, while continuing to push the intensity right up until the end. Bravo! You should be extremely proud of yourself. And, please, do yourself a favor and seriously consider pursuing writing, if you’re not already.

I’d love to read more from you in the future. You’ve got a new fan.

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The thing I learned in doing this contest is that you all have a crazy love for blood and violence. I guess that’s not really shocking. It is 2022, after all. We’ve been through a lot. Actually, I was surprised at how many of your protagonists chose to kill, or were the victim to a killer. It seems that when people think of love they think of death, regardless of how we get there. Shakespeare was definitely onto something..

I just want take a minute here to express my gratitude for all of your involvement in this. People came out of the woodwork to submit their stories and I think that’s incredible. I encourage you to continue to pursue your passions to the fullest extent, even if writing is not your first interest. Whether you’re into painting, photography, music, etc, keep going! Put your all into it. You never know where it might take you.

The other thing I want to mention is that I purposely didn’t want to give any advice unless asked. Because a) who am I to give writing advice? I’m just a dude that plays guitar and loves to write for fun. And b) unwarranted advice is annoying. Plus, giving advice makes it seems like your work isn’t good, and I didn’t want anyone to get that impression. All of your stories were great! You are all so creative, I was actually blown away. If you enjoyed this, I urge you to continue to write! Set aside thirty minutes each day to put some thoughts down, even if your intention is not to write a grand multi-novel epic. You’ll be surprised at how mentally freeing it is.

That being said…

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Advice Time

For those that really enjoy writing and want some general ideas to play around with moving forward (a few of you asked), here’s some annoying advice that I just said I wasn’t going to give. This constantly helps me out (this is where Allison’s story succeeded so well):

Don’t Tell

Make sure you are showing what's happening instead of telling it. A lot of people get caught up in the He did this, and then this happened and then and then and then… Fight against the instinct to tell your audience everything. It will make your stories so much stronger and more compelling if you force the reader to do the work.

Here’s what I mean:

Instead of, “John took out the trash,” you could say, “John threw the heavy, black bag over his shoulder, trailing the smell of burning rot behind it. With one uneasy step after the next, shoes dragging down the driveway, he walked with his back hunched. A giant backpack weighing him down, full of all his litter and half eaten meals. Down at the curb, he drops the bag, where it lands with an uneventful thud. He looks around the empty street and reorients the bag, pushing back the large, hard thing that looks like it could be plastic stretched against teeth.

Fight against the instinct to tell your audience everything.

See how much more immersive and interesting that is? Granted, this isn’t the best description in the world, but you get the idea. We’re getting the action of throwing the bag, the smell of rot, the feel of shoes dragging on concrete, and the thud of the garbage bag on the ground. You’re forcing your reader to experience all of their senses, which helps draw them into the story. Then, by introducing the plastic stretched against teeth line, you’re then changing the entire preceding paragraph and subverting audience expectations. In one line, this suddenly isn’t just a guy taking out the garbage, it’s a guy throwing a dismembered body away in his weekly trash. Who is it? Did he kill this guy? What happened here? See what I mean? You’re drawing people in and then surprising them without doing anything other than just showing what our character is doing. There is so much real estate between the lines. Use that to your advantage. Your audience is smarter than you will ever give them credit for.

Plus, if you’re trying to get your word count up, this will do wonders for you.

Simply put: disassemble the sentence in a way that allows the reader to know what's going on, detail by detail. Remember to focus on the senses: action, taste, smell, hearing and touch/feeling.

Show the world and let the audience do the work.

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Lastly, remember, I’m not an authority, here. I’m just a dude who likes to read and write for fun. I’m only passing on information that’s helped me get better over the years. So, take my advice, or don’t, whatever.

That’s it for me. Thank you all again for your participation. It was an absolute pleasure reading your stories.

Back to regular posts next week!

I guess it only makes sense to end with a line from Shakespeare. You know, with all this talk of tragedy, and love, and loss, and so forth.

Here’s to my love! O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.