APRIL FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNERS
This Month's Theme — THE WEATHER

(Stories Listed In Alphabetical Order by Author's Last Name):

THE MEETING by Brian Rosenberger

Behind a locked door, the meeting has begun.

"It's agreed then. After looking at the Doppler radar, the cloud movment our computer models generated, the astral alignment, and the mood of the moon as foretold in our dreams, we are in consensus — there is no doubt that we are due for rain. Lots of rain."

"Our forecast is clear. Pun intended. Sunny skies for the next five days. Deliver this forecast to our subjects. And don't forget your umbrellas."

Behind other locked doors, similar meetings have concluded. The weathermen have decided. Their mocking laughter sounds the same in any language.

GOOD DOG by J. Kyle Turner

Jeffrey was mean to other kids, which was bad enough. But he was mean to his dog, too, and that was worse.

“Fetch!” he yelled, and let fly.

Daisy smelled the blizzard coming, and didn't want to leave the porch. Jeffrey kicked her. “I said fetch!”

So Daisy found the stick and carried it into the woods.

“Bad dog!” Jeffrey said when she returned. “Stay!” he ordered, and stomped in after the stick. The temperature plummeted. Snow fell. And Jeffrey got lost.

Daisy heard him crying, but didn't move. She was a good dog. She knew how to stay.

 

HERE COMES THE SUN by Sheri White

Allison remembered when she practically prayed for warm sun. On those days when ice and snow covered the landscape, she dreamed of the beach, margaritas on the patio, and her polished toes in the sand.

Now the sun hadn’t stopped shining for months, even at night. The earth was dying without rain. Experts tried to explain what was happening, but it didn’t matter what they said. Life was ending, and nobody could stop it.

Allison grabbed a beer from the fridge. It was warm; electricity failed weeks before. She winced at the bitter taste and dreamed about ice and snow.

 

HONORABLE MENTION:

(Stories Listed In Alphabetical Order by Author's Last Name):

 

SNOW FALLING by J. David Anderson

I look out my window at the gently falling snow. It heaps and drifts, swirls flitting through the cold winter air. The ground is quickly covered in its shimmering white layers. The world outside is a blank canvas, a new beginning.

I finally feel at peace. The past is behind me. I have only the future and its endless offerings. Frozen precipitation buries the last remnants of a previous life. I am thankful for the snow. For now, it will cover the scent and keep police dogs from finding the bodies.

 

EMOTIONAL TIES by Laura J. Hickman

My emotions tied to weather, risking the world of my pain and wrath. I gave him perfection, love, and trust, but he ripped out my heart, laughed at me. The pain scorched my body like lightening.

I didn’t mean to cry so much. If it was over days instead of hours, the damage would have been less, but ...

Maybe I should have found a different place to cry, but I ran away to my old home, I never thought 18 inches of rain in three hours hid inside me as I was over New Orleans. Sorry about the flooding.

 

FIRE SEASON by Rachel Rose Teferet

Wailing, Laurel falls into the deep river canyon. She mourns the end of rain: the daffodils rusting like burnt meringue, the hot wind sucking blood from the oaks and sweet birch.

The sun becomes a hammer, smashing the dandelions, shattering the promise of river.

Curled up on the cracked earth, she shudders, feeling the undercurrent of smoke, unseen yet smelt; a looming, shadowy hand choking the cherry blossom trees and blotting out the sky.

 

WEATHER-PLAGUED by Angel Zapata

Nell placed her mug on the bistro table. “What game shall we play?”

“Surprise me.” Bonnie sat across from Nell, sipping tea.

Heavy rain had kept the locals away. The coffee shop was virtually empty. Through the front window, Bonnie watched the sewer drain swallow filthy water.

“Lightning’s boring.” Kinetic threads of electricity buzzed between Nell’s fingernails. “I’m leaning toward something… biblical.”

Bonnie perked up. “What about the ten plagues?”

Nell smiled, closed her eyes. Frogs fell from the thunderclouds.

“Wait.” Bonnie spotted two, young boys crossing the road with their mother. “Let’s skip ahead to when the firstborn dies.”

 

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OFFICIAL RULES FOR MAY 2013:

What could possibly be scary about something so basic and so essential that we all typically do it three times a day? That's where the fun begins this month ...

This month's theme — A RECIPE FOR HORROR (FOOD & DRINK)

This is purposefully another very broad topic — your story must simply center somehow around food or drink (eating, cooking, restaurants, vineyards, distilleries, gardens, grocery shopping, etc.). However, a word of warning in advance — much like the culinary arts, our judges are going to favor "gourmet creativity" over "fast food convenience" when it comes to this theme. In other words, if you take an obvious approach to link food to horror (like cannibalism or zombies eating brains), you better knock our socks off! After all, we published a novel about gourmet canibals (THE EPICURE by Holly Newstein & Ralph W. Bieber, available HERE and also as part of our HAUTALA/NEWSTEIN BUNDLE), so the bar's already been set extremely high! Our standard 100 word count limit applies.

Necon E-Books reserves the right to republish all WINNING and HONORABLE MENTION pieces (i.e. all those published on our web site) in our annual Flash Fiction Anthology. Otherwise, all rights revert to the authors as soon as the winners are announced each month.

Submission deadline is May 31st, 2013.

** PLEASE NOTE!! NEW SUBMISSION RULES **
Authors are now free to submit however many stories they want. However, only your top voted submission will be considered each month. Part of the purpose of this contest is to give exposure to as many writers as possible, and we feel limiting authors to one publication per month is a fair way to assure that. Please submit work either directly in an email or attached as a text, RTF or MS Word document.

** PLEASE NOTE!! A REMINDER FROM THE JUDGES **
We've received a number of stories lately which have been rife with small but fundamental errors (such as typos and grammatical mistakes). Please consider this a gentle reminder from the judges to all of our writers — your competition is quite fierce, and careless, unprofessional mistakes in your manuscript may be held against you. In other words, please take the time to proofread and spell check your stories; after all, they're only 100 words long! As Charles L. Grant used to say, if a writer doesn't bother to treat his own submission professionally, why should the publisher?

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT

The first week of each month, we'll announce as many winners and Honorable Mentions as we see fit and publish their work on this site. Then, at year's end, we'll collect all the pieces previously published on our site into the NECON E-BOOKS FLASH FICTION ANTHOLOGY In addition to having their work published online, all included authors will receive a free copy of the anthology.