Show Notes
[00:00:00] What's up everyone and welcome to episode 68 of the Promptly Written Podcast where every
[00:00:23] month we usually take a writing prompt provided by you, write stories based on it, and then
[00:00:27] break them down for you. My name is Ian Lewis and once again on Flying Solo, Promptly Written
[00:00:33] is still on hiatus and my usual co-host Matt is taking a much needed break. However today I'm
[00:00:38] back with some microfiction based on an unused prompt from a past poll. For this episode the
[00:00:44] prompt I chose is an evil among us. I'm not certain who provided it though it may have been
[00:00:50] something Matt supplied to kick off one of the polls. So I'm just going to say thanks Matt,
[00:00:55] my apologies if I'm wrong. And something extra special. My story reaches back to the very
[00:01:01] first promptly written episode. It was an alternate idea I had started but never finished,
[00:01:06] a story that never was. I kept it on the back burner for a future episode and decided it would be
[00:01:11] a perfect micro story. And now I'm excited to present it to you a 396 word story titled
[00:01:19] Pinned Down. The staccato echo of rifle fire echoes from the floor above. It's laid over
[00:01:26] the panic shouts of the men of Recon 7. Then the same you did retort erupts from the floor below,
[00:01:32] intertwined with the wretched screams of those dying. The accurate smell of gunpowder and smoke
[00:01:38] linger in the stairwell where I'm pinned down with another member of my team. I glance at read
[00:01:43] who has the lower stairwell covered with his M4. Sweat beads his stubborn brows despite the cold
[00:01:49] clammy air, a two inch gash marks his cheek. He mutters curses to himself almost as if he's in a
[00:01:56] trance petrified stupid by what he imagines will rip through the door, for there's an evil among us.
[00:02:03] Swiveling back to the upper stairwell I mentally scrambled through the list of things I know
[00:02:07] or at least think I know about the abominations that clawed their way out of the lab in the sub-basement
[00:02:12] and into the rest of the building. There were ten of them engineered and gestated from a mutated
[00:02:18] X chromosome. Predatory they hunt in packs like raven stalks, there is always a decoy,
[00:02:25] one that draws your attention away long enough for the other's to strike.
[00:02:29] By then it's too late to react. You'll swing your rifle around only to find an unhinged jaw
[00:02:34] his snap open with rows of ragged tearing teeth ready to rip into your throat. The crunching and
[00:02:40] chewing that ensues is tempered only by your howling agony before razor-like digits pry open your
[00:02:45] rib cage. And yet all I can see in my head is her. Natalie, her vibrancy, her latent affection for me.
[00:02:55] The way her search and gaze interrogated me while I packed my gear that morning,
[00:02:59] there was roasted coffee in the air along with the smell of her body wash,
[00:03:03] clothing strewn about and that tentative truss that always seems to ever flow.
[00:03:07] Were dead, reads words are hollow echo and they pull me back to the here and now.
[00:03:13] The prominent whites of his eyes are strained. They consider me with wrapped hysteria.
[00:03:18] I hesitate, faltering between panic and focus, loss of control and muscle memory.
[00:03:24] I've got one spare magazine not counting the one in my rifle but sneerly spent.
[00:03:29] After that I fear my K-bars the only thing that will stay between me and a quick,
[00:03:34] crisly end. The end.
[00:03:39] Okay so I feel as though I've totally come full circle on this podcast.
[00:03:43] The story and the original prompt that spawned it really take me back to our very first somewhat
[00:03:48] rocky recording session. I might go back and revisit it just for fun.
[00:03:53] Anyway, thank you for listening and I hope to be back next month.
[00:03:57] Don't forget to visit our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash p-written pod.
[00:04:02] You can also contact us via twitter at p-written pod or email us at promptlywrittenpod.com
[00:04:09] Until next time.