Thanksgiving is coming up in just a few days! Will you see family and friends? What are you most thankful for this year? Our writerly fellowship has penned short stories spun from a single picture today, chosen by Robin.
Mikey, introduced in the story below, is very thankful that he hasn’t been eaten by a dinosaur, (yet). And down below, check out the openers from Robin and Trish!
Parker Broaddus
Author of A Hero’s Curse & Nightrage Rising
The McGalliard Street Gate, (a teaser)
Mikey forced his way through a tangle of fronds that grabbed at his clothes and the canvas bag slung over his shoulder, trying to keep Doc’s back in view at all times. Doc stopped.
“Shhhhh.”
Mikey frowned. Easier said than done. Doc put his hand up and made a claw with one finger. Then pointed off to the left before continuing through the undergrowth. Mikey didn’t know exactly what Doc was saying but he felt like he caught the general implication. Something dangerous off that way. Got it. Mikey nodded. Something with claws or teeth. That had been a recurring theme ever since Mikey had been the unsuspecting victim of some kind of dimension displacement in that abandoned warehouse alley and sucked him through to this crazy jungle. He’d been a normal, nerdy, slightly bored, twelve-year-old kid taking a shortcut off McGalliard Street on his way home from school in Orlando one minute, and the next he was being introduced to the very real fact that velociraptors like to hunt at dusk and dawn. By a group of survivors who had also been displaced in that alley over the past few weeks and months. It was beyond weird.
Doc pulled him back to the present by stopping so abruptly Mikey almost ran into him. Mikey peered around him to see what had caused a halt. The jungle ended where a chasm opened up in front of them, with the nicest bridge Mikey had seen in this place stretched across the canyon. Woven rope and boards had been strung and crisscrossed and cleverly sunk into the rock, giving the bridge a sense of permance. A breath of fresh air moved the tops of the trees and made the structure sway.
“Wow,” Mikey breathed. “You built this?”
Doc didn’t respond. Mikey looked up to see him tugging thoughtfully at his wiry, brown and stained beard. “Nope.” He said it softly. Like a secret.
“You mean you didn’t build it?”
“Nope,” he grunted. “Found it. Just like this.”
The implications made Mikey dizzy. “So…”
Doc looked at Mikey, offering nothing. Mikey plucked at one of the ropes strung across the gorge. “Somebody else…built it?”
Doc shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” He gazed again at the rope bridge. “I haven’t found anybody else out here, besides us.” He waved a hand that included the group back at the camp. “Haven’t found any other sign of civilization. No tracks. Nothin’. I don’t know if this bridge is a part of the displacement, like maybe it got pulled through somehow, or if somebody got sucked through way before us and built it here. I don’t know. And not knowin’…not knowin’ anything about where it all started…in that alley…that makes it all the less likely we can get out of here. Especially with nobody lookin’ on the other side.”
Mikey cleared his throat. “Actually, I do think somebody knows.”
Doc looked at him sharpley. “You’re saying somebody may know where to look for you? Somebody in your family? They would know to search the alley?” His mouth set in a grim line. “That would make you unique here. If anyone is looking for the rest of us–and that’s no guarantee–they wouldn’t have any reason to look near that warehouse complex, much less the alley. We’re loners. Runaways. Drifters. Wallflowers. Misfits.” Doc shifted the coil of vine-made-rope on his shoulder and looked at Mikey again. Something glimmered in his eye. “You’re sure?”
Mikey nodded, slow. “Yeah.” Then he nodded again, firmer. “Definitely. It may take some time, but he’ll figure it out. He’s…like a detective. It can be annoying if you live with him. But he’s good. Really good.” Mikey let out a shaky breath, but he knew it what he said was true. “He’ll find the McGalliard Street gate.”
“Who’s ‘he,’? Your dad?”
Mikey shook his head. “My younger brother. Lucas.”
Robin Lythgoe
Author of As the Crow Flies
Bridge to Hope
The rope and plank bridge strung across the canyon looked like any other of a score of such structures the Dog had seen in his journeys. It swayed violently, victim of the wind dragged down the steep, rocky canyon by the setting sun. Shadow devoured the depths and crept up the far wall. On this side, the last rays of light saturated the greens of pines, mountain ash, and oak. Vivid purplish-red flowers peppered great swathes at their feet.
Beautiful.
Harsh.
Solitary.
Incongruously, hope waited on the other side of that fragile passage.
Patricia Reding
Author of Oathtaker
Coming soon…
There it is! What did you like? What stories are you working on? What would you have written about if you saw that bridge? Drop me an email, send a picture, or comment below.
Exciting! Will they cross the bridge? Find the builders? Get saved? Inquiring minds want to know!