A descriptive piece about a woman, middle-aged, well-off, single, a doctor and in a wheelchair, going out for dinner with 5 others to a friends party in a large Victorian house.
Here's my 700-word "flash fiction." Still needs a bit of paring down, so suggestions are welcome. Enjoy!
No one knew how Dr. Helga Lens made it up or down the Victorian mansion's 37 rickety steps, but everyone knew not to ask.
Everyone, that is, except the boisterous new dinner guest. He introduced himself as Byron Clegg with a crippling handshake as he guzzled $1,000 bottles of champagne.
Apparently, he was the new guest of the beet-red hostess, one Loreli Smith, who had a habit of falling for the bad boy and not learning from mistakes. Still, the question looming in the drafty foyer was not why he was here, but whether Loreli had warned him about…
The doorbell rang.
…her.
Dr. Helga wheeled into the house, her quiche lorraine balanced on her legless lap. Heads turned – men and women – to admire her treacherous radiance. While other attendees depended on Parisian perfumes to shave off the years, Dr. Helga got prettier by the week. It was rumored that if you looked closely enough, you could see the beauty unfolding on her face. But then no one got that close, even though she was the reason they shelled out ungodly amounts of money to come to her friend's parties. Because no one forgot what had happened to the last three gentlemen who had so dared.
Except for Mr. Byron Clegg. The second Dr. Helga wheeled in, he stopped blabbing about his rags-to-riches success in internet pyramid schemes. In his rookie madness, he marched up to the crippled goddess, cleared his throat, extended his ring-less left hand and said: "Byron Clegg, entrepreneur."
"Would you like a piece of quiche, Mr. Clegg?" The cold sweetness of her voice sucked the air from the drafty foyer.
"Only if it tastes as lovely as you look."
To everyone's shock, lightning didn't erupt from her eyes to fry Byron on the spot. She smiled – yes, actually smiled – at this lameness.
The party proceeded beneath the blade of a guillotine that everyone noticed except Clegg, who had forgotten about Loreli in the sparkling animal of Helga's eyes. Apparently, Loreli didn't care risking her own life to rescue him. She was already considering where to stash the body.
But Clegg was doing better than fine. He made it through dinner without choking to death on the filet mignon. He made it through desert without a fatal reaction to a mysterious allergy. Everyone was amazed.
When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, there was a collective sigh. This was it. The internet entrepreneur was a goner. Eyes flitted around the table: who would be the one to pry out the bloated bugged face from the toilet this time? Minutes passed like hours. Then it came: a scream splintered the dinner, wailing from the direction Clegg had wandered.
But only a second later, Byron ambled back into the dining area, an embarrassed grin on his lips.
"Sorry," he said. "That kittie might need a vet."
The party ended. Clegg was unscathed. Guests donned their coats, baffled, but left quickly. Eventually, only Clegg and Dr. Helga remained.
"Well, Doc, was a pleasure talking to you," Clegg said.
"And you."
They went onto the porch. Clegg looked down the 37steep wooden steps. He flipped a switch on his glasses, and the world turned blue. The thermal goggles told him all the guests were long gone. Not a sign of body heat for miles.
"What's the killing, today?" he said.
"Eighty K," Helga said, riffling the bills. "
He shook his head. "Slow night. Glad I got my money's worth of champagne."
"You think the twist will pay off?"
He shook his head. "It'll keep 'em coming back for a while, but people want bloodshed. We'll have to deliver soon."
Dr. Helga gazed into the black countryside. "I know you don't want to…"
"I'll order the fake death pills and costume tomorrow," he said curtly. "You mastermind my murder."
She smiled. "Love you."
"Ready?"
Dr. Helga nodded.
Clegg reached beneath her dress and yanked out the extendable bionic legs. It'd taken only one fake death at these rich old fart parties to pay for the operation. But by then it was too easy. Fooling those who'd grown up without google always was.
Byron folded up Helga's wheelchair and slung it over his shoulder. They linked arms.
"Byron," she said, "you didn't have to step on the cat, did you?"
"Never, darling."
He removed a little speaker from his pocket, and meowed the night away.
As always, the quality of writing and description is amazing, lines like "beauty unfolding on her face" work well. Still, I'm confused with the plot, after reading it three times I still am not sure if I know entirely what's going on: Are they staging murders to make money to pay for bionic legs?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the pointer.
ReplyDeleteThe idea was exactly what you said: they are staging murders for money. Originally (or so I tried to get across) they did it for the legs. A seedy but reasonable motive.
But seeing as how greed is an insatiable monster never satisfied with one jackpot, they continued to stage deaths because it attracted the old rich retirees who appreciated feeling "alive" by getting the dinner-theatre of death.
I'll try to clarify!