Fantasy Drabble #387 "You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here"

The candle-topped skull on the end of the bar opened its mouth, and hissed: “Closing time. Cloooosing tiiiiime.”

Borthen downed the last of his drink and nodded at the barkeep. “How much to close out?”

“You’re paid up.”

“...I haven’t paid at all.” He patted his pocket, which jingled with coin.

“You’re paid up.” The barkeep pointed to a dark corner.

There, at a table, was the outline of a hooded female figure. He should have been able to see her better, even in the shadows. She beckoned with a spectral hand; he was just drunk enough to go over.

SF Drabble #500 "Up On Old Round Top"

Billy reached into the cooler, fished around in the ice, careful not to lean too far in the rickety lawn chair. “I think there’s only one left.” He pulled out a beer, one of the cheaper ones: they’d drunk the primo stuff first.

“Want me to go on a run?”

The ground trembled, and they looked down into the city to see an immense dust cloud rising where a building had just fallen. The distant Kaiju roared, arms swinging wildly, as if angry it could not destroy the building twice.

“Pretty sure they'd have closed when the sirens went off.”

SF Drabble #499 "Collision"

 “You are being detained. For your safety, please cooperate.” The Synthcop’s grip on his wrist was tight, but not tight enough to injure.

They probably did a lot of lab testing on that, to avoid lawsuits. “But I didn’t do—”

“You are being detained. For your safety, please cooperate.”

“Listen, man, my car…” the front end was crumpled beyond recognition, and the radiator steam had now been replaced by the darker grey of smoke. “I don’t know what happened, but—” he felt a tiny prick on his wrist.

“Your blood alcohol level is point-oh-nine. You are under arrest.”

Zombie Drabble #449 "Flammenwerfer"

The only light was the flare they’d dropped, now sputtering and dying on the road a ways behind them, and she strained to make out movement ahead. He’d said to stay in the car, as if she’d ever, in a million years, have gotten out.

A line of flame appeared, at first just for an instant, and then again, swinging slowly across the road ahead, leaving a congregation of shambling figures writhing and burning in its wake.

From the back seat, her mother-in-law muttered in her usual judgmental tone, “And you gave him so much shit for buying that thing.”