Bits and Bites

By the editors of The Electric Scroll

A bit of this, a bite of that!
Thirty-six breathtaking, chilling, and heart-warming stories from award-winning authors A M Jenner, Scott Ashby, and Natalie Peck will have you soaring on the wings of love, and cowering beneath your blankets.
The stories collectively contain an almost all-knowing computer, time travel, death-defying adventures, aliens, and some downright scary things hanging out in your very own laundry room.
Whether you like Suspense, Fantasy, Science Fiction, or Romance, there’s sure to be something in this collection to delight you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Electric Scroll
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940311043

Book preview

Editing an anthology is interesting. Do you choose only the shortest stories or the longer short stories? Do you include the really silly ones as well as the serious ones? What about the stories you really love, but even as you read it, you know it's kind of, well, dorky?

After reading some of the shorter fiction by our authors A M Jenner, Scott Ashby and Natalie Peck, the decisions were agonizing. It's quite likely that nobody will like all the stories, but in the hopes that each one will be liked by someone, a variety of styles, subject matter, and genres have been included here.

Here then, are some short, one bite size stories you can sink your teeth into whenever you have just a few minutes. They were written between 1983 and 2010. I'm told that some have a factual basis, but most don't. I've also been told that although some of the names used in the stories might belong to friends and relatives, the characters are not intended to represent those namesakes or any other actual people.

Enjoy!

M Borgnaes, Editor

The Electric Scroll

A M Jenner

A M Jenner is a mother and grandmother who lives in Gilbert, Arizona with her family, a car named Grey Ghost, and around 5,000 books. A self-professed hermit, she loves interacting with her fans online, and was last seen entering the library.

Double Vision

In my writing files, Double Vision is marked as having been written in 1990. I have no idea when in the year it was written, or why, but I do recall that once conceived in my brain, Callie would not leave me alone until her story had been recorded.

The young girl sat on the witness stand. Her eyes were full of tears that threatened to fall at any moment. Her arms and legs, generally narrow enough to be called painfully thin, appeared emaciated in comparison to her bulging midriff.

She knotted her hands in her lap, her knuckles whitening with the pressure she exerted. The District Attorney removed a gleaming white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She didn't seem to see it.

He replaced the handkerchief and continued with his questions. Now Callie, who was it that put that baby in you?

Callie began to sob openly. Mark Brewer, he took me up to his cabin. We used to be friends. I went to his cabin lots. We'd go play with the marbles. He has lots of pretty colored marbles.

The barrister took a slow, deep breath. Did you like to play at Mark's house?

Yes, except when he put the baby in me.

Tell me about that time.

I went up the stairs to Mark's house, because it was Saturday. I knocked on the door, and Mark let me in. I started to get out the marbles, but Mark said he knew something that was more fun than playing marbles. He took me in the other room and started to take off his shirt. Then he tried to take off my dress. I didn't want him to, but he did. Then he put the baby in me. That hurt. I never went to his cabin again. I didn't want Mark to hurt me again.

Thank you Callie. He glanced at the Public Defender, who shook her head to indicate that she had no questions. He helped Callie from the stand to her seat, then turned toward the jury. May I remind the court that even had Callie been a willing participant, both her age…15, and the fact of her mental retardation are grounds for statutory rape. The prosecution rests.

The public defender quickly dashed tears from her own eyes before rising from her chair to face the jury. After that touching testimony, there is no doubt in my mind that, on the morning in question, Callie Monahan went to the cabin of Mark Brewer, and that someone met her there and raped her. However, she has identified the wrong individual. I'd like to call Mark Brewer to the stand.

Mark stepped to the witness stand with a lithe grace, and seated himself. He promised to tell nothing but the truth, then the barrister stepped close to the stand.

Why would Callie have gone to your cabin that morning?

Mark grinned, a smile that crinkled his entire face and danced in his eyes. Callie usually came up around nine every Saturday morning. I have a large collection of marbles. We usually played marbles or checkers out on the porch.

So usually you spent Saturday mornings playing marbles with Callie.

Yes. Saturday mornings are a particularly heavy workload for Mrs. Monahan, so I'd help her out by keeping an eye on Callie. I usually get my weekends off.

Where were you on the morning of June 12th?

Here in Bretherton.

Why?

I needed to pick up some lumber and supplies to repair cabin 21.

The counselor turned toward the jury. According to the register at the resort, Mr. Brewer checked out a truck at 8:00 am. It is a 45 minute drive from the resort to Bretherton. This receipt, she handed a piece of paper to the head juror, from the lumberyard is stamped at 9:07 am. Obviously he drove straight from the resort to town. She handed a second piece to the juror. "This is the receipt from the hardware store, with the time 9:57 printed on it. Mr. Brewer could not possibly have arrived back at the resort before 10:45.

According to the hospital records already admitted as evidence, Mrs. Monahan and Callie arrived at 10:30. This means that they left the resort no later than 9:45 am. Mr. Brewer may have passed them on the road, but there is no possible way for him to have been at the resort at the time the crime was being committed. The defense rests.

The jury deliberated less than two minutes before proclaiming Mark Brewer a free man.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Callie Monahan sat on the stoop of her mother's cabin watching her two-year-old son play in the dirt. Joshua was a beautiful baby. She was happy that her mom helped her take care of him, so that she could keep him. She shivered despite the heat of the morning's sunshine. Today was her birthday. She hated her birthday, because that was the day it happened. It had been three years since Mark had put Joshua in her.

Timmy, a rambunctious 12 year old, poked his head around the corner of the house. Hey Callie! I found a huge box of marbles. Come see! Callie very carefully picked Joshua up and took him inside, telling her mum that she was going to go play with Timmy. She came back outside and followed Timmy into the woods. At first she didn't realize where he was leading her, but then she recognized the railroad tie stairs.

Callie froze. Timmy climbed several more steps before he realized that she'd stopped. He stopped as well, and turned. What's the matter?

Callie's voice wavered. We're going to Mark's house.

Who's Mark?

He put Joshua in me.

Oh. Well, we're not going there, we're going to my Uncle Geoff's house. That's where I stay when I come to visit in the summer.

Oh. All right. Callie brightened. Maybe Mark had moved away like her friend Teresa had.

They arrived at the cabin. Timmy got out two huge canisters of colored marbles. See? I told you there were lots! The two began to set up the biggest marble game ever. Mark poked his head out of the kitchen. Hi Callie! It's nice to see you again.

Callie looked up at the sound of the voice, and panicked when she saw him. She jumped to her feet. I gotta go home, Timmy. Mom's baking me a cake.

Callie ran out the door. Blinded by fright, she didn't see the figure coming up the path until it was too late. They collided. Strong hands put her back on her feet. She looked up to say thank you, then screamed and continued down the hill even faster than before.

Callie slammed the door behind her as she entered the house. Sobbing, she told her mother that Timmy had taken her to Mark's house, only he'd called it his Uncle Geoff's house, and she'd seen Mark. Twice.

A week later Callie was still insisting that there were two of Mark. Callie's mother called the detective that had been placed in charge of the case three years earlier. Several hours later he returned her call.

"Mrs. Monahan, very good news! Callie may be right in insisting that there are two of Mark. I've done some checking, and it seems that thirty years ago Mrs. Brewer gave birth to identical twins, Jonathan, and Mark Geoffrey.

Farmer John's Roller Coaster

In a blog I was reading at the end of June, 2010, the writer mentioned she was going to attempt a challenge to make a post every day during July. I thought it was a good idea, and Scott, Natalie, and I took the challenge a step further. In March, I had been given a card game that created outrageous story prompts by having a different phrase of the prompt on each of five cards. We determined to write a new short story every day in July from those prompt cards. This is one of the Daily Blog Challenge Stories.

Prompt: In the exurb of the great city, there was a manic/depressive farmer who laughed hysterically on even days and cried miserably on odd days.

John got out of bed a little fearfully, not knowing how he was going to feel today. He looked at the calendar and saw that today was July 24th. Good, he thought, today would be a good day.

He quickly dressed and went merrily out to the barn. He laughed and sang happily as he milked the cows. He chortled to himself as he carried the buckets of milk into the cool milk room and poured the warm liquid through the cheesecloth lined strainers and into the large milk cans. Next, he sped up the ladder to the hay loft, quickly cutting the wires on the hay bales and tossing the hay down to the stalls for the horses to eat.

He giggled while he pumped the water into what he called his aqueduct system, a series of wood channels that carried the water from the pump and delivered it to drinking tubs for all the barn animals at once. The system saved him a lot of time and effort in carrying heavy buckets of water between the pump and the barn.

He grabbed a basket, filled it with dried corn from a bag in the barn, and carried it over to the henhouse. John stopped in the henyard and scattered the corn for the chickens. Once they were busy noisily contending over which one would get the best part of the breakfast, John slipped into the dim interior of the henhouse and carefully gathered the eggs, placing them into the basket which was now empty of corn.

Recalling what his wife had said last night, he stopped by the smokehouse and took out one of the hams which still hung there. Although they did their smoking of meat in the autumn after harvest, they had found it was convenient to store the smoked meats in the smokehouse, once the preservation process was completed.

John carried the ham and eggs to the kitchen, where his wife waited with his breakfast. When he had eaten, he took the leftover scraps in a bucket and left the house again. He knew Mary would be washing and drying the eggs, and setting them into egg cartons in dozens for them to take with them to the farmer's market tomorrow.

Tomorrow. John shivered a bit apprehensively. Since today, being an even day, was a good one, he knew tomorrow…he shivered again and pushed the dark thoughts away. No point in ruining today by worrying about tomorrow.

John stirred up the coals under the pigs' mash barrel and added a few small wood chips to keep it evenly at the right temperature. He opened the big drum holding the mixture of grain and water, and stirred it with the long wood paddle that somewhat resembled a rowboat's oar. He lifted the huge ladle-shaped dipper from where it hung on the barrel's rim, and dipped out enough of the mash to fill the bucket with the breakfast scraps to within an inch of the top.

Hanging the dipper back in its place and replacing the lid on the mash barrel, John carried the bucket over to the pig sty and filled the trough. The mean old sow he'd named Mama Pig trotted over to the trough, shoving some of her newly weaned piglets out of the way. He watched for a few moments as the young pigs jostled each other as they scrambled to get their share of the food. John carried three more buckets of mash to the young family before he was finished with them for the morning.

John whistled a merry tune as he turned the cows out of the barn and herded them off to the pasture where they would spend the bulk of their day. He returned to the milk room and skimmed the cream from the top of the cans. He poured the skim milk into the carefully cleaned and sterilized bottles. John opened the cooler…a hole in his barn floor that had been cut over the opening to a small cave. He reached into the hole and pulled out a small ring, with a chain attached to it. John took a hook from the ceiling and slipped it through the ring, then turned a crank to bring the metal basket up from the hole. He placed the milk into