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The Dive

Here’s another excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel, which uses the word for this week’s 100 Word Challenge at Velvet Verbosity.

Zina came up, sputtering, gasping.

It was there! She’d gotten a glimpse of the passage’s dark mouth under the ledge. She could make it. If her calculations were correct, the passage would be short and lead into the cave.

She filled her lungs — once, twice — then dove again, driving herself down and forward. The water darkened around her. Ahead it was pure black. She swam on, down and then up. The walls were close around her. She banged a knee, an elbow, then panicked when her head struck rock.

She reached up, searching for an opening.

Her fingers touched air.

Test Pilot Blues

By Jim Anderson

He rocked down a few miles from where black smoke roiled into the desert sky. Not a bad ride, he thought. A little balky in the turns. On the ground, he immediately wriggled out of the parachute harness. Seconds later, a gust of wind filled the canopy, and the harness scuttled away across the white sands.

He took off his helmet. They’ll blame me, of course. How they are, the bean-counters!

It could be tricky — knowing when it was hopeless, knowing when to get out.

He started walking toward the smoke, thinking he had cut this one a little close.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #355 at Velvet Verbosity.

Gerald the Underhanded

By Jim Anderson

Prince Gerald had an epiphany. Half-way unto the breach, he feigned a leg cramp. Thus, brave brother Rainer surged ahead and climbed the rubble-pile first, closely followed by a hundred men-at-arms.

Rainer tumbled down as fast, an arrow through the eye. The whispers began immediately. Later, the battle won, the castle carried, Gerald marveled at his insight. I will be king, he thought. And so he was. With Rainer’s bones interred and his widow warming the royal bed, the whispers grew.

“A king must rise above mere rumor,” Gerald said.

His reign was long, enlightened and generous; his name, immortal.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #350 at Velvet Verbosity.

Shots Fired, Garden View Apartments

By Jim Anderson

As she parked near her building, Gina saw a man’s form swaying in the shadows. It was the same guy. She was sure of it.

The book said to call it in. Gina liked the book, but not for this. Instead, she drew her nine-millimeter.

In a second, she was out of the car. Air-conditioners hummed. Crickets sang. Gina stepped forward, the automatic by her thigh.

“Pretty stupid, stalking a cop.”

“Stalking?” The voice was soft, almost feminine.

“Yeah, stalking. What would you call it?”

“Haunting, perhaps?”

The shadow lunged.

Gina crouched and fired three rounds into a potted shrub.

I wrote this story for the 100 Word Challenge #339 at Velvet Verbosity.