Zealous

It’s the last day of the A to Z Challenge. I was very zealous when the challenge started. I loved thinking up each day’s story. I will admit some letters were harder than others, but it was a challenge after all. 

I’m proud to say I enjoyed the whole experience from start to finish, and I completed every letter/day on time. (Good thing blogger has the scheduling feature.) 

One thing I didn’t expect was that my writing would improve because of the challenge. I usually write micro fiction pieces for my storyboard blog, but with the challenge, I found my stories were getting longer. People responded to the change as well. I received great reviews of the stories included in the challenge.

I will definitely do the A to Z Challenge next year…if I know about it in time. My memory is awful, so I’ll hope people talk about it to remind me. 

I hope everyone else enjoyed the challenge as well. Now, I will leave you with a story for the letter Z. Thanks for reading, y’all.

Andrea picked up the pace as she rounded the last bend in the twisting, winding road. She knew the finish line was around the corner and she was definitely ready for the race to be over.

When she started out, Andrea was over zealous. She bought new running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra that was supposed to hold up anything. She trained every day, sometimes twice a day. Her dog, Charlie, got tired of running with her and refused to leave the house. If she wanted his company, she had to forcibly put his leash on him. She gave up after a while and just ran on her own.

Her friends tried to tell her she was overdoing it, that she needed to pace herself, but Andrea hadn’t listened. She knew she had to train or she’d never make the thirteen miles. She’d only been running for a  few months, but was determined to finish the half marathon. 

No blisters, cramps or sore muscles were going to keep her from accomplishing her goal. And on the morning of the race, she had all of those and more.

Still, Andrea donned her gear and headed to the starting line. She remembered the excitement of the moment, the exhilaration the crowd shared. 

The first few miles went well. Andrea kept her pace steady, her head up and pushed forward. At the five-mile marker, she tripped. Andrea pulled herself back up and continued on, blood dripping down her knees and her palms on fire. 

At mile marker 8, her side started cramping. Andrea held her side and tried to keep running. She made another mile before she had to slow to a walk. After another mile, the pain subsided and she started to run again. 

She reached the ten-mile marker and her bladder started complaining. Andrea looked around for a port-a-potty, but none was in sight. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer and took off into the woods. 

Andrea had just pulled her shorts down when she looked over and spotted two men, mouths agape, watching her. She noticed the golf clubs as she fell face forward onto the ground. The men quickly turned around, but not before she heard their laughter.

Gathering her clothes, and her dignity, Andrea resumed the race. Her face was blazing, but her feet felt like they were stuck in molasses. She trudged onward, determined to make it to the end. 

At mile eleven, Andrea decided she’d been out of her mind to enter the race. By mile twelve, she was cursing everything from the sun, which was boiling, to her new sports bra, which wasn’t holding anything in check, but letting her boobs bounce around like basketballs. 

Still she ran. She wasn’t about to make it that far and quit. Andrea was going to finish the race if it killed her.

The finish line was in sight when Andrea fell. She clutched her chest and doubled over in pain. The other racers, who had already finished, rushed to her side. They told Andrea to lay still, that help was on the way. 

Andrea wouldn’t listen. She pushed at those trying to help her, yelling for them to get out of the way. 

Nobody knew what to do, and they couldn’t get her to calm down, so they moved away from Andrea and watched as she turned over and started to crawl.

Andrea finished the race, although nobody was sure she knew it. She crawled over the finish line and collapsed. Her friends had ‘Never Give Up’ etched on her headstone.

Yesterdays

Pictures of days gone by covered the wall. Birthday parties, graduations, family reunions, and everyday snapshots surrounded Katy.

Katy looked at them and smiled. 

She remembered everything that happened in each photograph. Every smile, every sunrise, every wish before the candles were blown out. 

Her family watched her and cried.

Katy looked at the others in the room and wondered why they were so sad. All the pictures were of happy times. They should be smiling, not crying. 

Of course, Katy didn’t know what their family was like…

Watch Your Back

Wally snatched Bart up by the collar and spit in his face. He then threw him face down in the dirt. 

“Where is it?” Wally demanded.

“You’ll never find it,” Bart replied, and then smiled, which was a mistake. 

When Wally finished working him over, Bart looked like he’d been hit by a truck. He had a broken arm, two black eyes, and he was sure a few ribs were cracked. He also figured he’d piss blood for a while. 

“Where is it?” Wally asked again. Those were the only words he’d spoken, but of course, they were the only ones that mattered.

“I’ll never tell.”

Wally worked Bart over some more and then asked his question again. When Bart still wouldn’t disclose the location of the missing money, Wally shook his head in disgust. He wished the man had a family. It was easy to make family men talk in Wally’s experience. All you had to do was threaten someone they loved. But the boss hired guys without family for that very reason. He didn’t want his competition getting information out of his people. It wasn’t very often that strategy backfired on the boss. 

Wally wanted to kill the bastard, but the boss said they had to recover the money first. Wally wasn’t so sure Bart would ever give it up. The man seemed to think he was saving the world by keeping the money from the organization. Wally heard he said something about not letting any more drugs corrupt the schools in town. Wally wondered if he really thought the money he was hiding was going to stop kids from taking drugs. If he did, they had a bigger problem on their hands because he was totally, bat-shit, crazy.

Wally hated crazy.

“Where is it?” he asked one more time.

Bart still refused to answer and Wally was tired. He kicked Bart in the gut one more time and bent down so he could whisper in Bart’s ear, “Watch your back,” before he left.

Bart lay there for hours before anyone came by. By the time he was taken to the hospital, it was too late.

***

“Where is it?” The man asked Wally.

“I already told you, I don’t know,” Wally replied for the tenth time. 

Wally couldn’t believe the boss actually thought Bart told him where the money was and that he was hiding it. He’d worked for the organization for twenty years, the boss was his second cousin, but evidently, in the organization, blood wasn’t thicker than water. 

He tried to prepare himself for the next kick, but he was too broken to do so. Wally lay there and took the abuse. The man finally stopped kicking and asked where the money was again.

“I don’t know. Bart never told me,” Wally replied. “Tell the boss Bart took it with him to the grave.”

The man pulled out his gun and said, “Looks like he’s not the only one.”

Vent Your Frustration

Yvonne smashed the meat cleaver over and over into the cake. The banging merged with her screams and reverberated throughout the kitchen. 

She couldn’t believe her husband had missed his own birthday party. A party they had been planning for two months. A party he was fully aware of, not one that was a surprise, which might have made the whole situation more understandable. 

And what caused him to miss the party? Not work or a medical emergency. No, he missed the party she had slaved over for a damn golf game.

“What the hell are you doing?” her husband asked from the doorway.

“It’s either the cake or your head, Clarence,” Yvonne answered. She turned toward him, cleaver raised and dripping icing, and asked, “Which will it be?”

Unrepentant

Tia watched the paramedics lift Tucker’s body into the ambulance. She knew the neighbors watching probably wondered why she hadn’t shed a tear, him being her husband of twenty years, but all her tears dried up long ago.

She watched as cops went in and out of her house, evidence bags clutched tightly in their hands. She knew the house would be a jumbled mess by the time they were done, but nobody cared about that. All they cared about was what happened to Tucker, one of their own.

She knew the pictures in her nightstand drawer would disappear. None of them would ever let proof of Tucker’s abuse get out if they could help it. The problem was, she had made sure they couldn’t stop it. A copy of all the photographs was in the mail to the local paper. Her sister, a reporter for the paper, was going to publish them in the late edition.

Tia was scared her sister would lose her job, but Leigh told her it was worth it. She’d been trying to get Tia away from Tucker for years, and since she never accomplished that, she was determined to help Tia after the fact. She didn’t care that Tia was guilty.

Guilty of killing her husband in his sleep. Guilty of beating him with his own baton. Guilty of enjoying it.

Tia didn’t care what happened to her anymore. Tucker had already taken everything from her, everything that mattered. He took her trust and peace of mind years ago, but those Tia had learned to live without. He had taken her dignity with every blow of his fist, and her sanity with every demeaning word he screamed at her. He had dwindled her self-worth down to nothing over the years with his constant tirades over everything thing she’d done wrong, but she had grown used to that.

But when he beat her so badly that he killed the baby she had been wanting, the baby conceived when he raped her a few months earlier, Tia gave up. 

She waited, regaining her strength, until a time when Tucker was unsuspecting. He’d pulled a double shift and was dead on his feet by the time he came home earlier that night. By the time Tia was done with him, he was dead off his feet as well.

Her sister thought Tia had a case. That she could get off because of the abuse. Tia didn’t tell her it no longer mattered. She knew her sister needed something to hold on to, a way to clear Tia’s name. Tia wondered if Leigh would still try to do that after she was gone.

Tia hated hurting her sister, but she was so tired. Tired of hurting, tired of life. Just tired. 

The two officers guarding Tia were talking to each other. Tia knew they didn’t think she was a threat, not to anyone else anyway. She used their distraction to her advantage and quietly pulled her insulin and syringe out. She had counted on them letting her keep the medicine after the paramedics told the cops stress could bring about a hypoglycemic episode. One of her guards turned toward Tia, but not before she injected herself with a lethal dose of insulin. Tia watched him turn back to his partner, not concerned after he saw that it was just her medication. 

Tia asked to be placed in a patrol car. She told the officers she was tired and needing to sit down. The officers complied. Tia watched activity swirling around outside the window and thought back to earlier that night.

Given the chance, she would do it all again, she decided. It was past time Tucker was stopped. She had thought about leaving him numerous times, but couldn’t bear to think he would find another woman to abuse. She thought she could handle everything, and she did for years, but she finally figured out there were some things nobody could handle.

As Tia felt her body slow down, she smiled. She knew it wouldn’t be long now. The last thing she saw before she slipped away was Tucker’s face. Tia knew she’d see him in hell again soon.