Vacation Hell

A few weeks ago, Chuck Wendig over at Terrible Minds was kidnapped by aliens.  After he was returned safely, but with a sore lower back and inexplicable sores all over his tender parts, Chuck travelled back in time and asked for people to submit flash fiction to keep his blog operational while he was being molested somewhere near Alpha Centauri.

Wait… You don’t believe me?

Okay, so I may not have all of the facts down, but you get the basic gist of what was going on.  He was actually in California and Hawaii, which may as well be somewhere near Alpha Centauri.  So what if the aliens were wearing grass skirts?  He was gone and he put out a call for help.  I was one of many people who responded to that call.

Thus was born the “Vacation Hell” Flash Fiction Challenge.  Some excellent pieces of flash fiction arose from the remains of Chuck’s extraterrestrial incarceration.  I wrote a piece called “Mannequins.”  It’s a “young adult” horror story inspired by an actual house not too far from my own.

If you live near me, you may be familiar with the dog park in Surfside Beach.  If you are, you may know that a large white beach house overlooks that park.  If you look in the windows of that house, you will occasionally see an assortment of mannequins and even a few cardboard cutouts standing in the windows.  They’re not there all the time, and they move from window to window sometimes.  I think the old guy who lives there is a bit on the crazy side, but I’m not one to judge.  I just know that he plays with mannequins.  And makes them watch us while we’re in the park with our dogs.  And I found out last week that he sometimes takes pictures of us there with our dogs, recording our comings and goings.  It’s a creepy situation.  It also inspired my story.

Since today is Election Day in America, Chuck also made it the day to vote on which of the “Vacation Hell” flash fiction pieces is your favorite.  Please follow the link and read all of the stories; they’re short and quite well done.  Then, vote for your favorite.

By the way, if you were in my gaming group about 4 years ago, then you may recognize the pretty little lady in the picture.  That is the mannequin head that was thrown at my house during gaming one night by some unknown person.  Yep, I still have her.  I may even bring her to the dog park one day to stare back at that house.