“Prompt Flow”
Peter, his breath came in short gasps as he ran up the stairs of the tower. Behind him a roiling ornery monster followed. Peter could feel the monster’s black breath raise the hackles on the backs of his arms and neck. The monster was close. How far Peter couldn’t gauge.
Peter couldn’t believe that his friend was gone. They met at the park an hour prior to discuss the release of book they had been working on for three years. It was the first ever comedic choose your own erotic adventure story. They were celebrating the feeling of empowerment when out of the bushes a monster bit Will’s head off. Peter jumped up and ran for his life.
Midway up the tower, Peter paused to push the buttons on his telephone, “9 — 1 — 1 —!” It rang once, the operator answered, and then the power went dead. “Mother Fucker,” Peter gasped, “god damned phone picked a hell-of-a-time to die!”
A voice in his head said you’re going to be dead if you don’t press on. Peter picked up the pace taking the stairs two and three at a time. The breath in his chest ached like a raging ball of lightening ready to explode into boiling shards of fire. “Why the fuck did I smoke that pack of cigarettes at the bar this morning?” At the top of the stairs Peter doubled over gasping. He stumbled forward trying to regain his posture. Bang, bang, boom, he could hear the monster’s heavy feet reverberating up the metal staircase.
Peter was instantly overwhelmed with panic. All feeling in his extremities fled from his body and for a moment he lost complete functionality. “This is it. How am I going to survive this one,” Peter squeezed out a thought.
A low growl oozed out from the stairwell. Peter knew that the monster was almost in sight. He could sense that there was no signs of weakness in it. The monster had climbed a thousand stairs and its legs were not jelly like Peter’s were or so he imagined.
Peter glanced around. He was fully in fight and flight mode. His eyes darted this way and that way searching for any kind of advantage or weapon he could utilize to combat this creature. He spied a board loosened on one end on a picnic table. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed he liberated it from the structure and three ugly nails were freed too. Peter swatted it against the inner wall of the tower. It was firm.
Hopefully, the monster wouldn’t take it away from him. Hopefully, he wouldn’t loose the cool that was coming over him like a morning tide washing and covering rocks at the beach. This must be what a Neanderthal experienced when a hunt turned wrong and had to battle with a lion or angry ape.
When Peter sighted the monster these primal energies seized control of him. The monster was huge. It looked like a troll that stepped out of the pages of a fairy story. The creature obviously wasn’t a troll, because the daylight would have turned it to stone. This troll or whatever it was walked on all fours and its front legs were shorter than its back one’s like a mighty grizzly. And it’s eyes boiled like a pot of crawdads. He could see the pinchers snapping out at him red and angry. The monster spoke through its body. It told a tale of pain. It postured it self in need of vengeance.
Peter didn’t want any part of this monster’s revenge plan. Peter wanted to live. Peter wasted to see the sun set this evening. And Peter wanted to eat ice cream at the parlor with Patty, his ol’ lady of two days.
Peter advanced on the monster wielding the board high over his head. He brought it down over the creature’s head with a solid whack. With the strength of a berserker he yanked the nails out of its head. They dripped with blood. The stunned creature yowled in pain. It hadn’t expected this. Peter swung again with even more force and swept the front legs out from under the monster and it fell down on its chin. On the backstroke the nails found the eyes. The creature lunged forward blindly. Peter retreated narrowly dodging each counter attack.
In the aftermath, Peter reflected over this apocalyptic moment. He didn’t understand what had happened. It was as if he was possessed by an ancient being, a primordial man, a warrior. In less than five minutes, Peter had maneuvered the creature into such a position that with a final blow of the board that it fell headlong backwards down the stairwell where it broke its neck at the first landing.
Peter
Roils
Ornery
Monster
Pushing
Telephone
Functions / Feeling
Losing
Order
Willpower
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