Blog Fiction: A Wizard's trip to the Bank

Boreas in his more magical garb

Mark strode into the bank with angry confidence. This was the day. This was the day he would get what the world owed him. No one batted an eye at his heavy puffy coat as he made his way to the center of the lobby floor. Patrons and tellers were busy with transactions while the security guard read a newspaper.

"EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR NOW!" Mark shouted as he threw his coat open revealing the explosives he had strapped to himself. In his hand he held the dead man's switch. "IF I LET GOT OF THIS WE ARE ALL DEAD!" He turned to the security guard who now second guessed reaching for his gun.

"Lay down on the floor, badge!" Mark warned him.

Panicked patrons did as he asked, except for one. On calm man stood by a table littered with forms. He appeared distinguished in his three piece suit and trilby hat. His reddish brown mustache twirled upward in undeniable style. As the man regarded a piece of paper with scrutiny, he all but ignored Mark.

"Hey! Are you deaf or stupid? Get on the floor!" Mark shouted.

"I do believe I will decline that invitation." Said the man. "A person doesn't dress like this to rub himself on filthy tile."

"Just who do you think you are? I'm the guy in control here! I'll kill everyone!"

"Please, sir, just listen to him." A woman on the floor said.

"Not to worry, young lady, as they say in the comics, I've got this." He turned his gaze back to Mark and slapped the paper on the table. "As for who I am; I am Boreas the Wizard. You are Mark Boggs and you are going to jail today without blowing up anyone."

"A wizard? Are you kidding me? Are you senile?"

"Hardly." Boreas gestured with a hand and made a few symbolic flexes of his fingers.

"What was that?" Mark asked in exasperation and held out the dead man's switch. "Maybe you'd like to see my hand gestures?"

"Go ahead. You're vest is full of silly putty. Quite harmless. But then, you are also threatening me with a potato."

Mark looked to his hand in astonishment. He was indeed clenching a harmless potato. This was all the security guard needed as a cue to tackle Mark to the floor. People gasped and some sighed in relief.

"Wow. Are you really magic, sir?" A little boy rushed up and asked Boreas.

Boreas knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder. "Yes I am and you are safe now. Say, would you like to see another trick?"

The boy nodded with excitement.

"Then behold! I just turned Mark's socks into peanut butter!"

"HEY!" Mark shouted as he was cuffed and dragged away. "MY FEET!"

Boreas ruffled the little boy's hair and stood up. He took up his deposit slip in hand.

"Now were was I? Oh yes. Back to business."

No Trespassing (Blog fiction)

The great fan of the air boat roared in their ears as they sped across the waters of southern Louisiana. They held their guns ready for anything in their path on the way to the meetup. The buyer wanted sufficient tree cover in the swamp for the purchase. Lemmy didn’t like the idea but he had drugs to sell. A buyer’s eccentricity could be tolerated most of the time. The coordinates led to an arrangement of shacks on stilts over the water. No one lived in them. They were entirely for deals like this. They were meant to look like some swamp person’s little hideaway. Something people in those parts left alone on general principle.

“There. There they are. Pull right up to them.” Lemmy said to his pilot. He adjusted his tie and tapped a finger on his machine gun strapped over his shoulder. Two more boats of Lemmy’s boys followed them in.

Booker and his guys were in row boats and pirogues. They came out of a part of the swamps you couldn’t take an airboat through. He preferred using thick trees to cover his exploits and knew he was tough to follow. He smiled revealing gaps from missing teeth and the sun shined on his bald head. Lemmy and his boys were suits and ties. Booker’s were scrap shirts and jeans. Lemmy liked machine guns while Booker’s guys carried rifles and shot guns.

Lemmy gave a friendly salute as his boat came nose to nose with Booker’s.

“You think you could pick and uglier place to meet?” Lemmy joked.

“What? You don’t like the greenery?” Booker gestured in a wide sweep of his arms. “This is home. Don’t talk bad about my home now.”

“Take it easy. I’m just busting your balls. I got your order here. Two waterproof plastic crates of white gold, just like you asked.”

“Excellent. We have your money the same way.”

A loud and low growling sound echoed through the shacks and across the water. All the men did double-takes of their environment to see what did it. They saw nothing.

“What the hell was that?” Lemmy said.

“Probably just the rugaroo. Legends around these parts say there’s a monster. Oooooo. Ha. I don worry bout it none. It’s not real.” Booker laughed.

That’s when a shack exploded off its stilts and flew over their heads with a savage snapping of wood pillars. Lemmy dropped to his knees while two of his men went into the water. Booker fell off his boat with a splash. The beast in the shack’s place stood 14 feet tall and nearly as wide. It had the head of the biggest alligator you could dream of and stegosaurus plates reached up from its back. Gator hated evil in his swamp. The legends were true.

Gator had been watching Booker and his men. He knew these men were up to no good and in his swamp to boot. Ever since evil men used science to make him into a monster, he patrolled his swamp. Not even littering college students escaped his wrath. But he only scared those. These men needed more convincing. Gator was happy to oblige. With a whip of his thick powerful tail, he turned the shack he hid behind into a flying arrangement of kindling.

Men yelled in terror at the sight of him and opened fire in panic. It didn’t matter what kind of guns they had, the bullets were worth less than falling acorns. Gator let out a roar that rippled the water and pushed boats away. Then he charged into their midst. He snatched a rowboat out of the water with one enormous hand, flinging its occupants into the air. He threw that boat at one of the air boats, smashing both to bits. More men were thrown into the drink. Two were severely injured.

Gator didn’t want to kill anyone. He did want to make sure he left a lasting impression on these men to never come here again. Another whip of his tail capsized every one of Booker’s remaining boats with a powerful splash and wave of swamp water. Another stilted shack collapsed into so much driftwood garbage. In moments, only Lemmy remained on his boat and all others were trashed. Booker stood up in the water choking for breath.

Gator grabbed Booker up out of the water and put him on the airboat next to Lemmy. He took up both plastic containers of drugs in one huge hand and showed them to the men. Gator cocked his arm back like a professional baseball pitcher and threw the two containers out toward the Gulf of Mexico. The two shocked men watched as over a million dollars in cocaine flew out of sight into the distance.

Gator turned back to the men and roared in their faces as they screamed like children. Lemmy felt himself defecate.

Gator left them with one word before turning and lumbering away.

“GO.”

Before disappearing into the trees, Gator picked up some wreckage and threw it at the last standing shack, reducing it to splinters.

Now they knew the legends were true. Word still got around. It’s his swamp. No trespassing.

Death is Blind (Blog fiction)

The rhythmic tapping of the cane against the sidewalk told Solomon his path was clear. The footfalls of the bustling New York populace around him kept him informed on every body nearby. He didn't really need the cane but being blind served him well. He allowed others to underestimate him on a daily basis. It made his job easier.

Solomon killed people for money. Today he moved in on a particular target; a businessman. A businessman who refused to do business with Solomon's employers in the Foundation. A great assassin knows everything about his target's living routine. Being blind was no exception. Solomon had already followed the man several times. He knew things about him that no one else would ever pick up on.

For example, this man's gait was slightly off to the right, causing his right shoe to make a distinct scrape against the sidewalk. A scrape only Solomon could hear. The man had breathing issues and a heart murmur. Solomon could hear them all. As if that weren't enough, Solomon could smell him too. He wore a cheap brand of cologne that stood out in the crowd. It mixed with his deodorant in just a certain way. Solomon didn't need to see to identify his target perfectly.

The smells of steam and coffee from a mobile street cart told him he had arrived in front of the insurance building his target worked at. He heard the chatter of a group of women that always arrived at the same time every morning. They stood around the same coffee cart. Solomon had come by every day for a whole week to observe his target and the environment. He knew every detail.

Beyond the women around the coffee cart, he knew all the traffic. Two buses, one of them carrying his mark, would come through opposite directions at the same time. The same loud and angry taxi driver would be right behind them, yelling obscenities out the window at anyone in his way. A CEO barking orders over his cellphone hurried through the crowd past the group of women. They would giggle at him every time. At a far end of the building a man begged for change. Every scent, every sound, and every angle of the passing breeze served as Solomon's map.

He heard the air brakes of the city buses and tensed his hand on the end of his cane. He stood stock still, just a few feet away from the chattering women who enjoyed their coffee and gossip. Through all the foot falls he picked up that one shoe and its unmistakable scrape. There had been a small rock in the sole of that shoe for the last three days. The first sound of it meant his mark was 12 feet away. Solomon touched a small button on the end of his cane. A tiny needle emerged at the other end.

The smell of the cologne meant he was 5 feet away and the sound of the heart murmur meant 3. With only the movement of a wrist and natural looking use of the cane, Solomon flicked out the end making contact with his mark's right ankle.

"Ow!" The man said. "What the heck was that?"

Solomon heard him shake his foot and continue to walk. He retracted the needle to the notice of no one. The smell faded on the breeze and the sound of the heartbeat and breathing faded. The scraping of the shoe stopped abruptly followed by the sound of the body hitting the concrete. As surprised yells and rushing footsteps resulted, Solomon quietly walked away, tapping his cane to find his path as if nothing had happened.

No one thought anything of a platinum blonde blind man in a dark blue business suit. After all, he was blind. What could he do?

(Thank you for reading and hopefully sharing this flash fiction about one of my characters. Check back often for new quick reads about amazing characters. Want even more? Hit the links in the upper right to find my author's page and full books!)