Short Stories

24-Hour News Cycle of Violence

/ Scott Waldyn / Leave a comment

Note: This short fiction piece was originally published in Behemoth Magazine. No AI was used in the writing of this short story.

Monday, 10:04 AM
Bob rearranged the foil candy wrappers into a neat stack on his desk for the second time. On his computer monitor, an AI chatbot wrote an email response that Bob would copy and paste into a draft saved in his inbox. When the script finished, Bob quickly scanned the text for any glaring errors, then pasted it into an email draft with the subject line: Please upload this to CMS. When Bob clicked send, the email fired off halfway around the world to an ever-expanding part-time office in the Philippines. 

After confirming that the email was sent, Bob pulled out his smartphone and scrolled social media. A sweating man with a bulging vein ranted about a kids movie at the top of his feed. Beneath that, Bob’s aunt posted an awkward photo of her standing in front of a mirror at the gym. This was followed by an inflammatory article about the potential risks tortilla chips pose for dental health. Bob opened his camera, switched to selfie mode, and rooted around in his mouth with an unwashed index finger. His yellow, coffee-stained teeth looked the same as they did six months ago, and his gums also appeared unchanged since he last rubbed a grimy finger over them. 

Satisfied, Bob opened the drawer on his office desk and rummaged through a sea of empty chip bags. His hand returned empty. Looking to the left, then the right, Bob stood up from his worn office chair. The smell of ass sweat wafted from the seat, and Bob carefully slid his legs out in order to air out. On the TV across the room, a ticker tape ran below the newsfeed that read: Both candidates call for cooler political rhetoric and national unity. 

Bob stretched his arms over his head, gave his bulbous-eyed, blonde colleague with the gopher teeth a nod, and then followed the sewer brown carpet toward the front of the office. Most of the cubes stood empty, faded memories of coworkers whose jobs had been shipped overseas. A crinkled agenda lingered here. A pink motivational post-it note still stood firmly there. 

“I want a donut,” Bob announced to no one in particular. 

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Short Story: “16-Bit Heroism

/ Scott Waldyn / 1 Comment

Please Note: This short story first appeared in Literary Orphans. It’s being uploaded here as a way to preserve its presence on the web.

Image by Mariya Petrova-Existencia

“Feet-all-Al-Coal-Hall-Sin-Drum,” Alan sounded out. “That’s what my mom and dad said you have.”  He jabbed his finger into the cool spring air to emphasize the point, just in case his furrowed brows and trembling lips failed to convey anger.

“What does that EVEN MEAN?” Markie fired back. His voice was raspy. He smelled like stale cereal. The tangled fluff of red hair atop his head was lopsided and bunched up to one side, and his freckles were gross. And Markie swore. The fear of God hadn’t touched him the way it had the others, hadn’t stirred in him the wrathful revelation, rendering him free to utter syllables no one else dare speak. One time, in front of the teacher, he even blurted out, “Shit!”

“It means you’re a jerk. That’s what it means!”

It was true. Markie was a jerk. He was the meanest jerk on the playground, and he’d bully kids on a whim. Everybody used to shy away from him at recess, so he’d have to conscript his “friends,” demanding to join their games in lieu of school-wide humiliation. And he wasn’t afraid of hitting to get his way. This was why the boys were afraid of him; it was why the girls hid from Markie.

Oh, the girls, Alan mused. Just entertaining the thought of ladies filled his mind with daydreams teeming with wet kisses and bony fingers wrapped tightly around his midsection. He imagined soft chins gently nuzzling a single hair taped to his smooth chest. It didn’t matter from which girl or for how long or if she had milk or peanut butter breath. Alan just wanted kisses. He wanted to be the lip-smeared hero from all of his videogames, defying all odds and manner of foes to collect puckered smooches from the fairer sex.

“You want to take that to your grave?” Markie loomed over the would-be hero like a ruby-freckled goliath, his broad shoulders rippling with visible muscles under that Van Halen T-shirt. His Neanderthal forehead creased as he drilled his right fist into his left palm. The resulting sound reminded Alan of a handsaw chewing through lumber. Slowly. Painfully.

When a tree is sawn in half in a forest, and nobody is around…

“I’m a meat-eater, chicken shit, and you’re the meat,” the barbarian growled. An inhuman growl. The kind of throaty growl that reminded Alan of the second boss in that Sega Genesis game he unwrapped last Christmas – Joe & Mac. It’s true; Markie lacked the flailing vines and the leafy mouth of the gargantuan, man-eating plant, but their bellows were nearly identical – ominous and pitched in the wrathful, revelatory octaves of Hell.

It took Alan and his brother, Greg, three tries before they cleared the second level, three tries before they discovered the perfect combination of stone boulders and boomerangs that would pummel that prehistoric flora back into the dirt. And when they finally mashed their fingers to victory, mugs of eggnog, the Christmas elixir of 16-bit champions, never tasted so sweet.

But even sweeter were the kisses. The spoils of war. The prizes of valor. With each boss slain, a voluptuous cavewoman would jog onto the screen, seeking out the hero who dealt the most damage. She’d kiss this loincloth-wearing champion – long and hard – for half a second. His life meter at the top of the screen refilled, he’d raise his arms in victory, standing next to his untouched brother, whose head bowed in shame. For only one could unlock the sensation of puffy-lip smooches. Only one could boast the lecherous treasures of courageous conquests at the caveman bar.

And each time he shamed his brother, Alan would watch in awe. His gleeful voyeurism lapped up the adventures of his digital Casanova, scribbling mental notes. There must have been damsels everywhere, inexplicably thrust into wanton captivity.

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Short Story: “We’ve Come A Long Way”

/ Scott Waldyn / Leave a comment

Note: This is a republication of a short story of mine that was originally published on Medium. Though more horror-inspired, I’m particularly fond of this piece, as I think it deals with some themes and ideas that have always and will continue to haunt us unless we learn to change our collective mindset and approach to the world around us.

“We’ve come a long way,” Dr. Vannevar said, his beady, sunken eyes fixated on the untamed bringer of war just beyond the viewport. 

Iris didn’t turn her head to look at him, but she could picture Vannevar stroking his little gray beard as he spoke. It was his way of breaking the silence between them, disrupting the descent as their five-person crew approached Mars. Vannevar liked to hear himself talk, so he often made broad observations with an air of scientific inquiry and pretentiousness. Iris wondered if this was how Vannevar talked his way onto this mission, if his sweeping generalizations impressed the executives back home. He certainly hadn’t added anything to the crew since he had come aboard, and Iris wasn’t even sure of what he held a doctorate in. 

As the finer details of Mars grew more pronounced, Iris searched its charmless surface. She wanted to size up the red menace, stare it down as fear settled into her stomach over what, if anything, they would find on the planet. Much like Vannevar’s pedigree, Mars was one giant question mark.  

Members of the Demeter-6 mission were only the second group of scientists (read: “pioneers”) to colonize the planet. The first crew, Demeter-5, had been on Mars for two years now. As of the moment, Demeter-5’s mission status was unknown. Contact had not been made, nor had a signal of any kind been picked up on Demeter-6’s long voyage. For all the crew of Demeter-6 knew, the original colony could have vanished in Mars’ tumultuous desert storms.  

“We’ve come a long way,” Vannevar repeated, this time louder. “From tribal warfare, cannibalism, disease… to this.” 

Iris felt Vannevar’s eyes on her. His hunter’s gaze unsettled her, as if behind the aloof, broadstroke of a personality lie something sinister and predatory. A snake in the grass. Something wriggled beneath her skin, and she hurried to come up with a response that would satisfy Vannevar’s hungry, attention-seeking stare.

“Yes,” Iris said, tugging at the sleeves of her lab coat and hiding beneath loose strands of her wavy, brown hair.

Satiated by her response, Vannevar swiveled his head back toward the viewport. His mouth opened to speak again when a voice erupted through the ship’s intercom.

“We’ve picked up a signal. All crew report to the central command.”

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Short Story: “The Corpse Door”

/ Scott Waldyn / 1 Comment

The following is “The Corpse Door,” a short story I submitted for a 50th anniversary collection celebrating Kolchak: The Night Stalker. This story made it all the way to the finals, but alas, it wasn’t accepted for publication. You win some, you lose some. I highly encourage you check out the Kolchak: The Night Stalker – 50th Anniversary Graphic Novel. Look for updates on its release and where to purchase both the regular edition and the deluxe edition.

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