Prompt: “You only get one shot. Better make it count.” Created by Lydia Jane.
She placed it in my palm. One perfect musket ball, glimmering a polished silver. My hands were still red from clamping shut the mold as she poured the brilliant molten metal, whispering prayers.
We’d melted down all we had. Our ma’s old wedding ring. The silver dollar I’d stowed to buy Nellie some nice moccasins.
“You only get one shot,” Nellie said. “Better make it count.”
I punched her shoulder. “I’m as good a shot as Pa ever was. You said so yourself.”
She frowned. “If Pa’d been a better shot, we wouldn’t be here.”
Now that was the truth. I gave her a quick hug and climbed to the roof, settling where I could see the saloon door.
Not much light spilled out with the music, just how the so-called mayor liked it, but the moon was full, so when he stepped out, I could see the glint of his spurs and teeth.
I lined up the shot. Hesitated. Then took it.
Right between the eyes.
The shot still echoed in my ears when the townsfolk came to congratulate me. Good shot, they said. I’d be the best vampire hunter since the masked one, they said.
Prompt: “At the reading of your great-grandpappy’s will, you find that he’s left you a most unusual inheritance.” Created by Lydia Jane.
You wipe the tears from your eyes as the lawyer reads. He is emotionless, and you envy his detachment from the situation. Sometimes when you think of your grandpa, the grief is like a physical thing, a lump in your throat that won’t let you speak.
You look around at your family, the stodgy lawyers’ words falling on deaf ears in your case. You can see the glint of greed in their eyes as they watch like vultures. It makes you sick to see them like this, raring to pick apart your dead grandpa’s legacy.
As each of their names, and subsequently their inheritances, are read, the reactions are varied. Some hoot and holler, and others take the news with feigned stoicism.
You cast your mind back to your inheritance, already given long ago. You think of Grandpa’s library, and the strange man there who refuses to give you his name. You think of all the strange rules of the library, and the barely hidden scars on your leg itch just thinking about the creature that prowls the stack of books, waiting for you to come back.
Prompt: “All eyes in the smoky saloon turned to him/her.” Created by Lydia Jane.
It’s been two years since Great-Grandpappy passed. Since then, I’ve kept my activities around town secret.
But the oversized rattlesnake-centipede thing just slithered into the saloon. I could leave, but who knows what damage it will inflict if I let it live?
So I grit my teeth and push through the doors, looking for the monster. Billy is banging on the out-of-tune piano, smoke rising from the pipe clamped between his teeth. Martha sashays between tables, drinks piled on a tray. Miles looks up from his card game, raises an eyebrow at me, then studies my appearance. His eyes widen at Great-Grandpappy’s sixshooter on my hip. And the blood dried onto my chaps.
No monster.
I limp to the bar. Jakes pushes a whiskey to me.
“On the house. Looks like you need it.”
Movement flickers in my peripheral vision. The monster rears, tentacles waving. I draw and shoot and it dies in a puff of smoke.
Martha shrieks. A glass breaks. The piano falls silent. I can’t see them, but I’m sure everyone is staring at me.
I holster Great-Grandpappy’s gift to me, drain the whiskey, and limp out.
The Warden of Willow Creek just got labeled insane.
