D. Anthony Brown

When speaking of serial killers, one most often thinks of such household names (if they may be called that) as Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, and Ted Bundy. Few mentions are made in the textbooks and scholarly discussions, or in the pop culture discussions, of the dancer known simply as Etienne. Likely because so little is officially known about him–which makes him a legend in his own right–as well as the fact that he is not exactly a serial killer in the traditional sense.

Always throughout human history there have been people with the gift of warping time–literal human time machines, so to speak. They can travel back and forth between time and place, leave the house at noon to show up at the ten o’clock meeting, work late into the night while “finding the time” for an evening date. These people are invariably energetic individuals. Time doesn’t hold the same rules and regulations for them, they quietly and eagerly pass over the mundane and boring bits. Time travelers are incredibly rare, and usually guarded about their so-called ability.

Etienne was one such individual, at least according to most experts. No other satisfying explanation has ever been put forth for his odd and atrocious activities. Likewise, no knows why he did what he did. Some say it was boredom. Others say he was trying to end his own life. The truth cannot be ascertained anymore, since Etienne is likely dead, though even that is unknowable.

The incident began when investigators discovered Etienne’s body in his apartment. He had been strangled with the cord from the window curtains, the corpse laid out in a crucifix shape on the living room floor. There had been signs of intrusion. A copy of the apartment key was found on the body and on the coffee table. No windows were broken, the security was in tact and working properly. At first the detectives found no finger prints beyond Etienne’s, both throughout the apartment and on the body. On closer inspection, they found fingerprints on the cord and on Etienne himself–his own fingerprints. This naturally did not garner much attention, one would expect his fingerprints in own apartment.

The real problem came to light when a mangled corpse washed up from the river a week later. Using DNA analysis, the police determined the new body was Etienne, even though this should have been impossible. News broke that the dancer had an unknown twin brother, and speculation began over who killed who and which was the “real Etienne”.

Things became increasingly complicated as more bodies appeared throughout the city, each one killed in a unique and grisly manner, each matching Etienne’s description, all of them having the same fingerprint and DNA evidence. This troubled the police to no end, but gave the media a lot of fodder, especially the tabloids. A hunt ensued for Etienne, sort of a weird “Where’s Waldo” game. The talk of the town, for the first time since Etienne had risen to stardom with his now memorable dance moves, was the mysterious bodies that kept appearing. Hoax busters appeared from all corners of the globe, to no avail. No one was able to disprove the evidence inside the police station archives, and many leading experts walked away from the problem disturbed and confounded. Etienne became a subject no academic wanted to touch, for fear of being mocked or shamed–far easier to leave this in the field of the occult where it thrived on mystic’s fore-tellings of where Etienne was to appear next.

The climax of this situation–as told by many urban legends and periodicals of the time–happened when the police found Etienne based on an anonymous tip that he was at a particular underground club, and there arrested him for murder of himself. They kept him locked in a cell for twenty-four hours, despite public outcry–after all, there are no laws regarding self-murder or even apparent suicide. Etienne is recorded as having spent the night of October 13–a Friday coincidentally–in jail to face charges of possible manslaughter. When the police could not gather enough credible evidence to convict him, they had to let him go in the morning. But when they opened the cell door, he was no where to be seen.

Etienne and the clothing he wore that night disappeared. There was no sign or evidence as to how he escaped. Most say he used his time magic to wind the clock back or maybe forward on his life to a point where he was no longer arrested. There were no more Etienne bodies found, though a few claim to have seen him alive now and then, though with only questionable evidence.

The records exist on Etienne, no one can deny who has bothered to research this tricky subject. However, he has almost entirely disappeared from urban legend and pop culture, perhaps because he no longer exists in most time continuums.

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Word Count: 834

The prompt for this story came from the Do-It-Yourself Giallo Generator.

More Flash Fiction Friday can be found from the blogs of the writers of Forward Motion!

Cynthia sat under the flickering gasjet lights in the alley behind her bakery and lit a cigarette. The early morning starry sky added a small amount of extra light, enough to read her pocket watch. Four. Enough time to enjoy the cool autumn air before heading back into the inferno that was her kitchen.

She shoved the watch and the tiny box of matches back in her white apron pocket. Sticky sweat evaporated from her forehead and hair, giving instant and much needed relief. Today had been an early morning to make up for the accident yesterday. Cynthia still didn’t know what happened – she had stepped outside for a smoke and gone back in a few minutes later. Her breads were burnt, the cupcakes and muffins smoldering masses of black goo, the frosting on her pastries practically disintegrated. Somehow she had lost an entire hour of work in the time it took to finish one cigarette.

Cynthia ritually chain smoked a quarter a pack in her fifteen minute breaks. By the time she got home at the end of that harrowing day, she had extras in the box. She had to arrive extra early this morning to make sure enough products were on hand for all the disappointed customers yesterday.

In the distance – perhaps down the alley a ways, closer to Main Street – somebody played a flute. A lilting tune with lots of stops and starts and high pitches followed by low lulling melodic phrases. Cynthia couldn’t help but tap her foot in time. Why had she never noticed this flutist before? Sure the person played regularly in this neighborhood.

She fished out the small wood cigarette box and lit another. The music got closer – perhaps a few buildings away – each note pronounced a bit clearly, more sharp and a bit faster paced now. She tried to remember what her break was like yesterday, what the gasjets looked like, how bad the trash from the adjacent fish store smelled, the sounds of other business people opening their back doors and setting up shop. Cynthia tried to recall what she had been thinking about – her books maybe, the troubles she’d had in recent months keeping up with her bills, the mounting debt she had collected and owed the bank. All of that had been on her mind for several months, except when she was baking and working. Work took her mind off her troubles, eased her as she stressed out over keeping her customers happy.

But finances and work were not what she had been thinking about during her break yesterday morning. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what had been on her mind.

The flutist got a bit closer now. Cynthia craned her head around the bend of the alley to better see this musician. He or she wasn’t view yet, but definitely down there and getting near. Cynthia wanted to thank the person – the music was smooth, changing melodies without changing the nature of the song played – and she felt more relaxed as the music approached her like some weird wall of sound.

She lit one more and decided that was the last before heading back in. The bread would be ready to be taken out of the oven any minute and she still needed to make the frosting. Her helper would show up in another hour to help with setting up the store, assuming he hadn’t been too creeped out by Cynthia’s blank stares and unusual behavior. She had tried to explain to the young man how weird it felt to lose track of time – as if being distracted by a shiny object without realizing you had the object in your hand. He had shrugged and mumbled about how early it was, and went to work on setting up the display cases.

A man in a green felt hat with a flute to his lips appeared in front of Cynthia as if appearing out of thin air. He had funny leather shoes with the toes pointed upwards and iridescent colored laces. The white and black buttons on his double-breasted jerkin shone brilliantly in the gasjets, reflecting beautiful rays of light that made the dirty, dusty street glimmer. All around his body was burning white flame like an aura that shimmered around him. He bowed to Cynthia, bending his knees just a little, still busily playing the flute. She stared in utter fascination, hardly moving a muscle, not daring to breath any more than necessary, while he played a joyful tune that made her heart swell and her throat constrict.

When he moved on down the alley, Cynthia went back inside.

Her assistant closed the shop door behind him. “Are you sure you aren’t sick with something?” He said while putting his spare key in the counter drawer. “You still have that confused look.”

“What are you talking about?” Cynthia felt for the cigarette box in her apron. Her feet hurt like hell. She wondered why she hadn’t taken her break yet after coming in so early. What time had she come in? She decided it didn’t matter as she went outside to have a smoke.

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Word count: 860

Today’s story was the result of a prompt from The Speculative Fiction Muse. Check out more Friday flash fiction from the writers of Forward Motion!

Flash Fiction Friday… on Saturday! Enjoy!

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The serrated knife edge touched the stubble on my throat, my pulse quickened under the sharp pointy edges. Putrid breath and rotten decayed teeth beside my ear, whispering how I need to be very careful. My finger frozen on the Braille text, my feet itching in their wool socks, I dared not swallow or breath. I had heard him break into my house, the window smashing and the broken glass tinkling on the hardwood floor in the kitchen. His noisy boot steps clonking their way through the halls, rough hands smashing my beloved wood sculptures and ivory figurines. The phone was too far away, and I thought maybe I was safe in my study, maybe he wouldn’t see me.

“Where is your money,” he said. He wore cheap aftershave, and too much of it. The sharp biting odor covered over the toxic sludge smell of not bathing in three weeks. His empty hand gripped my forehead, his fingers pressing into my skin, into my skull. “We can make this easy.”

I turned my head a little as if moving toward a lover before a kiss, grimacing at the potpourri of abhorrent smells. He eased up on the knife, only enough. I took my finger off of the Braille and set my hands in my lap. “My life has never been easy.”

In a brief flash of time I thought of my home here with its overabundance of junk I’ve collected – artwork, bowls, teacups, engravings, ancient pottery. My bedroom and way sunlight hit the bed just right in the morning, making a warm spot across the sheets and on the floor where I stepped into my slippers. I thought of my other home in the desert. Where the howling coyotes and slithering snakes live, where prickly cactus thrive. The scorching heat of the noon sun and the endless thirsty misery it brings to those unfortunate to out in it. The endless up and down of sand dunes where macho dudes take their screeching bikes.

The knife changed angle. “This is your last… Hey, wait a minute.”

In the one-hundred-ten degree shade heat, the robber pulled his knife away from my throat and with it his stench. His odor grew stronger, more putrid. I smelled the sweat beads dripping down the inside of his shirt like a cursed waterfall eternally falling and refreshing no one, least of all himself. There were no motorcycles today. Only the sound of sand blown across sand in nearly non-existent breeze and the burning sun killing everything but the most resilient.

“My fortune is buried here, in the desert,” I said. Sweat collected between my toes in what was now miserable, itchy socks. I was already wanting a drink of water, and nearly didn’t finish what I wanted to say because of my dry throat. “Good luck finding it.”

I teleported back to my study.

THE END

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Read more flash fiction from the writers at Forward Motion! Apologies if the link doesn’t work… we are going through a number of changes at FM.

Judgment begins on the staircase where the dried pool of blood had been. She stands at the base of the marble stairs looking up at the immense height, from where the crime began. Soft light descends on the place where the victim had laid, precisely on the stained red rose pattern on the carpet, illuminating the deeds and misdeeds from yesterday.

Today she ascended the staircase above the scene of the crime as if climbing the stairway to heaven or, more appropriately, to karma. Perhaps both. She no longer knew her name, her hometown, or her favorite… Well her favorite anything. She only knew what happened that cold fateful last night of what started as bliss and ended in horror. She had been a tailor in life. She held on to that fact as if were gold. She had worn a pretty dress that night with silver jewelry and a sequined handbag. Her shoes were flat and, according to her date, boring black leather loafers – though they shined in the crystal light of the manor’s chandeliers. Those shoes meant everything to her, because they were hers and they were all she could afford. He bought her high heeled shoes with uncomfortable pointy toes.

That was not her.

Now she glides up the stairs on ethereal feet that no longer touch the ground. The banister curves and winds with the stairs, flowing back on itself in its elongated path to the next floor. The balcony is very high up and he is up there with another woman. He leaves the new girl in the room. The same room she left her when she had been his “guest”.

At first she had been honored and – she hated admitting it and at once loathed herself for thinking it – relieved that she no longer needed to work. The manor provided for everything a peasant woman could dream of, and more. Late nights playing new games, alcohol with exotic cheeses, pretty parties full of pretty people with neat and intelligent things to say. She had fallen for it all, taken in line and sinker, paid the price of admission, and now she was half way up the stairs once again.

That last night burned her memory now, ghostly and incomplete as it was. He provided her a dress and accessories to wear, and there was no question that she was going to wear them. He expected compliance with his guests. His guests were to consider themselves honored treasure and to not question his motives or tastes.

She refused to wear those hideous, painful shoes. Spiked heels, narrows soles, no soul, no space for her toes to breathe, she felt suffocated in those damned shoes. Her feet would not comply with that, nor would her hips, back, and shoulders. He had not liked when she entered the room with all of his companions and dinner guests, relatives and diplomats. He balked her, made fun of her choice of shoes, her paisley stockings, her “peasant tastes”.

On their way up the stairs to the bedroom that night he told how beautiful she was. She had smiled, inside groaning and praying that he’d be quick so she could have a full night’s sleep. The marble under her feet hurt, her calves tightened and burned under the stockings. She hardly heard what he said about how much he appreciated her staying with him as his peasant guest, how honored she should be.

At the top, he turned to her one step above and put his hand above her breasts, smiling, his white teeth glinted in the oily light from the torches above them, his forehead greasy and spotted with sweat. He said goodbye and wished her well in the afterlife, and pushed her down the stairs. The ceiling and its chandeliers filled her vision – she noticed the intricate wooden beams that divided the ceiling into squares – and then the world was upside-down and her body knew nothing but intense pain before her neck snapped on the way down. Halfway on the staircase and she stopped feeling all pain, somehow numb, but no longer numb to his charm or the charm of the manor. In the short span of time from the top of the stairs to the bottom, shorter than it took to walk those same stairs, she reeled in all of her memories – good, bad, evil, lovely – and used them to shield her fall.

Her body lay broken at the foot of the stairs, and later that night servants picked up her remains and carefully washed away the blood. They could not remove all of the stains, much to his disapproval. Those servants would not suffer longer.

At the balcony as he sets his first step on the way down. She whistles, he stops and turns around. Unsure, he nearly begins his descent again, but he hesitates. The next he knows, a hand presses against his chest and – for the first time in his life – he notices how beautiful the wooden beams on the ceiling are.

She cut the tender boiled turnip with her silver fork and steak knife, dipped it in honey mustard, and ignored the cat brushing himself against her hosiery. Orchids were scattered everywhere in the cramped dining room – hanging from the ceiling, sitting in the corners, on the hutch, in the window sill. Some were purple, others red, a few pink, most yellow. Seven empty chairs circled the table. The children never came in to eat anymore.

She accepted that, now.

They were busy playing, jabbering, observing, spending time with others like themselves. Once she had insisted they stay with her during supper to keep her company. She was still lonely after all, but her brother convinced her to let them go. The children seemed happier now since she had undone the bindings that kept them, they flitted about here and there with the speed of a passing tornado, never quite settling in long enough for a cup of tea. Most of them said their greetings and well wishes at least.

The cat meowed and hit his head against the table leg when she reached down to pet him. Silly cat – good thing he was cute too, otherwise she might have sent him back to where he came. She pulled up the tablecloth to get a good look at him. Big green translucent eyes stared back at her placidly. Purring madly, he reached a paw for her as she bent to pet his ears. He extended his claws and swiped her leg, leaving tears in her silk hosiery and her leg. “Ouch,” the woman shooed him with the back of her hand. “Be gone hairy pest!”

He ran to the living room, likely to his perch on the back of the sofa. She rubbed the scratch marks. Those would sting and fester if she didn’t clean them soon, as she learned from past experience. Just her luck, to have a psycho-kitty like him as a roommate, especially one predisposed to outbursts. She guessed the cat had a rough life. Also her luck to have him in her life

Fortune turned for her last year and big changes were still in the works. The children were no longer the center of her life – which she was both bitter and thankful for, if she was honest with herself – and she stopped having the visions and dreams. She considered herself blessed. Everyday she felt better, better saw the line between fantasy and reality, and knew how to tell the difference. No longer was she haunted by vagrant, petty thoughts. No longer possessive, compulsive, or paranoid. The hooded reapers were gone from her life. The world turned in the right direction and her feet were planted firmly on it.

The woman finished her meal of turnips and greens, set her dishes in the sink, and grabbed the Cabernet with her favorite stemware. Tonight was Wheel of Fortune reruns. On the way to living room she got the hand vacuum. First things first, she needed to clean the cat’s ectoplasm off of the sofa.

THE END

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Word Count: 508

Please visit Forward Motion for more Flash Fiction Friday stories from other writers.

Lew, semi-famous inventor of useless trinkets, stuck his hands in his pockets and shut his eyes tight, as was his habit when he encountered a problem he could not solve. All around the stink of filtered carbon fumes and smoke-stacks permeated the air and his lungs. Sounds he could only associate with street cars and small motors zipped past him at unbelievable speeds. At the count of five he opened his eyes to the same world he had thought he’d seen when he first walked out the door.

Low buildings surrounded him, shaded by behemoth towers looming over the distance. The sun was a distant object hidden by glass, steel, and smog. The cars and small motors were hover-boards and flying mini-scooters swooshing by. Lew held his breath and hoped that this was another hallucination gone wrong, or trinket that misfired and only knocked him unconscious. He pinched himself hard, twice to be certain. Almost certainly awake, certainly something seriously wrong.

He pulled the thin-metal flower from his lapel button-hole and twirled it between his palms, letting the energy flow through the trinket and through his arms, up his spinal column, to his brain, and… Nothing.

No pop, no hiss, no sizzle like the last time he remembered using it. He had thought it a perfect product, a great parlor trick item, something to share with friends on a rainy afternoon. It was to be the one and only Trans-dimensional Utility Flower. Connects two focus points – one in the user’s current dimension, the other in an astral plane – and allow the user a limited amount of time to experience another place without leaving their body entirely.

Clearly, this was not an astral plane, probably not anywhere on Earth. Certainly nowhere Lew knew about. Why would it do this? He kept asking that question over and over, while simultaneously worrying about what he was going to do to get back.

So, he conducted the other habit he had while stuck on a problem. He took a walk. Down the street on the brown sidewalk where no one else walked. The other “pedestrians” floated by on disks, waving politely and trying their best to ignore Lew. He restrained himself when passing shop windows full of unique and colorful gadgets. In what he only guessed was the red-light district – oddly shaped and half-naked women leaned out of balconies from every building – he strolled quietly with his hands in his pockets and head down, muttering to himself about hyperbolas and focus points. He recited the equations from rote memory, did the calculations in his head, and found the answer right before he walked into the red light.

He realized the flower was not the instrument of his demise, couldn’t have been. It was too small, and didn’t have the proper mass and energy to do the work required to carry him to an unexpected dimension. So he threw the useless trinket aside and kept walking. He heard shouting.

“Stop!”

“Don’t walk into that!”

Lew was too busy calculating the trans-dimensional mathematics to bother listening. He finally hit the answer and realized what he did wrong back in his laboratory to create such a space-time rift. In a clear moment of pure thought, Lew was quite happy. And then the red light engulfed him. Once the red light faded, smoggy buildings surrounded him and the smell of pollution permeated the air. He had no idea where he was.

Lew, semi-famous inventor of useless trinkets, stuck his hands in his pockets and shut his eyes tight, as was his habit when he encountered a problem he could not solve.

THE END

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This week’s story came from the The Speculative Fiction Muse:

The story’s protagonist is male and an inventor. A flower plays a significant part in the story. The story is set on a city street in the far future. The story is about fear.

Be sure to visit Forward Motion for more flash fiction stories!