October Drabbles

Here are three carefully crafted drabbles to amuse and delight you on the occasion of the fast-approaching Halloween Season.

First, the rules: Drabbles, by definition, are 100 word stories – never a word more nor a word less. Hyphenated words count as one word, and the story’s title doesn’t count against the total.

Each of these short tales are copyright 2021 Bill Willingham. All rights reserved.

First up is a new version of a previous drabble. I wrote the first iteration of this as part of a prize package for the Hero Initiative, but then lost the original. This is reconstructed from a 32-word fragment of that original, recently unearthed in a heroic garage muck-out.

Curse of the Crypt

Doctor Peter Jansen, distinguished professor from Indiana’s famous Jones School of Gunboat Archeology, opened the crypt, despite the warnings not to. But he was well prepared.

When the unleashed swarm of killer scarabs attacked, he had poison gas. When the magically animated mummy emerged, he had spray-on napalm and a pastry torch.

But later, in the treasure chamber, countless priceless artifacts distracted him. Holding the sacred Ankh of Ra in his bare hands, he deciphered its inscription.

“Touch me and serve me forever,” it read.

One hundred years later he was still trapped in the tomb, guarding against additional intruders.

Here’s a very short idea for what might become a longer work in the future.

Fearless Renfield Hunters

“So, you want to hunt vampires, huh? Well, you’re out of luck, boy. We don’t hunt vampires here. We hunt Renfields, our name for the blood-fiends’ human servants. We find them in the daytime and kill them, while their vampire clients sleep helpless in their boxes. Rens are the dangerous ones in the daytime, which is the only time we work. Remove the caretakers and their clients are easy to kill. No special skills needed. But, like you, the rens are recruited from Special Forces and police. Tough, dedicated bastards, every one. It’s them we train to fight.

“Still interested?”

Finally, here’s a cautionary tale from our HR department.

The Replacement Warlock

“You show promise,” Margarid said to the young and lovely witch candidate. “You might make a fine thirteenth member of our coven, just in time for a major bit of business coming up.”

“What happened to the previous thirteenth witch?” Abigail said.

“She quit, after filing a sexual harassment suit against Vartan, our warlock.”

“Oh?”

“Vartan has always been more motivated by the carnal aspects of our cult than the more spiritual undertakings.”

“Ever consider shopping for a better warlock?”

“That’s what tonight’s ritual is about. A new young beauty to lure him onto the alter-stone, and then, knives out.”

Thank you and goodnight.