Who Rocks the House: My submission for NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Round Five

For the fifth round of NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction, they asked writers to submit very short stories that begin with the line “Some people swore that the house was haunted” and end with “Nothing was ever the same after that.”

Go browse through the stories that were posted. There are some amazing bits of fiction over there.  Some focus in on a particular moment in rich detail.  At least one manages to be epic in less than six-hundred words. Let me know your favorite.  

Here’s the story I submitted. Questions, comments, remarks, observations, and miscellaneous personal abuse are welcome below.  Okay, no personal abuse, but I have to deliver that line* in its full glory. 

Who Rocks the House by Dani Smith

Some people swore that the house was haunted. The groundskeepers standing in the lush grass heard only the jingle of the wind through the chain-link fence. Some people could feel a cold presence as they approached the gate and read the name of a man on the wall. His aura reached out from the house, tingling spines in the local halls of government. His ideas buzzed in the ears of civic leaders, inspiring some and disgusting others.

Born and raised in that small-but-changing town, he knew everyone important. If you didn’t know him, you must have lacked influence.

Once upon a time he inspired respect with his enthusiasm for tradition and his can’t-give-up attitude. Those who remembered that positive attitude were long gone. The respect eroded to trepidation and the enthusiasm to bitter stubbornness.

The folk that still knew him didn’t know why he was important. His cause was not always their cause.  Sometimes they shared his goals, but eventually they outgrew him. Most only cared while their sons and daughters worked in the house.  While they ran plays, shouted cheers, marched out drills and notes.

When their lives moved on, when their kids grew up, their interest in the house faded.

But not this man. The quintessential football booster. Honorary President for Life of the football booster club.

“Did he play football here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did his kids play?”

“You got me.”

“Why do we care that he doesn’t like this coach or that turf or his seat at the banquet? Does he give a lot of money?”

“He gives what he can, but it’s not much anymore.”

They cared what he thought because that unrepentant football-Marley wailed out his laments. He rattled the down-markers and clanked the trophy case, bemoaning his nostalgia for a lost time when football was bigger. The hits harder. The blood thicker. The taunts louder. The coach meaner.

He longed for the days when the fans shook the house, packing and creaking the bleachers, pouring their souls onto the field in a ritual letting of spirit. He hung onto football in his teeth. He lived and breathed and ate the memory of his days in that house.

He wanted it back. The glory and the fury. The testosterone-rich, drug-fueled, slobber-knocker football glory of legend.

“So the stadium IS haunted? We got a ghost in here?”

“Him?  He ain’t no ghost. He’s just a mean old bastard.”

Keys to the house and the trophy case fell out of his hands when the EMTs lifted his body from his reserved seat in the bleachers. The groundskeepers took off their hats as the gurney passed, then the older one spat on the ground below the stands.

The superintendent gave the man’s keys to the president of the band boosters.

Nothing was ever the same after that.

*That line was frequently used to conclude a discussion by one of my favorite and most influential professors.

There's a Vampire in the Laundry Room, v.3, no wait, it's a Pirate?

This is the third and final writing exercise prompted by "there's a vampire in the laundry room."  Except that I was tired of the vampires, weren't you?  So I decided it should be a pirate instead.  I wrote the first two vignettes a long time ago, and used them as an editing exercise this week.  This pirate version is fresh out of the pen yesterday.  I like it, but I wonder what I would change if I slept on it for a while?  

Oh, and the next time someone complains that I don't update the blog often enough - ahem - know that you're likely to be tortured with silly writing exercises.  

Etude: There's a Vampire Pirate in the Laundry Room

The woman standing in my laundry room at 5:30 a.m. was tall and wrapped in an old, stained, coarse bed sheet.  She clutched the fabric to her chest with one hand and a wad of clothes and boots with the other.  Her curly dark hair was dripping onto her bare brown shoulders. 

“What are you doing in my laundry room?” I screamed.  I grabbed the almost full bottle of laundry detergent as my defense.

“My laundry.  What are you doing up so early?” she whispered. “And keep your voice down or you’ll wake everyone.  I didn’t even get to finish my shower.”

I was stunned.  “Your shower.”

“Yes, you know, I usually have plenty of time to do a load of wash and have a proper hot shower before you wake up.  You’re very predictable.”  She put her clothes onto the folding table.  “Or at least you were.”

“Predictable.”

“Yes. Up no earlier than 6:30 every morning.  Often later.”

“You are frequently in my house?”  My voice sounded thin to me.

“Once a fortnight or so. Whenever I’m in port.”  She rubbed drips from her shoulders with a corner of the sheet. 

“In port.”

She looked a little annoyed.  “You keep repeating me.”

“You’re using my house?”

She rolled her eyes. “Only when you’re not using it.  You’re asleep.”

I slammed the detergent bottle back onto the dryer.  “You can’t just waltz in here and use my house whenever you want, without my permission.”

“I don’t waltz.”  She dropped the sheet, revealing a muscular naked body.  She was covered in tattoos and deep scars.  I turned away, embarrassed at her exposure, I suppose.

“Well, pirates don’t typically wait for permission, do we?”  She extracted a tissuey white blouse from the pile of clothes and slid it over her head. 

“Pirates?”  I glanced back at her.

“Never seen a naked pirate before?”  She smirked and raised an eyebrow.  She was pulling on a pair of brown pants that laced up the front.

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t.  Especially not in my laundry room!”  I raised my voice again. 

“Shh.”  She buttoned a tight leather vest over the shirt.  Her fingers moved quickly over the buttons.  Faster than I would have imagined since there were so many tiny buttons. “Yeah, I got that.  I’ll be out of here before anyone else wakes, if you’ll just be quiet.”  She sat on the floor to pull on the knee-high black leather boots.  A sapphire blue silk scarf tied around her head finished the pile of clothes. 

“How did you get in here?”

She smiled again, a suggestive leer, and reached behind the ironing board to pull out a leather belt and scabbard.  A scabbard for a very long sword. The word scimitar flashed through my brain.  She pulled the sword from its sheath and took a step toward me.  I stumbled back into the washer, wishing I still had the detergent bottle in my hand.  Not that it would do any good against the deadly-looking sword. 

“Like this.”  She raised the sword over her head and slashed downward in an arc.  I might have screamed.  I did close my eyes. 

When I wasn’t dead a moment later, I opened my eyes to see a glowing green line hovering in the middle of the room.  I was fine.  The pirate rested the tip of her sword on the floor. 

“That’ll never get old,” she chuckled to herself. 

She stepped through the glowing slash, disappearing as if through a doorway.  She leaned back into the room.  “Hope I don’t see you next time, but can you get that strawberry shampoo again?  I really like that one.  Oh, and that oxi stuff is great for the tar on my breeches.” 

The slash of light disappeared after her with a small pop.

There's a Vampire (?) in the Laundry Room, v. 2

Here's the second vignette prompted by "there's a vampire in the laundry room."  I don't like this one as well as yesterday's.  This one feels stilted.  And I like the big, dumb, cockroach-eating vampire more than the smoldering one.  Do you prefer one or the other or neither?

I did one pass of edits and cut out a section that included fingertips brushing bra lace, a nipple rolling between fingers, some gasping, and sharp teeth on an earlobe.  You'll just have to imagine those bits.

Etude: There's a Vampire in the Laundry Room, v. 2

I was dressed to clean the house.  A t-shirt, a pair of overalls, and canvas sneakers that had been washed too many times.  My hair was pulled back into a ponytail.  The dog and I returned from walking the kids to school.  I flipped on the stereo, turned the music up too loud, and refilled the dog’s water bowl.  I stepped into the laundry room to swap loads of wash.  I’d been up since six, and one load was already dry, waiting to be folded.  

I dropped a handful of wet clothes into the dryer, then screamed when I turned back to the washer.  Jason was standing right next to me, smiling.  I hadn’t heard him come in, didn’t know why he was here.

“What are you doing?” I gasped, grabbing at my chest to stifle the heart attack I was sure I was having and hoping I hadn’t wet my pants.  

He leaned in close to me.  “Standing inappropriately close to you and smoldering.”

My stomach was fluttering in my throat somewhere.  He looked at me like I was dinner.  “Smoldering, huh.  Very cute.”  My voice sounded much tougher than I felt.  My heart and breath were still racing.  I paused, trying to slow down my insides.  I’d only met him a twice, both times in Mort’s office.  The boss vouched for him, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust him yet.  Heck, I wasn’t even sure what he was.  His sneak- and smolder-routine wasn’t reassuring.

“What were you thinking?  I could have shot you.”  I was trying for angry.

“About cupcakes.”  A smile crept up at the corners of his mouth.  “Those devil’s food ones with the sweet creamy centers.”  Ok, maybe not dinner.  Maybe I was dessert.  “And you can’t shoot me because you’re unarmed.”

Panic was about to overtake me, and my attempts to calm myself were failing.  I stopped.  I had to maintain control of the situation.  I needed to be direct.

“Are you a vampire?”  I put my hand on my hip in my favorite pissed-off-mom gesture, hoping that I looked intimidating.  Hey, it worked on my kids most of the time. 

He threw back his head and laughed warmly.  Then, smiling, he ran one finger under the strap of my overalls.  “I think the slaying thing might be getting to you if you’re missing the sexual objectification here.”  He leaned in closer. 

I tried to step back but he had me up against the washer.  Both of his hands were now curled into my overall straps.  He kissed me.  I yelped, but he was insistent.  His mouth was soft and warm.  When his tongue touched mine, my heart stopped.  He pressed his body against me, moving one of his hands into my hair, which had fallen loose from the ponytail.  His body was warm and hard and he smelled good.  He unclicked one side of my overalls and was sliding his hand under my shirt.  His skin was hot.

“Not. Unarmed,” I said, pressing the point of the stake against his chest.

There's a Vampire in the Laundry Room

Because someone doesn’t think I post here often enough… ahem.  

This is one of three little vignettes I wrote a few years ago from the prompt “There’s a Vampire In the Laundry Room,” with one pass of edits.  I have no way to confirm this, but I’d bet money that I was reading Janet Evanovich when I wrote this one.  My tea- and tequila-swilling, bunny-vitamin eating, laundry-mom has an air of Stephanie Plum about her.  

Are there any vampires in YOUR laundry room???

Etude: There’s a Vampire in the Laundry Room

I brewed myself a cup of strong black tea and splashed milk in it to cool it off.  I took a swig to wash down two Advil and a Bugs Bunny vitamin.  I thought about taking a slug of tequila from the bottle stashed in the cupboard behind the chocolate chip cookies, but decided tequila and Bugs Bunny would clash.  I ate two cookies instead.  

It’s been a very weird day around here.  

I dreamt Matthew McConaughey drove me to the library in a limousine (alright, alright, alright).  My husband bought me flowers.  My kids all got ready without a fuss, so they were early for school.  And I’m pretty sure there’s a vampire in the laundry room.  

So there’s a good chance that in the two hours I’ve been awake today, I’ve encountered zombies, aliens, and bloodsuckers.  No werewolves yet, but the day is still new.

I knew I’d have to take care of the vampire if I was going to get any laundry done, but since the sun was up he probably wasn’t going anywhere for a while.  They’re always attracted by the new roach traps.  I was pretty sure this one was sitting on top of the dryer hoping I wouldn’t notice him while he scoped out the trap.  I caught a glimpse of him when he ran across the kitchen floor in the dark early this morning.  Six feet tall and he thought I wouldn’t notice him perched on my appliances?  They’re dumb like that.

I finished my tea and rummaged through the kitchen drawers looking for a wooden chopstick.  In the first couple of drawers I managed to find three plastic ones.  I finally found a wooden one in a cupboard under a bag of dog food.  We needed to order in some Lo Mein so I could replenish my chopstick supply.   Either that or I’d have to resort to using my knitting needles.  I didn’t want to have to go there.

I clutched the chopstick in my right hand and opened the laundry room door with my left.   The small room was pitch black, but I didn’t turn on the light. No sense in startling the poor sap, especially if he was in the middle of eating a roach.  The roaches here on the coast are scary.  Some of them as big as cats.  There was no need for the vigilance though.  The vampire had fallen asleep across the top of the washer and dryer.  He had an insect leg sticking out of the corner of his mouth and he was drooling.  Disgusting.  But on the bright side, he’d be taking some roaches away with him.

When I rammed the chopstick into his chest he ppphstzed into a billion shiny little particles of dust.  Sucking up the vampire glitter with the ShopVac, I made a mental note to stake only outside.  I started a load of wash and went back for the tequila.