Snake in the Grass

It's that time again where I go in for another one of Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds writing prompt. I'm a little late this week, but better hump day than never is what I always say (I never say this). This week's prompt is a bit different. Pick a cocktail name, write a story about it. This time, however, we only get 500 words, and the whole thing still has to be a complete story. I know next to nothing about mixed drinks outside of a good ole' brandy old fashion sweet, so I went looking for a name that sounds cool and rand with it. Behold, the Snake in the Grass. I'm pretty proud to say that I didn't waste a word and ended with exactly 500 on the dot. Anyway, on with the show!

He slouched against the grimy wall and waited for the search light to pass over his hiding spot. Two days ago he began running. Every moment he stopped to take a breath was another moment he gave them to find him. Jack wasn't wrongly accused. There was no crooked cop on the inside framing him for a crime he didn't commit. No, Jack was a very bad man who had done very bad things. Still, out of all the names you could have given him, Jack was no liar. He refused to lie to himself - he was completely guilty of the crimes fueling his pursuit. Worse yet, he couldn't deny the pleasure he experienced from his mindlessly-violent acts. Regardless of all that, he couldn't risk capture. Jail he might enjoy, but he knew this time they'd be forced to kill him for the things he'd done. He still had so many more things he wanted to try before what he assumed would be an inevitably early death.

First Impressions.

Martin placed his knuckles gently on the withered wooden door to her room. He had intended to knock but lost the nerve just before contact and instead floated in front of her threshold like an idiot. Just like every night they've almost shared together, he was paralyzed. He couldn't act, but he couldn't look back either. He lifted his hand and tried to work up the courage to get her attention; to get her out in the hallway. Sweat dripped down his temples and he felt his palms moistening. Someone must have jacked the heat up when he wasn't looking. Without thought, he rushed back to his cold, empty room, alone. His door latched and seconds later the blonde bombshell next door could be heard stepping out to answer his phantom knock.

"Hello?" She asked like she asked every night they spent apart together. He stood there in his room with the lights off, breath held, feeling compelled beyond belief to speak. Just like every other night, he was confronted without the means to do so. Her door slammed, and he slouched in to the ragged easy chair in the corner of his room.

Rest Stop

It was at hour seven that Tom found himself driving, half asleep in the middle of the night, pondering his existence. It wasn’t the vague existential pondering a Tibetan monk might find himself enjoying. No, Tom was very much “in the now” as he had hours to go before finishing his overnight trek across two states. He prayed for signs of civilization. The last farm he saw was over 100 miles back, and the country road he traveled was unlit and unfamiliar. The low fog dispersing his headlights didn’t help much, and he quickly surmised an irrational plot that made it impossible for him to feel safe pulling over to the side of the road for a quick catnap.

At some point he had entered hill country, and each time he rolled over one of the looming hills his hopes for any variation in the scenery were crushed. He mumbled improvised prayers to whoever was listening to help him find some place where he could stop for a while, maybe get a meal from a good Samaritan, and be on his way renewed for the last leg of his journey.

Someone was listening. As he peaked over the next giant hill, a white light filled his windshield. He could see that the all-encompassing fog actually laid quite low. He was only a couple hundred yards away from a farm with a bright white light sitting at the top of a lonely silo. Given almost any other circumstance, Tom would never have pursued this next step, but he was desperate. He pulled left down the curvy gravel driveway. He didn’t realize how far the farm sat off the road. As he reached the end he realized it would be impossible to back out on his own in the impenetrable darkness.

My Mother's Story

My mom's family used to own a farm out in the country about 10 minutes from the nearest small town. The farm was the family business, and this was before farmers had machines that could do everything. Everyone would help out with the harvesting and the milking. This meant lots of early mornings and late nights where the house was empty of all working-aged family members. Cows simply can’t be bothered to be ready to be milked at two o’clock in the afternoon.

My mom has an older brother and three older sisters, and she's 10 years younger than the next youngest sister. What this means, besides the fact that God decided grandma and grandpa weren't done having kids, is that my Aunt Judy, the second youngest, was down on the farm across the old country road with all the other grown-ups doing farm work while my mom was left alone in the house often as a child. One of her favorite shows was Lost in Space, but she always told me how much the aliens scared her. This being a farm family, my Grandpa never was one to waste a cent, and so my mom was only allowed the lights on in the room she currently occupied. You better believe she'd catch hell from Grandpa the next day if he ever saw both the living room and kitchen lights on at the same time. The house wasn't huge by any means, but it did have two stories and an exposed basement in the back of the house full with back door that had been sealed shut long ago - before my mom was even born - by my grandpa.