“Damn,” Guille said in a New Jersey forest, when one of his marshmallows caught fire. As he tried again, he noticed a man standing at the edge of his firelight, beside his tent. The man held a machete and wore a hockey mask.
“Marshmallow?”
The man sat beside him and they ate in silence until the bag was empty.
Suddenly loud music played.
Guille shrugged. “The campers over there…”
The man held up a finger, as if to say he’d be right back.
He strode into the woods.
After a commotion, he returned carrying another bag of marshmallows.
They toasted them in the newly restored silence.
________________
Gustavo Bondoni is
novelist and short story writer with over three hundred stories
published in fifteen countries, in seven languages. He is a member of
Codex and an Active Member of SFWA.His latest novel is a dark historic fantasy entitled The Swords of Rasna (2022). He has also published five science fiction novels, four monster books and a thriller entitled Timeless. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
In
2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest
and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The
James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the
Future Contest.
His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com
His most recent appearance in our virtual pages was “Warranty Claim.” Read it now!
This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was to write a 150-word or less story that includes the line, “[character] had never heard of [name of a movie].” To see the previous winners of previous challenges, click this link.
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