“A Conversation Held at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Butler Assassins” • by Carol Scheina

“Remember the good ol’ days? Polishing silver, pouring wine, murdering guests…”

“We could’ve been standing there in the library with a bloody candlestick.”

(Chortle) “No one ever suspected the butler did it.”

“They always thought it was some disgruntled lord or plotting dowager.”

“Good times…. But who has a butler nowadays?”

(Long pause) “So how’s the job search going?”

“Well, I took a temp job at the Brandywine Motel.”

“Any assassinations?”

“Naw, kids stay for free there. Can’t risk them seeing my work. But have you noticed all the maids?”

“What?”

“They’re in all the hotels, they’re cleaning everyone’s homes. They have companies, yet no one notices them.”

“Are you proposing…”

“The old days aren’t coming back. Plus, the Association of Murdering Maids sounds rather catchy, don’t you think?”

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Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative author whose stories have appeared in publications such as Flash Fiction Online, Escape Pod, Diabolical Plots, Stupefying Stories, and others. Her writing has been recognized on the Wigleaf Top 50 Short Fiction Longlist, and she has become a fan favorite for her finely crafted flash fiction pieces on the Stupefying Stories website. You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to read “True Love is Found in the Bone Sea,” here on SHOWCASE, or “The Burning Skies Bring His Soul,” in STUPEFYING STORIES 24. Or at the very least, read “The Disappearing Cat Trick,” in The Odin Chronicles, Season 1. 

This link will take you to a unorganized list of Carol’s previous stories on this site. I’m particularly fond of “The View from the Old Ship.” You should read it. You should also take a look at “The Burning Skies Bring His Soul,” which you’ll find in SS#24, which is now FREE for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

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The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction story of no more than 125 words in length that plays off that old warhorse of mystery fiction: “the butler did it.”

More stories to come!

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Categories: The Pete Wood Challenge