The Last Dangerous Would You Like Fries With That?

 

Today, the fifth and final installment of the first iteration of “The Pete Wood Challenge.” This week we have presented ten, count ’em, ten microflash stories, all of which sprang from a simple challenge: to write a 100-word story that revolved around the question:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Two Monday, two Tuesday, two Wednesday, two Thursday, and today, the Big Bang Burger Wrap-Up with a special surprise bonus! Enjoy!

—brb

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“Fixing Broken Dreams,” by Ray Daley

Its eyes were dark. I checked the internals, some wires were loose, easy to mend. “I think he’s broken?”

I checked the linkages again, sure, they needed a little oil. The damn thing must have been at least 100 years old. I could just about make out flecks of red and yellow paint.

Becky’s heart was set on seeing it go again. “Dad! Make it work properly!”

Can’t disappoint my Princess. I’ll fix it. I’ve no clue what its original use was. Right now, it’s just a broken-down clown which asks, “Do you want fries with that?”

¤

Ray Daley was born in Coventry and still lives there. He served six years in the RAF as a clerk and spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet and has been writing stories since he was ten. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitchhiker’s Guide fanfic novel he’s been writing since 1986. Tweet him @RayDaleyWriter or check out his web site at https://raymondwriteswrongs.wordpress.com/

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“Outcast,” by Eric Fomley

“I’m leaving, old friend,” Shasta said, as she brushed ivy from the ‘bot’s face. “My tribe outcast me.”

The ‘bot’s yellow eyes hummed to life, dimmer now than what Shasta remembered as a child. It leaned against the cracked tile wall in an ivy cocoon.

Shasta hadn’t been here since she was a child, when the bombed-out BurgerMates was the place where the metal god lived. Not just a shard from a shattered world.

“Order whenever you’re ready,” it croaked.

Shasta smiled. “Thanks for always listening.”

“Do you want fries with that?” it asked.

But Shasta was already gone. 

¤

Eric Fomley’s work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Flame Tree, and The Black Library. You can read more of his work at https://ericfomley.com or follow him on Twitter @PrinceGrimdark.

 

 

 

 

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And now as a special surprise bonus, Pete Wood answers his own challenge, with:

“Untitled,” by Pete Wood 

“Do you want fries with that?” the cashier asked Jim.

Jim wasn’t that hungry. He didn’t need the combo. “No, thanks.”

“That’ll be $21.35.”

Jimmy blinked. He couldn’t afford that. “For a burger?”

“You got the time travel combo. Five minutes back.”

“I didn’t order it.”

“You will.”

“Don’t get the time travel combo,” Future Jim said from behind him. “It’s a rip-off.”

The cashier rolled her eyes. “Somebody still owes me $21.35.”

Future Jim and Present Jim argued about the order.

¤

Pete Wood—ah, by now you must know who Pete Wood is. Pete didn’t give this one a title, but I wanted to call it, “Another Weird Little Timey-Wimey Story by Pete Wood,” because he’s given us so many of them over the years. For example, “Bully,” which is still available on the old SHOWCASE webzine site, “Special Delivery,” still available on the even older “crevasse” version of SHOWCASE, or “Timeless Bore” on the original weekly webzine version of SHOWCASE. 

You see now why I need someone to help curate that content, Pete?

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In a world...

Where the Soviet Union won WWII, England is now a Soviet satellite, some magic actually works (sometimes), and Premier Kruschev is going eyeball-to-eyeball with President Patton—

The last surviving member of His Majesty’s Dragonslayer Corps is called out of retirement, because it seems dragons aren’t extinct after all and one has taken up residence in a prominent Politburo member’s country estate. Read the rest in THE SHE-DRAGON OF BLY, by Jason D. Wittman, just one of the terrific tales in STUPEFYING STORIES 22!

Available now in paperback, on Kindle, or free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

 

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Penultimate Fries

Today, the fourth installment of the first iteration of “The Pete Wood Challenge.” This week we are presenting ten, count ’em, ten microflash stories, all of which sprang from a simple challenge: to write a 100-word story that revolved around the question:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Two Monday, two Tuesday, two Wednesday, two today, and tomorrow, the Big Bang Burger Wrap-Up. Enjoy!

—brb

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“The Dying Pool,” by Melissa Mead

“Do you want fries with that?”

The spirit of the dying pool pleads, beseeches, but the parched, delirious travelers only see it offering what looks like a cup of their favorite beverage, frosty with ice. In reality, they gulp down the pool’s tainted water and die in minutes.

Each time, the spirit weeps. The antidote would save their lives and end the curse. The spirit would be freed. The pool would be renewed. If only someone, just once, would ask for the fries!

 

¤

Melissa Mead lives in upstate New York with the imaginary people in her head. Her web site is here: https://carpelibris.wordpress.com/

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“High School Drama,” by Paul Celmer

Norm, the new kid at Riverdale High, studied the menu at McDonalds. Two cheerleaders sipped milkshakes in the back.

“Here’s some advice,” I said. “Talking physics all the time is weird.”

“Parallel universes aren’t weird,” Norm said.

“Right.”

“What you guys having?” the cashier said.

“Cheeseburgers.” Norm seemed pissed at my disbelief. “Want to see a parallel universe?”

“Sure,” I laughed.

Norm twirled something on the counter.

My eyes fuzzed.

“You want fries with that?” a purple reptile with red fangs croaked to the thing that had been Norm.

And all one thousand of its wriggling tentacles pointed at me.

¤

When not traveling to parallel universes, Paul Celmer is a technical writer in Durham, North Carolina. His recently published flash science fiction includes “Spooky Action At a Distance” in Daily Science Fiction and “The Last Rosy-Fingered Dawn” in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Now take a look at our magazine, okay? It’s out in paperback, on Kindle, and free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

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Yet more “Would you like fries with that?"

Today, the third installment of the first iteration of “The Pete Wood Challenge.” (Trust me, that sentence will make sense by Friday.) This week we are presenting ten, count ’em, ten microflash stories, all of which sprang from a simple challenge: to write a 100-word story that revolved around the question:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Two Monday, two Tuesday, two more today, two more tomorrow, and the Big Bang Burger Wrap-Up on Friday. Enjoy!

—brb

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“Untitled,” by Travis Burnham

Elmo shuffled around the Albuquerque Deity Convention, lonely and looking for love. The God of Thunder, predictably, had already hooked up with the Goddess of Lightning.

Elmo’s latest attempt had been approaching the Goddess of Automobiles, all sleek lines and beauty in her black sheath dress. He was rebuffed with an incredulous laugh. As the God of French Fries, Elmo wasn’t in high demand.

Flopping down on a couch, Elmo looked to his right to see a dejected but attractive redhead.
 

“What’s your domain?” he asked.

She frowned, then reluctantly replied, “Goddess of Ketchup.”

Elmo smiled. “You want fries with that?”

 

¤

Travis Burnham’s work has found homes in Far Fetched Fables, Hypnos Magazine, Bad Dreams Entertainment, South85 Journal, SQ Quarterly, and others. He is a member of the online writers’ group, Codex, and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College. He also recently won the Wyrm’s Gauntlet online writing contest. Burnham has been a DJ on three continents, and teaches middle school science and college level composition. He lives in Lisbon, Portugal with his wife, but grew up in Massachusetts, is from Maine at heart, and has lived in Japan, Colombia, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

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“Two All-Meat Zombies,” by Gretchen Tessmer

 

“Oh, honey, I eat flies with everything...,” the old lady zombie says. The cashier, in his blue uniform and golden arches cap, is listening, but wide-eyed.

His manager warned him. These are not the first undead customers to show up in the middle of the night, looking for a snack after some free-range, apocalyptic street-grazing. She adds, “I’ve got one of those iron stomachs. Flies, worms, cockroaches, anything really...”

Beside her, the younger zombie-girl gives a long-suffering sigh, mumbling, “He said ‘fries‘, Gran,” before apologizing to the cashier, “Dead flesh in the ears, ya know? But yeah, fries are fine.”

 

¤

Gretchen Tessmer is a writer based in the U.S./Canadian borderlands. She writes poetry and short fiction, with work appearing in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Cast of Wonders, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, among other venues.

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Now take a look at our magazine, wouldja?

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Again, "Would you like fries with that?"

 

Today, the second installment of the first iteration of “The Pete Wood Challenge.” (Trust me, that sentence will make sense eventually.) This week we are presenting ten, count ’em, ten microflash stories, all of which sprang from a simple challenge: to write a 100-word story that revolved around the line:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Two yesterday, two more tomorrow, two more the day after that, and… well, you get the idea. Enjoy!

—brb

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“Untitled,” by Carol Scheina

“Do you commonly ask if people want fries with their afterlife?” The old woman’s eyes twinkled with a smile.

Duane flinched. “I apologize. A lifetime of working fast food before I died. It sometimes slips out.” He continued listing the various afterlife accommodations. “Combo #11: endless koi ponds with a lily pad habitat. Combo #12: our giant forest package, as opposed to our regular forest package—”

“Actually,” the woman interrupted, “I’d like whatever place has fries in it. That sounds heavenly to me.”

Duane’s heart quivered. Maybe he’d finally found someone to spend eternity with.

 

¤

Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative fiction author whose short stories have appeared in Escape Pod, Daily Science Fiction, The Arcanist, and other publications. You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.

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“Untitled,” by K. S. O’Neill

Mr. Green-face stares at me placidly.

I am a god, I remind myself. My duties are serious. After all, someone must care for the souls of beloved pets, no?

Which brings us to Mr. Green-face, so loved by a tiny girl in Alabama that on expiring he appeared here, in front of me. In a heaven of cats and dogs, my first frog.

“Okay, Mr. Green-face. A swamp, heat, humidity. Lily pads, muddy water, check.”
 

Mr. Green-face burps and frowns.

I wrack my brain. What else does a frog want?

Wait!
 

“Mr. Green-face, would you like flies with that?”

¤

K.S. O'Neill is three Shoggoths in a trench coat, probably.

 

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The Pete Wood Challenge • "Would you like fries with that?"

Way back before the Dawn of Time there was a writing contest -slash- workshop called The Friday Challenge that encouraged people to try their hand at writing fiction, by spotting them the beginning of a story and then posing some form of the question, “What happens next?”

The Friday Challenge was a lot of fun—and a lot of work—and eventually became more work than fun, so we had to let it go… but not before we’d gathered a dozen of the winning entries into the original version of Stupefying Stories, which you can still find on Amazon for ridiculously inflated collector’s prices.

Or in a box on a shelf in the back of our stockroom, if you’d rather buy it directly from us. So if you’d like to buy a copy, drop me a line at brb@rampantloonmedia.com and I’ll be happy to work out the details with you.

In the meantime, as the years rolled on we from time to time talked about bringing back The Friday Challenge, because it was so much fun, but could never figure out a way to do it that would not also be an ungodly amount of work.

Until Pete Wood stepped in, and proposed a new thing, which I hereby christen “The Pete Wood Challenge,” to differentiate it from The Friday Challenge. I will leave it to Pete to explain the rules, if he so desires: all I care about is that he has found a way to get people to write good little stories that we can publish, all springing forth from a simple challenge. Therefore, this week we will be presenting ten, count ’em, ten microflash stories that all began with a simple challenge: to write a 100-word story that involved the line:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Here are the first two. Two more tomorrow, and two more the next day, and… well, you get the idea. Enjoy!

—brb

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“Untitled,” by Anatoly Belilovsky 

“Was it my accent?” I said.

The woman from MI5 shook her head. “No, I must say, your Cockney is excellent. You must convey my congratulations to your training officer. If both you and your TO are still alive when your sentence expires.”

I closed my eyes. The prospect of a twenty-year stretch in the Boris Johnson Memorial Detention Center...

“What gave me away?” I said, not really expecting an answer.

She grinned. “Well, cowboy,” she said, “around these parts, we call them chips.”

 

¤

Anatoly Belilovsky was born in a city that went through six or seven owners in the last century, all of whom used it to do a lot more than drive to church on Sundays; he is old enough to remember tanks rolling through it on their way to Czechoslovakia in 1968. After being traded to the US for a shipload of grain and a defector to be named later, he learned English from Star Trek reruns, apparently well enough to be admitted into SFWA in spite of chronic cat deficiency. He has sold original and translated stories and poems to NATURE, F&SF, Analog, Asimov's, Daily SF, Podcastle, Kasma, UFO, Stupefying Stories, Cast of Wonders, and other markets. His Twitter feed @loldoc is equally divided between punditry and puns.

Anatoly’s first appearance in our pages was “If This Be Magic” in the now out-of-print Stupefying Stories #2, but “In Vino Veritas” is still findable (for now) in SHOWCASE #7 and his delightfully horrific tale of coming to America, “Tempora Mutantur,” is in SHOWCASE #9. We are delighted to welcome him back.

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“Ringing in Her Ears,” by Ephiny Gale

Before she died in apartment 27, Nellie worked long shifts at the nearby fast food joint.

Sometimes she worked the back and burnt her fingers sliding patties off spatulas, and sometimes worked the front where customers complained the prices had changed since 1990.

Nellie always returned home with the beeping ringing in her ears. She still hears it today: the beeping grill and the fryer and the whole goddamn kitchen.

The new residents of apartment 27 don’t hear the beeping. But they do smell the grease of Nellie’s clothes, and they hear her sometimes: “Do you want fries with that?”

¤

Ephiny Gale is the author of more than two dozen published short stories and novelettes that have appeared in publications including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Constellary Tales, and Daily Science Fiction. Her fiction has been awarded the Sundress Publications' Best of the Net award and the Syntax & Salt Editor's Award, and has been a finalist for multiple Aurealis Awards.

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