Tag: Fiction
100 Word Story – Police Blotter – Pry
It’s been awhile, but here is another 100 word story based on an item in the police blotter of my hometown of Burlingame, CA. The original blotter item, plus a link to where I found it follows the story. If you’d like to see all previous police blotter stories, you can do so here:
https://blog.mrgrant.com/category/writing/police-blotter/
Enjoy!
Pry
By Grant Baciocco
“I’m so sorry officer,” Danielle blushed, “I’m just completely embarrassed.”
Officer Roberts hooked his thumb into his belt, “No need to be embarrassed Mrs. Martinez. I can see where you’d think that someone tried to pry open your rear screen door here, but I assure you, these marks are just dirt and spider webs.”
“Thank you, officer.” Danielle replied, “Sorry to waste your time.”
“Better safe than sorry.” Officer Roberts replied as they walked around the side of the house.
From the bushes a few feet away, the dirt and spiderweb monster watched them leave. He would wait until tonight.
—
©2016 Grant Baciocco/Saturday Morning Media
Agents of the Vault – Part 25 & 26
Parts 25 & 26 – Does Charlie become a true Agent of the Vault?
If you want to subscribe to the Grantcast, you can do so with iTunes, or by using this feed in your favorite podcatcher. Enjoy! And let me know what you think of the story in the comments here, as we go along.
Also, if you prefer a PDF version of this part to read, CLICK HERE for that.
Finally, if you’d like to support my projects, visit www.patreon.com/saturdaymorningmedia
Agents of the Vault
Part 25
By Grant Baciocco
The next day, Charlie was well enough to get a tour of The Vault. A deep, underground bunker that went below Yankton for several stories. It was a feat of engineering for the time and it was safe to assume there was nothing much like it anywhere else on the planet.
Doc explained, “There are several Vaults throughout the United States and some throughout the world. All part of the Coalition to keep historic, mystical artifacts safe. This one here in Yankton is the biggest in the world. Most of the Agents work out of here.”
Doc took Charlie around to the training rooms, a series of room where Agents of the Vault could work on their hand to hand fighting as well as their accuracy with pistols and long range rifles. Most impressive, however was the lowest level, The Vault itself. Spanning for what seemed to be about a mile underground, The Vault had row upon row of trunks, much like the one the writing desk was carried in. They were stacked six high in some places.
Doc pointed down a row of stacked trunks, “The desk you and Grisom brought in is now safely stored away here. It’s a good thing we had the other desk out of storage for study when Grisom wrote to us. That’s how we knew where to find you.”
Charlie nodded.
“What you see here just barely scratches the surface of the artifacts with mystical powers out in the world. And these are just the ones from the United States. The purpose of the Coalition and The Vault is to keep these items of power out of the wrong hands. All of these Vaults are defended by the bravest men and women on earth. And now, you’re one of them.”
Charlie reached into his pocket and felt the leather case that held Grisom’s badge that was now his badge. He was nervous and excited to be one of The Agents of the Vault, but there was also a small piece of him that was terrified now that Grisom was gone. He really had no idea what he was doing, but steeled himself in the fact that Grisom seemed to be the best Agent of the Vault on the roster and he always trusted Charlie, so he would trust that.
“We’ve got a wagon all set up for you,” Doc said. “You can get the Prairie Fire back to the indians.” Doc turned and led the way back towards the Vault’s entrance. Charlie turned and followed him, stopping to look one last time at the rows of stacked trucks in The Vault.
Part 26
Two days later, Charlie rode from the Pawnee camp having delivered Pahaat. The Pawnee Chief had greeted him when he had arrived, but there was not a pleasant mood within the camp. The Pinkertons and the Calvary had done a number on the members of this tribe. There were survivors but only a handful.
“I feel like we brought this trouble to you.” Charlie said. “We led the Pinkerton’s here.”
“You had only good intentions.” The Chief replied in his rough English. “And you have returned Pahaat. A small sliver of sunshine throughout the storm.”
They sat in silence for a moment. About ten feet in front of them, Doris and Pahaat tumbled and played in the dirt. Their antics brought a smile to both men’s faces.
“Has your little one decided to remain with Pahaat?” The chief asked.
“Not yet.” Charlie replied, “But I have a feeling it’ll be soon. They seem more dependent on each other after Doris rescued him form the Pinkertons. I have a feeling it won’t be long before we are back here.”
The Chief looked across his village, his people slowly were rebuilding and cleaning up the damage the calvary had done. “I’m afraid a great conflict is coming between my people and yours.”
“I feel it coming too.” Charlie said.
“It is a shame that we cannot live in harmony with the wonders that are around us.” The Chief said, watching Pahaat jump tackle Doris from behind as the two played. He turned to look at Charlie, “But you are an honorable man as was Grisom and as long as there is honor, there is a small glimmer of hope.”
Charlie reached out for the Chief hand and shook it. He then gave a whistle and Doris looked over from her dominant position on Pahaat to Charlie and realized it was time to go. She looked down at Pahaat and gave him a big, sloppy lick across the face and then bounded off toward Charlie, stopping to rub her head against the Chief’s leg.
The Chief looked down, smiling, “See you soon little one.” Doris gave a whistle and smile and then bounded off after Charlie who was already getting into the wagon.
She scrambled up the wagon wheel and took her spot on the buckboard right next to Charlie. Charlie clicked his tongue and gave a snap of the reigns and the horses began to pull out. Once they were underway, Doris gave a Charlie a questioning whistle.
“Where are we off to?” Charlie replied, “Let me see.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pice of paper, unfolding it with one hand as the other hand held the reigns. He read Doc’s writing and then nodded, “We are headed to Baxter Springs, Kansas. Apparently, that is where George Washington’s tent is currently being held for us.”
Doris let out another inquisitive whistle.
“Apparently, the tent has properties that keep it impervious to cannon fire. It’s one of the things that kept Washington safe during the war.”
Doris let out a whistle of agreement and settled in next to Charlie.
They rode in silence for about an hour, en route to Baxter Springs. Charlie felt Doris shift next to him and glanced down to see her with her back turned to him looking at something in her hands.
“What do you have there Doris?” he asked, startling the creature. Doris quickly turned to him keeping the object hidden behind her. She looked up innocently at him. Charlie smiled, “Come on, show me what you got.”
Shyly, Doris brought her hand around into view to reveal a tiny, grey egg. Charlie’s mouth hung open. He was so flabbergasted, it took him a second to realize that he was pulling the horses off course. He looked straight ahead and corrected the horse’s walk, then turned back to Doris.
Doris looked up at him with the big dark eyes, smiling.
Charlie let out a laugh and shook his head. Doris gingerly placed the egg back into her pouch and the wagon continued onward towards Baxter Springs.
THE END
©2015 Grant Baciocco/Saturday Morning Media – www.SaturdayMorningMedia.com
Agents of the Vault – Part 24
Part 24 of The Agents of the Vault is here! Trinity fallout! Who survived? Who didn’t? What happens next?
If you want to subscribe to the Grantcast, you can do so with iTunes, or by using this feed in your favorite podcatcher. Enjoy! And let me know what you think of the story in the comments here, as we go along.
Also, if you prefer a PDF version of this part to read, CLICK HERE for that.
Finally, if you’d like to support my projects, visit www.patreon.com/saturdaymorningmedia
Agents of the Vault
Part 24
By Grant Baciocco
“I’m on a boat.” Was the next thing Charlie remembered thinking to himself. “How did I get on a boat?” His body was slowly rocking back and forth. “Am I dreaming?” He tried to focus his thoughts but they were cloudy. His eyes were closed but in his mind he saw the single star shining through the smoke. The last thing he saw after Jane was engulfed in flames.
As he focused, his senses slowly returned. His body was rocking back and forth but he was not on a boat. It was far to bumpy to be a boat. His chest hurt badly. The more he thought about it, everything hurt badly, but it was as if his chest was the epicenter of the pain. He wanted to open his eyes, but he felt that that would cause more pain. Every twitch of his fingers or wiggle of his toes seemed to cause lightning bolts of pain to shoot everywhere in his body. Every jostle or bump from whatever vehicle he was in caused him pain. Inhaling deeply, he opened his eyes.
The blue sky of dawn above the prairie greeted his gaze. He got lost in the blue for a moment. It wasn’t until he felt something pulling at his chest that he began to look around.
Without raising his head, he looked to his left and saw the wooden slats of the side of a wagon. That explained the bumps. He was in a wagon, not a boat. He moved his eyes up to look above his head and saw two men driving the wagon. He could see that one of them held a shotgun. Neither of the men looked familiar, but all he could see was their backs.
Looking to his right he saw a man sitting next to him. An older man with scraggly white hair and tiny, horn rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He wore a white shirt, with he sleeves rolled up under a black vest. He was set about his work, pursing his lips as he did. It took Charlie a moment to realize that the work this man was working on, was him.
Charlie inhaled and tried to form the word, “What?”
The man working on him gave Charlie a sideways glance. “Morning kid.” He went back to his work. “Just stitching you up now. Removed that bullet. Nasty sucker.”
Charlie had heard the words through the pain ringing in his ears. He took a few deep breaths. Then inhaled and formed the word, “Who?” weakly.
The man continued to work, bandaging Charlie’s freshly stitched wound. “Doc Harvey.” The man replied. “I work with the Agents of the Vault.”
At the mention of the words “The Vault,” everything came flooding back to Charlie. The Vault, the gunfight, Jane, Grisom, the desk, the fire. Images and words poured into his brain as if suddenly snapped back to reality. He instantly had a million questions but knew that in his current state, one word was all he would be able to get out.
“Doris?”
At the mention of her name, Doris’ head popped up to Charlie’s right and she gave out a low whistle. Smiling made new pains make themselves known in Charlie’s body, but it was a pain he gladly accepted knowing that Doris was safe. Doris nuzzled her head up against Charlie’s and Charlie’s eyes closed with relief and, again slipped back into the blackness.
The next time Charlie opened his eyes, he could instantly tell that the pain that had overwhelmed his entire body had subsided. In its place was a deep, body wide ache. He quickly decided that he could live with that ache. He was inside now. A wooden room with the walls painted white. Slowly propping himself up on his elbows to look around, he realized that the room he was in, though brightly lit by a few lanterns and candles, had no windows.
He was shirtless and, looking down, he could see his chest, where Jane had shot him was bandage. The skin peeking out from under the edges of the bandage was bright pink with hints of bruising beginning. He sat all the way up and at the sound of doing so, Doris came scrambling into the room. Her claws clicking across the wooden slat floor as she ran. She let out a long whistle as she closed the distance between the door and the bed. Charlie saw her and held up his hands, causing his whole body to ache.
“Easy!” he shouted, his voice dry and crackled from not being used. “Easy girl!”
Doris leapt into the air. Charlie braced himself, but she landed gingerly on his bed without touching him at all. Charlie opened his eyes and got a big, lick that smelled of sulfur. He reached out and scuffled her ears, ignoring the deep ache in his chest. It was just so good to see her.
“You’re awake.” A voice at the doorway said, it was Doc Harvey. He crossed to the bed grabbing a chair that was against the wall and brought it bedside. He sat down on it and took out his glasses, hooking the ends of them over his ears. “Let’s take a quick look at that wound and we’ll get you up and out of here.”
Doc began pulling the bandages from the wound. Charlie decided not to look down and examine it himself. He’d prefer not to pass out.
“You had a bottle of Whittenmore dirt on you.” Doc said as he looked closely at the stitches holding the bullet wound together on Charlie’s chest, giving them a gentle poke here and there with his index finger. “You get that from Grisom?”
“Yes, sir.” Charlie replied. “He gave it to me right before the final showdown.” Charlie suddenly turned to Doc and grabbed his hand, “Girsom! Where’s Grisom, did he make it?”
Doc looked up at Charlie and sighed, “No kid, I’m afraid not.”
Charlie was silent. Doris, who understood what was being said, scooted herself under Charlie’s arm. He squeezed her tight.
“The Whittenmore dirt is powerful stuff but it doesn’t work miracles.” Doc said, beginning to reapply the bandage to Charlie’s wound. “He died defending a piece of history, that was his job.” He added matter of factly.
Charlie looked down at Doris, trying to not let Doc see the tears forming in his eyes. “So, the desk made it?”
“Oh yes,” Doc said. “Came through just fine. You did a fine job keeping it safe.”
“It was Grisom.” Charlie replied. “I didn’t do anything.”
Doc stood and wiped his hands on his vest. “Don’t sell yourself short kid. If you hadn’t been there this could have all gone differently. Because of you the desk is here in The Vault. And as an added attraction, we now know of not one but two Prairie Fires—“
“No.” Charlie immediately cut him off. “The Prairie Fires don’t belong to The Vault. Doris is mine and Pahaat needs to be returned to the indians.”
Doc laughed, “Of course. If you were listening to me I said, ‘We know about two Prairie Fires.’ I didn’t say we now have two of them. We have no plans on keeping them and would prefer returning them to the wild.”
Charlie nodded, still shocked at the news of Grisom’s death.
“I have to ask.” Doc continued. “What did you do to Jane? We found her, burnt to a crisp.”
Charlie searched his memory of the night in Trinity and it was fuzzy. The last thing he saw of Jane, she had burst into flames. He turned back to Doc. “The Prairie Fires. They got her.”
Doc looked over at Doris who was now on her back, paws up in air, loving her belly being scratched by Charlie. Doris looked up at him and gave him an upside down smile. Doc shook his head and let out a whistle, “They can be vicious if they want to be.”
Charlie nodded. “So what’s next?”
Doc sighed, “Well, we’ve been talking a lot about you here kid. With the reports that Grisom sent back about you and the way you pulled through two nights ago, well, we figure you’d make a right fine proper Agent of the Vault.”
Charlie turned and looked at Doc. “But, I don’t know nothing. Outside of what Grisom ever told me.”
“Well, of course not, but you’re here now, in the The Vault. We’d tell ya all you needed to know.” Doc said, “You and Doris could go out on missions, you know, if you’d want to. We’d love to have you.” Doc reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of folded leather. He tossed it to Charlie. Charlie opened it up and saw Grisom’s badge. “Whether you decide to join us or not,” Doc said as Charlie ran his finger over the silver badge, “I think Grisom would have wanted you to have that. If you decide to join us, feel free to consider that your badge.
Charlie nodded, then looked up from the badge in his hands. “Could my first mission be returning Pahaat to the indians?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Doc, smiling. “Sounds like a good place to start.” Doc turned to leave, “You just rest here and when you’re feeling up to it, we’ll set you up and send you out.”
“Thank you,” Charlie said.
©2015 Grant Baciocco/Saturday Morning Media – www.SaturdayMorningMedia.com
Agents of the Vault – Part 23
Part 23 of The Agents of the Vault is here! The final shootout on the streets of Trinity.
If you want to subscribe to the Grantcast, you can do so with iTunes, or by using this feed in your favorite podcatcher. Enjoy! And let me know what you think of the story in the comments here, as we go along.
Also, if you prefer a PDF version of this part to read, CLICK HERE for that.
Finally, if you’d like to support my projects, visit www.patreon.com/saturdaymorningmedia
Agents of the Vault
Part 23
By Grant Baciocco
The first shot Jane fired caught Grisom in the shoulder and spun him. As he spun, Charlie fired right over Grisom’s head in the direction of where the shot had come from. As Charlie ran along the front of the hotel, he spied some barrels across the street and Brenner’s hat sticking up behind them. He crossed his left hand under his right and fired a shot off in that direction. Brenner’s hat sailed off his head.
“Get him Charlie.” Grisom shouted indicating Brenner, and Charlie ran down the wooden porch of the hotel toward the corner.
Grisom was on his butt, back up against the front railing of the hotel’s front porch. He cocked both his guns, grimaced in the expectation of the pain that was about to rip through his body, and then kicked himself up in one motion to a standing position and fired off two shots in the direction where Jane had fired from. She answered back with a shot, all three shots went wild.
As Charlie made the end of the hotel and dashed around the corner, Brenner fired three shots. Each just missed Charlie as he ran, but he was able to make the corner and turn it. Once around he took a deep breath and then slid his back a little ways down the wall so he would be lower when he swung around to fire.
Already he could feel the heat of the fire from inside the hotel radiating through the wooden slats. The hotel would not provide much of a hiding place for long.
Inhaling, Charlie spun the corner, took aim near the barrels and when Brenner popped up, he fired. Two shots. One, from his left pistol, going wide and the other, from his right pistol, catching Brenner in the side, sending the Pinkerton stumbling back behind the barrels, still on his feet.
Charlie didn’t hesitate, he sprung from the corner and advanced on Brenner firing both guns. Brenner’s head jerked back as a bullet passed through it. The Pinkerton fell to the dusty ground, dead.
A gunshot rang out up the street from him and Charlie spun to see Grisom falling back to the dirt. As Grisom’s body fell, it revealed Jane standing in the street, her smoking gun still aimed at where Grisom had been standing. Without thinking, Charlie raised his guns and began advancing on Jane.
Jane pulled the hammer back on her pistols and aimed them at Charlie.
“Boy!” she yelled over the growing roar of the hotel fire which thrust the twilight on the prairie into light and shadows. “Don’t be stupid. Just turn around and walk away. You’ll live. That’s about as good a deal as anyone here is going to get today.”
Charlie ignored her, the smoke making his throat want to cough as he advanced through it towards the Pinkerton. He was within 5 yards of Grisom’s body and through his peripheral vision, he could see a large pool of blood growing underneath him.
Charlie felt rage build up in him and felt his finger tighten on the triggers of his pistols. A shot fired and Charlie froze. His mouth open, he looked down at the bloodstain that was quickly soaking through his shirt. He dropped to his knees in the street.
Jane, a slow smile spreading on her face, slowly began closing the distance between them. Charlie’s arms dropped to his sides as she approached.
“You can’t say I didn’t give you the chance, boy.” Jane growled. “Now I hope you see you should have taken it.”
“I can’t let you take the desk.” Charlie said, his breath coming heavier, the pain of being shot starting to fill his body. “Can’t let you take Doris.”
Jane smiled. The pistol in her right hand aimed directly at Charlie’s head. “I will get one, or both here today, you can count on that. Grisom can’t stop me any longer. And now, you can’t stop me.”
Charlie began to raise his right hand, but the pain was immense. Jane stood backed and kicked the guns out of his hands. Jane pulled back the hammer on her pistol.
“Just close your eyes kid, it’ll soon be over.” Jane’s finger squeezed on the trigger.
Right before the gun discharged, Jane heard a sound behind her. A high pitched whistled, suddenly joined by a second creating an eerie harmony. Jane spun, expecting to see Grisom, somehow, still alive, but saw that behind her in the street stood Doris and Pahaat. Before Jane could register that it was the prairie fires making the sound that had now drown everything else out, they both opened up their jaws and engulfed her in a solid column of fire, consuming her completely.
Charlie fell backwards as the fire engulfed his enemy, he was vaguely aware of her screams as she ran wildly from where she stood. Charlie looked upwards. The sky was black ink above him, smoke rising up into it from the hotel fire was being illuminated by Jane’s burning body. Though the smoke he could see the faintest star shining in the night sky and he focused on that, as his hand slowly moved to his pocket, inch by inch searching for the small glass vial of dirt that was there.
His fingers closed around the vial and his world went dark.
©2015 Grant Baciocco/Saturday Morning Media – www.SaturdayMorningMedia.com