Midnight Feast
Natasha Duncan-Drake
Luck of the Draw #1
A/N: Hello and welcome to my new series Luck of the Draw. These are flash fiction in random genres written just for fun to get over times of writers block. What links them together is that they are all inspired by a set of storytelling dice given to me by a friend a little while back. Six dice, six things/concepts to work into the story. Enjoy!
If you’re a writer and need a little nudge to get the creative juices flowing or just fancy having a go, feel free play along with the prompts. Drop me a comment to let me know what you came up with 😊.
Word count: 676
Prompts: Hat | Clock | Meal | Moon and Stars | Rain cloud | Phone
Bea glanced at the clock and groaned. It was past midnight.
Throwing her wet hat onto the table she plodded towards the fridge. She knew she would regret it as soon as she went to bed, but she was starving. She needed food. No doubt she would have the weirdest dreams.
Everything had gone wrong from the moment she’d crawled out of bed that morning. No hot water for her shower thanks to her dick of a soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend Keith. She’d been late for work because of a broken-down bus on the railway crossing. Lunch had turned out to be a five-minute affair where she had almost choked on her sandwich. Then she’d had to stay after hours to be in on a phone call with the US which had turned out to be completely pointless and nothing to do with her. And her train home had been cancelled twice due to staff shortages thanks to all the disruption from the morning.
The universe hadn’t been done with her then either. When she’d climbed onto the train there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky with twinkling stars and a bright moon. When she’d climbed off it had been throwing it down like Noah’s flood.
She was soaked, she was fed up, and she was downright hangry.
No doubt Keith was already tucked up in bed snoring, the arsehole. They were stuck with the lease for another month and, until then, she had to live in the same house as the cheating bastard. She wouldn’t have minded if he’d just told her. It had been more than obvious that their relationship was headed in the wrong direction for a couple of months, but no, he had had to go and cheat with her ex-best friend.
Well, she could be petty too and banged her way around the kitchen as she prepared to make a croque monsieur.
She had bread, cheese, ham and a jar of bechamel all ready to go. It was just the comfort food she needed. With the frying pan in one hand she headed for the stove to get everything started, mouth watering at just the thought. There was a noise behind her.
“Don’t think I’m making you one, dickhead,” she said, turning.
But it wasn’t Keith in the doorway, it was a strange woman whose eyes were completely fixed on the frying pan.
“Who the ..?” Bea started to ask, stepping towards the stranger.
The woman let out the most blood curdling scream and the frying pan slipped from Bea’s suddenly clumsy fingers. The crash resounded around the kitchen.
“Mel, what is it?” came a man’s voice from the other room, equally as unfamiliar as the woman.
Bea had a sudden moment of wondering if she could had walked into the wrong house. But, of course, that was ridiculous, her key had fitted in the lock, everything about the kitchen was familiar. The strange woman was clearly hysterical.
A man appeared behind her in the doorway.
“Mel?” he asked.
The woman gestured around the room, eyes never once looking directly at Bea.
“It happened again,” the woman said. “The frying pan … it … it was floating.”
“I don’t know who the hell you are,” Bea said, picking up the knife from the kitchen table, “but you’re clearly nuts. Now get out of my house.”
The woman screamed again, and the man dragged her out of the room.
“That’s it,” Bea heard him say, “we’re leaving. The agent never said anything about a ghost.”
Bea’s mind flashed with the memory of trying desperately to get air and there being none. Of people trying to help her, banging her on the back, looping their arms around her middle and pulling, but she shook it away. It was just a silly nightmare. The front door slammed, and she bent down to pick up the frying pan. She’d figure out who the hell the couple had been later, but right then she was hungrier than she’d ever been. It felt like she hadn’t eaten in years.
The End
Thank you for reading, I very much hope you enjoyed the story. Comments are love 😊💖
