“Immortal Torment”
Horror

By David M. Fitzpatrick

I was dying from the Black Death when a vampire made me immortal. I welcomed it when he took me, thinking I would die—and oh, the overwhelming sensuality of the act was so incredible. But I woke to sunlight burning me, and soon learned I’d spend my undead life at night. I’ll never die, but I’ll forever suffer the plague’s symptoms.

A werewolf tore out my throat a century later, adding lycanthropy to my vampirism. It’s a strange mix, and every night my body thinks the moon is full. I turn into a half-werewolf, so I can’t even enjoy my immortality. Instead of taking blood and entrancing humans, I tear their throats out and can sire no vampire disciples as a result.

I’m hairy. I’m ugly. I’m utterly alone. And I’m sick with the plague. But the worst part?
I’ve been stuck in endless menstruation for six hundred years—the worst cramps, sweating, and mood swings you can imagine.

Life’s a bitch, and so am I—the worst one on Earth.

“Kryptonite”
Super hero

By David M. Fitzpatrick

It was because Jim Hobart got too close to that nuclear power plant that had been hit by the meteorite storm, but the bizarre radiations gave him a super power: He discovered he could fly. There were no other powers, but that was enough.

He told his wife he was going to be a super hero.

“Are you sure?” she said. “Flying is incredible, but it’s just one power.”

He gave her all sorts of examples where the heroes had single powers, and they still fought crime. So he had her make him a costume. It was red with blue trunks, boots, and cape, and had a stylized “H” with wings on the chest. His hero name was Hoverman. He prepared to fly out on his first night.

“I’m worried,” she told him. “I think you need more powers than this to fight crime. Besides, you must have a weakness, right? You know, like Superman has Kryptonite.”

He was far too excited to give it much thought, and headed out. He flew around every night, stopping robberies and rescuing kittens in trees. Each morning, he’d tell his wife, “No Kryptonite!”

One night, while stopping a robbery, a bad guy shot him in the chest. As he lay dying on his couch, his wife said, between sobs, “I guess your Kryptonite is bullets.”

“No,” he wheezed, “it’s stupidity…”

“Hard to Handle”
Fantasy

By David M. Fitzpatrick

The knight in shining armor teleported into the dragon’s cave where Princess Lydia was held captive. The massive red dragon was surprised, and roared, rearing its head into the air and preparing to blast fire upon him.

“Wait!” cried the knight, throwing his hands into the air. “Hear me out!”

The puzzled dragon sat back and listened.

The knight pulled his helmet off, and Lydia squealed in delight. “Jasper!” she cried. “You’ve come to rescue me!”

“Yeah, right, hang on,” he said. “Listen, dragon, I’m sure you can see I’m well protected from fire and magic. Check me out.”

The dragon furrowed a scaled brow and studied him. “So you are, knight,” he said in a deep voice. “I could not destroy you, and your teleportation device could take you away at any time. So I am curious.”

“I’m betrothed to this woman,” Jasper said, “and I don’t want to marry her. I’m so damn sick of listening to her yammer on that I can’t imagine a lifetime with this wench.”

“Damn you!” she screamed, suddenly shrewish. “My father will have your hide, you ungrateful wretch! You’ll die just like all the others who weren’t good enough for me!”

“Look, they’ll send knight after knight here until you’re dead and she’s rescued,” Jasper said. “You can’t win, and if she’s rescued, I don’t win, either.”

“So help me, I’ll kill you!” the princess screeched, stomping her feet in the cavern. “Twenty useless asses like you have fallen to my father’s punishments, and so help me you’ll be next!”

“So here’s my proposal,” Jasper continued. “Cook her right here. Give me a scale to take back. I’ll say I killed you, they’ll cry for her, they’ll celebrate me, you lay low for a while, and then head over and attack the next kingdom. Everybody wins.”

“Bastard!” she screamed and charged forward, fists raised and ready to pummel, but the dragon snorted a blast from his right nostril and cooked her on the spot. Her charred body crumpled to the stone floor.

“Good idea,” the dragon said. “Now, here’s one of my scales…”

As the dragon turned to pluck a small scale from his left side, Jasper raised his hand with the magical golden gauntlet and let loose with the spell contained therein. A blast of green energy erupted from the gauntlet and blew the dragon’s head clean off his neck. Jasper danced aside as the hefty neck flopped down to the cavern floor.

“Easy as pie,” Jasper said. He reached for his belt and hit the teleport button, and instantaneously found himself back in the king’s throne room.

“Alas, my king, it was too late; the dragon had already…” It was a rehearsed speech, but the glare from the king on the throne gave him pause.

That, and Princess Lydia stood beside him, hands on her hips. And the dragon towered high above them all.

“What in blazes?” Jasper cried. “It was… an illusion?”

“Just as you thought, Father,” Lydia sneered. “He made a deal with the dragon to kill me, and then betrayed the dragon. He’s a worthless, good-for-nothing bastard!”

Jasper stared, mouth agape, as the dragon morphed, changing form and shrinking until the king’s court wizard stood there.

“Kill him, wizard!” she screeched.

“I think we’ve gone through enough of them,” the king said with an upraised hand. “Jasper, I rather like you. And I’m tired of killing off her suitors. I think I can guess why you can’t handle her.”

“By the gods, my king, it’s her mouth!” Jasper cried. “She’s beautiful and elegant and a man’s dream in every sense… but she crows nonstop! What man could handle it?”

“I agree,” the king said. “Wizard, it’s time we solved this dilemma.”

“Father!” she screamed.

But Dad had had enough. With a wave of the wizard’s wand, the damsel lost her voice.

"It's My Body"
Science fiction

By David M. Fitzpatrick

The bike roared between her legs. She revved it and rocketed forward, savoring the incredible sensations she knew would soon be gone. The black bike was replete with chrome that gleamed in the million lights of the towering city around her. Her long strawberry hair streamed wildly behind her like fanned flames.

They'd never get her. She'd ride until the power cells ran out, and then run on foot. It was her body. They couldn't decide for her. She didn't care what international law said. She didn't care how crowded the planet was.

Headlights flashed past her as she tore through traffic and out of town, through one of the few rural areas, a secondary road between cities. Cities were everywhere. People were everywhere. As the cold wind made her eyes water, she knew she could only flee for so long. Thirty billion people occupied every square mile of the planet and on nine hundred artificial islands. Someone would eventually turn her in and earn a reward.

Tears stung her face as she left the lights briefly behind to cross a long bridge to the next city, but she was used to tears. She'd been crying for a while. And now she was fleeing everyone and everything. In a world packed with people, she was alone, and ironically she wished she weren’t. More than anything, she wanted to feel a man with her, beside her, inside her, and enjoy the beautiful feeling of being a woman—of being a human—while she still could.

Her headlight caught the form of someone on the walkway, and she saw it was a man. He was turned facing her, arm extended, thumb out. She let up on the accelerator and eased the bike to the side of the road, stopping just past him. Her heart was already racing because of what she was doing, but now it pounded harder as he jogged quickly to her. She looked over and saw he was handsome, about thirty, and his eyes widened as he beheld her. She knew she was beautiful, but it excited her to see him admiring her.

He straddled the seat behind her, wrapping his arms around her. He clasped his hands beneath her breasts and pushed into them, and it felt good. "Where are you headed?" she said.

"City 1138," he said. "Sector 42."

She revved the bike and took off.

* * *

He had a typical one-room apartment on the seventieth floor. He offered her a drink, they made small talk, and she flirted shamelessly. Eventually their clothes came off and they had fantastic sex that utterly liberated her mentally. It was overpowering to realize just what her body was capable of—even though the Authority would change all that when they found her, no matter her wishes.

When it was over, she didn't mind when he pulled her close to cuddle with him. She rested her head on his chest, thinking about everything and what her next move was, as he held her.

Presently, he said, "You're running from the Authority, aren't you? You're thirty-five?"

She nodded her head against his chest.

She felt him shift position beneath her. "They'll find you, you know."

"I know. I just can't do it. I'd rather die." She kissed his chest, ran her hand across his belly. "You could hide me here."

"They do regular checks. If I got caught, they'd call me in now. I have five years left. I’d like to have that time.”

"You could have me anytime you want. It was so wonderful with you... I just don't want it to end."

"It isn't sex with me you don't want to end," he said softly. "It's... well, everything."

They lay in silence, and she drifted towards sleep. But suddenly, the door chime sounded, and she came awake.

"Authority!" barked a voice outside. "Open up!"

She came to her feet and whirled to face her lover, her eyes wide. He looked genuinely sorry. "I hit my alert beacon. I'm really sorry. But it's the law, and they'll give me an extra year for turning you in."

"Bastard!" she screamed, even as the Authority overrode the lock and opened the door.

* * *

She woke, strapped to the table in the all-white processing center. She'd already been tranquilized into helpless relaxation. She could barely move.

The medic leaned over her. "Ah, you're awake. Pursuant to International Law, and upon attaining your thirty-fifth birthday, you’re to undergo Amputation.”.

"Nooo," she said weakly. "It’s my body..."

She felt the needle in her arm, imagined the nanobots swarming through her system, doing their job...

"We all get thirty-five years,” he said. “The rest of your life has to be this way..."

* * *

She was sent to a colony a hundred miles away. She cried for days, but they said everyone did.

She mentally commanded the hover platform to float outside in the sun and stare off at the cities surrounding her. Her long red hair had been chopped very short--a necessity now. She knew, intellectually, that this was the only way to reduce the space and resources each person took up without executing the masses, but she still hated it.

She spun her hover platform about to survey the thousands of others just like her floating, moving, talking, relaxing. She hoped someday it all wouldn't seem to creepy.

She thought of the young man, whose name she never knew. That final sex had been beautiful. Hard and tender, fast and slow. Wet, noisy, full of oohs and ahhs and cries of pleasure. His grunts and her moans; his hollers and her screams. She longed for the chance to enjoy those sensations again, but she knew those days were gone. Al she had were sweet, painful memories.

She willed her hover platform to float back to her building. She weaved her way through the thousands of people—or what was left of them. Their disembodied heads, connected to their hover platforms, were all that remained.

She floated her own head back inside to cry some more. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short-stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.