Here is a little story I wrote off a prompt from writersdigest.com...I have a few of these under my belt that I will be putting up every now and then.
“You know, when my brother was a kid he had a thunder and lightning response kit under his bed. It had candles, flashlights, bottled water, the whole thing. They should’ve put him in charge of FEMA. He would’ve been on top of his shit I’ll tell you that. I used to make fun of him all the time for it. Well that and his intense fear of the movie E.T. He couldn’t even be near the VHS box for it.”
“Are you going to talk all night?” said Victoria with a bored look on her face just visible past the flickering light of a nearby candle.
“Well what else am I supposed to do? Play solitaire or something?” said Ron, pacing around and wiping the sweat from his balmy palms. “In my family we only played board games when the power was out. Did your family do that too? I can imagine that. Everyone gathered around playing Monopoly, yelling and screaming at each other about the rules.”
“I think you’re scared of the thunder too” said Victoria.
Ron turns around quickly.
“Me? Are you crazy? I’ll go outside right now. You watch. Maybe I’ll just stand under the tree on the front lawn. Oh and hey do we still have those metal hangers? Maybe I’ll just build a helmet out of metal hangers to you know keep my head dry while I’m out there?”
A long pause. And CRASH. A huge burst of lightning slams down nearby and lights up the young couples home like the quick flickering of a strobe light.
“Still wanna go outside slick?” says Victoria with a sly grin on her face.
“Only if you come with me sweetie. Just give me a few extra minutes while I build our metal helmets.”
Suddenly there’s a knocking on the door.
“Wonder who that is?” says Victoria.
“Probably some Jehova’s Witnesses. I hear they like to travel when it looks like a fucking natural disaster movie outside. I’ll get it.”
Ron grabs a candle. One of those scented ones. He treads carefully to the door. Who can this be? They are new to the neighborhood, maybe it’s a neighbor looking to borrow some batteries or something? Ron hopes not. This neighborhood is creepy. One of those cookie cutter, homes from the 50’s. It’s like the neighborhood from the Stepford Wives. The seventies version. Not that crappy new one. These people probably think we’re commies .
Ron reaches the door and the knocks come back. This startles Ron a little bit. “Who am I kidding?” he ponders. “I am such a little bitch. I need to man up or shut up. I got a house and wife now. I’m going to be strong and if this crazy person pulls any shit I will roundhouse kick them without any hesitation.”
With that, Ron opens the door slowly to reveal an attractive blonde women under an enormous umbrella. Her hair is pulled way up. She looks like she can be Elvis’s girlfriend with that hair.
“Hi there neighbor. I’m Kerry Jensen from right across the street there. What’s your name?”
Victoria walks over to the door to see who it is.
“Hi my name is Ron Fasano, this is my wife Victoria.”
There is an awkward silence.
“Oh excuse me please come in” says Ron. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Oh no that’s ok. I actually just came by to invite you two over to our house for dinner tonight. “
“Oh we—“
“We’d love to” says Victoria.
Ron looks up and turns a brow at her. Victoria just nods her head at him.
“We’ve got plenty of food at our house. I’m afraid it’ll all go bad so it’ll be a feast!” chuckles this strange woman.
Ron wonders if she should ask her what it was like to be a backup singer for Johnny Cash. “Absolutely ridiculous haircut” he thinks.
“We’ve got macaroni salad, egg salad, tuna salad, tomato salad, potato salad and some German potato salad too. The deli guy says it was good. I aint ever had any German potato salad before. “
Ron makes a face of disgust and lets out between his teeth, “It’s quite good. Looks like it’s gonna be a uh-salad-y night tonight.” He then lets out the sorriest fake laugh anyone could ever muster from the bank of fake laughs people make.
“Sounds great” says Victoria. “I think we have some wine we can-“
“No!” yells the strange woman at the door in a staccato burst.
“My husband is allergic. He had a bad experience. We have some good brandy at the house though.”
“MMm brandy huh? I’ve been looking to try the stuff since watching “Mad Men”. What a great show. Ever see it?” says Ron trying to make some conversation.
“TV is bad for the eyes. We do have one but we only watch it when the Olympics are on.”
There is another silence.
“Well I guess we’ll be over shortly. We just need to get dressed, my husband has been in sweatpants all day” says Victoria.
“Not all day.”
“That’s fine. We’ll see you two shortly!” says the woman with a wide smile on her face.
Ron closes the door and exhales deeply.
“Well she seems sweet.” Says Victoria.
“Yeah right. She’s a fucking android wife. I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’ve got my suspicions. Oh and she’s married to Dracula. (In a mocking voice Dracula voice) ‘My husband never drinks…wine”.
“Who are you Count Chocula?”
“No, but I wish I was having that for dinner instead of the fucking pound of mayo we’re about to ingest. And why’d you tell her I was wearing sweat pants all day? “
“Cause you were, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve been in pajamas all day too.”
“Alright whatever, let’s do this. Our first dinner as a married couple with another married couple! It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, it’ll be fun. And when we get back we’ll make our way to bed, light some candles, put on that Kenny G album”
They both laugh together.
(In a mocking tone) “I don’t know honey bunny, I’m rather feeling some Michael Bolton, maybe some Phil Collins from the Tarzan soundtrack.”
They laugh again and kiss passionately.
“Ok let me get changed real quick. Also, do you remember if we have any necklaces of garlic left?”
“Very funny.”
After about 15 minutes, the young couple heads out into the heavy storm. Their umbrella gets pulled in every direction and they stay close to each other . Every step they take sends a foot high splash into the air.
“Gah it’s in my socks” yells Victoria.
“Almost there now.”
They arrive at the house and are surprised to see that their power is still on. The rest of the block is pitch black, the only lights coming this house and the people down the street with the solar lights on the front lawn.
They ring the doorbell and it plays Chopin’s “Moonlight Sonata”.
“Creepy” says Ron, “I bet you they have their assistant Igor playing that. It’s not even a doorbell “
“Quiet!”
The door opens slowly and they walk in. The lights in the house are near blinding. There’s Cadillac red colored furniture everywhere. Framed photos of Elvis, decorative Elvis clocks, small busts of Elvis and other memorabilia are scattered everywhere. A felix the cat clock is ticking away on a far wall. They are greeted by a tall, handsome man with slicked back hair, a sharp protruding nose and deep black iris’s in his eyes.
“You must be the Fasano’s! Come on in!”
Ron is surprised he doesn’t have an Eastern European or accent, or maybe even a honkeytonk accent with all the Elvis stuff everywhere.
“My name is Bob, you’ve already met Kerry. How about some brandy for you two?”
Ron and Victoria look at each other and let out a “Sure!” at the same time.
Bob leaves to get the brandy in a crystal bottle set aside on a coffee table.
Ron is nervous. He has no clue what to say about this place. “This is the kind of a shit out of a bad acid trip” he thinks. “I have to say something. Something funny to break the ice.”
“So I’ve never had brandy before. I feel like one of those rich dudes on the Titanic” he chuckles to himself and Victoria looks up at him with amusement.
“Oh, Bob’s great great Grandfather was on the Titanic.”
Ron looks over to Bob who is staring at him with the bottle of brandy in hand.
“Oh my God I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. We just watched the movie again. Actually Victoria made me watch it because I made her watch Robocop so I owed her. I’m so sorry. Sorry. So Elvis fans huh?”
“How can you tell?” says Kerry with an obnoxious squeaky laugh complete with a snort for good measure.
Bob comes over with the drinks. Victoria sips hers and makes a disgusted face. Ron watches this and pats her on the back. He then takes his sip and his eyebrows rise.
“Not bad. I think I like it.”
“Oh hey that’s swell. You know I actually make that in my basement” says Bob.
Ron coughs.
“Oh really? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Probably. Damn good though isn’t it. Just don’t tell the cops, if you get my drift. That bastard Mulraney down the street is looking for any reason to put me away somewhere and throw out the keys.”
Kerry interjects and suggests they sit down for dinner. Ron is relieved to hear this as they are now one step closer to getting the fuck out of there.
They all move to the dining room which is actually pretty normal looking considering what the rest of the house they’ve seen looked like. It has an almost New England summer home feel to it. Very classy. “Probably never used it” thinks Ron.
They all sit down to exactly everything Kerry had described would be available for dinner. Everything is caked in mayo and contains an exorbitant amount of salt.
“Did you make this all yourself Kerry?” asks Victoria.
“You betcha. Everything ‘cept that German patata salad. I got that down at the market.”
“Well it’s all very good thank you.”
Ron is looking around the room. “How’d you to manage to have power through the storm. It looks like the whole town has lost power.”
“Well Ron we have a series of generators running downstairs in case of a power outage. We have a walk-in frigerator downstairs that needs to constantly be running.”
“Why do you have one of those?”
“I’m a poacher Ron. I keep all my meat downstairs. I actually just got back from Zimbabwe yesterday. Some rich English couple hired me to take them into the jungle for a few days and hunt for some game with them. They have no idea how to fire and elephant gun so I do most of the work. Managed to take down a few warthogs and baby leopard. The leopard was an accident though. I was going for the adult leopard but the baby jumped in front of the bullet. Apparently baby leopard is similar to veal, so I can’t let that get rotten with no power running.”
Ron and Victoria’s eyes were now the size of golf balls. They are paralyzed in a state of horror and disgust.
“Well how about some desert? I’ve got a Sara Lee cake in the freezer downstairs!” says Kerry.
“No! That’s ok. We gotta hit the ol’ dusty trail if you know what I mean” says Ron.
Suddenly another enormous crash of lightning. It strikes close to the house and the floor shakes.
“You two can’t leave with the weather being this bad. You mind as well wear metal helmets outside, it’s suicide” says Bob.
There is another awkward silence.
More silence.
The rain beats a little harder outside.
“Do you two swing?” says Kerry.
“We’re going to leave now I think” says Victoria.
Ron is already up and ready to go.
The young couple says “Thank you!” as they escape out towards the front door.
They rush back to the house, completely ignoring the dangerous hurricane conditions outside.
They quickly get to the front door and Ron pulls out his keys. He jostles his coat pockets, then his pants pockets. Their gone.
“Where are my keys! I can’t believe this is happening!”
“Oh wait!” says Victoria. “Remember that bowl by the front door at those fucking weirdos house?”
“No.”
“The one with the little sign that said ‘leave keys here’?”
“You didn’t?”
“I thought that was what we were supposed to do. Kind of like an umbrella bin. I took your keys out of your pocket and put them in. I left mine too. I didn’t even realize.”
Ron immediately leaves the umbrella with Victoria and sprints by himself back to the house across the street. He doesn’t even bother to ring when he gets there. He swiftly opens the door and sees Bob dressed in full Elvis attire and a naked Kerry sitting in the living room.
“I knew you two would come back!” yells Bob.
Ron looks at them in awe. He shakes his head, quickly turns for the bowl but the keys are gone.
“Aw were those your keys. We left them downstairs hun” says Kerry.
The door opens and it is Victoria.
“What’s going on?” she says then looks at the twisted imagery of this crazy couples living room. “What the fuck?” she whimpers.
“Listen why don’t you guys just stay for a little bit and then you can have your keys back. We just want some company.”
Ron and Victoria look at each other. Their heads feel funny. They’re staring at each other now. Double vision kicks in and they both look at each other as if the space behind each other is moving around in some kind of a day-glo pattern.
“The brandy” Ron mutters.
“Bingo!” exclaims Bob. “Now come pull up a seat. Relax a little.”
This all makes sense in a drug induced stupor.
“Sure” the young couple says and they take a seat.
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