Runner-up of the Flash Fiction Competition 2020

2nd Prize

Denny Jace

The Artist

The warehouse nestles in the corner of a derelict industrial estate. Ghosts of businesses are sealed tightly behind rusting roller shutter doors. Car tyres are strangled with weeds; tides of cigarette butts and litter are swept high against kerbs.

Inside, Marty lay prone on the mattress. It wasn’t damp or stained like you see in the movies, but it was used. He pulled his knees up to his chest, tugged the sleeping bag open and then stretched himself into it. The nylon felt cold through his jeans, the zip was broken and flapped open like a flaccid brown tongue. It only came up as far as his middle, child size. He’d been specific about that.

From his lying position he watched the strip light flutter in the roof. Black splodges of congealed moth carcasses dappled the beam. He could hear the frantic scratching of claws as the birds chased each other on the corrugated roof. Perhaps he should suspend a poster from the girders. Something to dent the boredom, to stimulate an active young mind. The dentist had a Find Wally one, and in all the time it took for him to have a filling he never found Wally, not once.

Beside the mattress, on the gritty concrete floor, lay three comics. Two were Marty’s old Beano’s, well thumbed through his own childhood, the other he’d bought from the newsagents with a gaudy plastic toy cellotaped to the front. He imagined awkward small hands, eager to play, ripping at the gift.

He wriggled free from the sleeping bag, replacing himself with a small cuddly rabbit wearing a bow tie and stitched grin. For the sake of symmetry, he angled a water bottle between a packet of Jacobs cream crackers and Haribo’s.

The metal chain he’d installed, handcuffed to a supporting beam, trailed just far enough for the wearer to reach the toilet bucket and a single toilet roll.

He surveyed the scene, felt the swell of pride, ‘The Abandoned Child’; his latest work of art.

Marty could hear the sound of approaching cars. He’d scattered clues like Gretel’s breadcrumbs but was surprised how fast they’d found him. Adrenaline stole his breath making him lightheaded and dizzy; terror of exposure tickled his nerves.

Muffled voices seeped through folds in the corrugated door, “elusive artist Marty Moore…unveiling his latest provocative artwork...clues lead us here’’. As the door burst open and the photographers fell in, camera bulbs flashing, Marty slipped out of a back door.

Hours have passed but he sits patiently in his car, watching the last stragglers leave his exhibition. There’s a buzz in the air, he’d caused quite a stir, shown how the human psyche feasts off the macabre; a parent’s worst nightmare.

He lights a cigarette, the physical act calms his breathing, grounds him. ‘Welcome home,’ he says over his shoulder. But the back seat of the car is empty and from the boot he hears the persistent scratching of small finger nails trying to claw their way out.

Author Bio:

Denny Jace has been writing Flash Fiction since June 2019 and has just started work on her first novel.
 
She lives in Shropshire and spends most of her days reading her stories to Maude and Stanley, her two faithful dogs.
 
Her stories have won and been commended in Retreat West, Lightbox Originals, Earlyworks Press, Cranked Anvil, Grindstone Literary. Published in Ellipsis Zine, Capsule Stories and Cabinet of Heed.
 
Twitter @dennyjace