Here is random challenge I came across on a really cool writer's blog called Terrible Minds. (http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/05/30/flash-fiction-challenge-random-title/)
The challenge was using a random number generator to generate 2 random numbers that added up to two random words. You take those 2 words and put them together and you have to make a story from it using 1000 words. The challenge was set for 1 week to make the story.
Here it is, for all you all to read. (sorry if there are grammatical mistakes - it was not edited.) It's the story of the Narex Brothers in a tale called The Cackling Gunslingers.
The air was stale as the rustle of leaves could be heard alongside the trailing voices of the quickly retreating townsfolk. A man housing a newly bought six shooter in his holster, walked away quickly and disappeared into the shadows of the nearby alleyway.
The smell of gunpowder alongside the essence of pine needles and dirt wafted and intermingled throughout the dust-laden breeze of the dusk afternoon. The crowd had now completely dispersed and gone their separate ways with fear and random looks glaring and sprouting over their shoulders as they went. A bullet in the back would be a horrible thing, but to most, it would be expected.
The Narex Brothers had a reputation of crimes of the vicious and cowardly in the years leading up to their hanging. They had created a stir in society throughout the area that made them heavily feared around the outskirts of the Spark Basin and into the valley of Crown Canyon. Even out to the upper banks of the Scorched Tree River, their legend had instilled fear into the locals there. Their multitude of crime locations blanketed the West in such great ground coverage, that people were afraid to be out at night for fear of their encounter, their thievery, and their own demise and judgment from the two mysterious demon souls. When the nights were so still that the moon almost lit up the silence, the townsfolk swore they could hear their horrid cackle in the howling wind. Ever so haunting. Ever so chilling.
The brothers stood and glared at the fleeting townsfolk as they retreated to their homes on the edge of town. Their torn and dirty stetsons darkened their faces where even the vision of their red eyes could not be seen. Just two pitch black faces staring out from hulking bodies of pure evil. They hadn’t moved since that fateful bullet had been shot as both apparitions stood completely still and next to each other in devilish stances. They hovered over the lifeless body of town sheriff Jackson Thorn. The standoff was quick and unexpected. The shots were quick and sharp. The Narex Brothers were so fast that their movements were as ghostly as they appeared. The one known as Jed, walked up to the body of Sheriff Thorn and nudged him in the back with his black boot. Sheriff Thorn was as dead as the departed souls in Rever Cemetery. With his brother Mart watching the crowd with a frozen demeanor, Jed reached down and grasped the star-shaped Sheriff’s badge from the chest of the body and ripped it from its spot with rage-like force. The wool fibers, around where the badge had sat, were now jutting and sprawled out from the newly gaping hole in Sheriff Thorns’ shirt. They looked very reminiscent of the legs of a spider. Jed placed the badge in his left breast pocket of his tattered jacket as both men grasped a leg of Sheriff Thorn as they turned and started to drag him towards Rever Cemetery.
Night time had started to fall as the two feared apparitions were over halfway to Rever Cemetery, which lay across town past the old water tower and the grain mill. Expressionless in their movements, but very precise with their mission, the Narex Brothers dragged the body of Sheriff Thorn towards his new resting place and eternal damnation. Each one of their steps clanked a dissonant ping of spurs into the wind. Their boots, muddy with the dirt of the dead, were worn down on the tips and drastically weathered from the years since the hanging. It was said the depths of hell singed the ends of their boots as they hung from a tree on the banks of the River Styx. Their eternity consisted of hanging from a noose from that very branch, swaying and kicking as they struggled to gain footing, just barely able to tread the ends of their boots in the hellish waters. It was even said that Charon, when transporting the newly damned souls down the river in his ferry, would sometimes cut them free just to see them drown and reappear as they fell from the sky as the rope broke their fall and re-broke their necks.
They made their way slowly past the water tower now. The wooden cask towered above the town and leaned to one side as the noise of constant drips accompanied the night’s calmness. A small dog was lapping up water in a eroded hole next to one of the posts. Each time a downpour would roll through town, water would cascade over the side and splash down next to the post creating a waterhole for any eager animal passing by. The dog looked up as the two apparitions passed by and it froze in its spot. Only its eyes followed the two brothers. It waited for them to drag the body of Sheriff Thorn past the hole and then took off across the dusty street and hunched down and crawled under the boards of the town saloon. It turned around underneath the boards and it’s face could be seen facing out towards the street, cowering and shivering with nervousness and fear.
The Narex Brothers finally reached the wrought iron gates of Rever Cemetery and kicked them open with the heels of Sheriff Thorn’s boots like a battering ram. Passing under the gargoyle head at the gates, they veered to the left dragging the body behind them. Majority of the gravestones were broken and crooked from the harsh weather and shifting earth over the years. The two brothers rounded the corner and followed the dusty path towards the old tree at the top of the hill. Once they reached the base of the tree, they both let go of Sheriff Thorn’s legs at the same time as they slammed into the earth with a loud thud. The old town tree was known as The Devil’s Tree by the locals because all the hangings of the most extreme outlaws had been performed in it’s branches.
The two apparitions both stared down to the broken gravestone at their feet. The stone in completion read:
Here lies the two demon souls of Jed and Mart Narex
This tree damned them to the depths of Hades for all eternity
A man can change his ways, but his evil intent will always remain
I fear the day I meet them again, for I wielded the rope they hung
A brothers love is always strong, but for reasons stronger I've overcome.
A clap of thunder boomed out of nowhere and a crack of lightning streaked down from the heavens and struck the trunk base of the tree. A smolder of smoke permeated from the mark in the tree’s base as a swift gust swept it away and into the night air. The two brothers were gone and along with them the body of Sheriff Thorn.
The moon peaked its bright face out from behind a gathering of dark clouds and shined through the town with its brilliant white light. The silence was so still and stale that for a few brief moments the branches of The Devil’s Tree seemed to whine and creak even without the help of the wind.
With a strong and unexpected gust, the horrid cackling laughter of three could faintly be heard in the night breeze.
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