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Fiction, flash fiction, short stories, short story, story, writing
A man and a woman, both wearing smart suits, got out of a car and looked up at the building in front of them. Yellow streetlights cast an eerie glow across the pavement.
“A furniture store. It’s a furniture store?”
The woman sighed and lit a cigarette. “How very astute of you,” she replied sarcastically. “Not many people would have figured that out so quickly.”
The man looked at her, looked at the store, then looked back at her. “Seriously? This is it? I mean, come on!”
She leaned back against the car and blew a smoke ring. “It can’t all be mansions and castles, you know. You want to be in this business, sometimes you’re going to have to deal with a terraced house, a bungalow or even a furniture store.”
He rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. It can’t take long at least. What’s the deal?”
She took a notebook out of her jacket pocket and consulted it, speaking with her cigarette gripped tightly in the corner of her mouth.
“The usual, poltergeist activity. They haven’t been able to sell a stick of furniture for over a week, ghost snatches anything that you try to take out of the store. Owner’s losing money hand over fist and wants it sorted out as quickly and as cheaply as possible. That’s where you come in.”
She held out a bunch of keys. The man took them, looking at them with a mixture of disgust and frustration. “So I’m the cheap option? Great. Thanks for being so careful to point that out.”
She laughed. “Give it time, junior. Once you build up a reputation like your daddy’s, you’ll get the big, glamorous jobs and the big bucks to go with ’em. It’ll probably only take you ten, fifteen years.”
“Woo,” he replied in a deadpan voice that showed no excitement whatsoever, “I can’t wait.”
He went to the back of the car and got a small suitcase out of the trunk. “One furniture-obsessed poltergeist,” he said, slamming the trunk shut. “How hard can it be?”
The woman opened the car door and started to get in. “I’ll give you three hours,” she said. “If you’re done sooner, call me.”
He stared at her. “You’re not coming in?”
She shut the door and lowered the window. “Wouldn’t be cheap with my charge per hour, would it? This is your first solo ghost bust. Enjoy it. Don’t break too much stuff.”
She drove off, leaving him standing in front of the haunted furniture store with his suitcase full of gadgetry.
“How hard can it be,” he muttered nervously as he walked up to the door.
© Kari Fay
The Best Place By The Fire 
Usually I feel satisfied at the end of your stories. This time, I want that guy to go in there and whip that poltergeist! Ha! Maybe that shows that you have my interest. You do. Don’t take my comments too seriously. I’m a novice. You amaze me with your ability to write stories so quickly. I bet this one could end up longer with a little more time spent on it. What could this guy possibly do? I want to know.
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You’re right, this is a story that I think I could take later on and spin out into something bigger, however at the same time sometimes I like to leave the ending up to the reader. You could imagine him storming in there and whipping the poltergeist with ease- another reader might like to imagine something completely different. This way, everybody can be happy with their ending!
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I see your point. This is what I usually do at the end. You leave it a bit open and it works very well. I guess I just got excited about this one, anticipation. Thanks for sharing.
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