Fast & Short is a flash fiction collaboration between eight Literate Ape writers. Each was tasked with authoring one piece of flash fiction that would be combined to create a single short story. The writers’ flash fiction needed to serve two purposes: 1. Stand alone as a unique piece of flash fiction and 2. Serve as a vehicle for building a larger story and driving that story forward. Over the next two weeks, Literate Ape will publish all eight flash fiction stories individually with a link to the growing compilation. We hope you enjoy this literary experiment.
—DH2, co-editors

By Dana Jerman

SHE REMEMBERED IT WAS A FULL MOON right before she got in. As soon as they pulled out of the uptown apartment parking lot, all packed in and heading out to a dark graveyard in rural nowhere, she wanted out of the car. But she couldn’t say so. She was hanging out. This is what you did when you hung out and had idyll time. Suddenly, she wanted to be alone. She was hating herself for not turning around and walking back down the hill toward home. Her eyes grew big and dark. Her mouth pulled in with silence.

It would be way too easy to pick a fight with these jerks. Third year of college and these were her friends? She looked around the cramped vehicle. One of them was her boyfriend, the one behind the wheel with the stupid haircut. The others were coupled up — dumb, cute heads in the back just along for the ride. Didn’t they all have homework or something? She didn’t know these people. Who was she for keeping company with them?

The lights of town faded and the October moon took over smoothing silvery shadows across the rural landscape while she waited, spoiling.

To be continued…