literature

Sock Stealers (Original Flash Fic)

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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

March 14, 2017
Sock Stealers (Original Flash Fic) by LeaderPinhead
Featured by doughboycafe
LeaderPinhead's avatar
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Literature Text

    Lee wasn’t crazy.

    It didn’t matter what his third grade teacher had ever said or what the store clerk down the street thought. Heck, it didn’t matter that his mom had laughed at him over the phone. He wasn’t crazy!

    Lee glared at the exterminator he had hired. The guy only stared back with wide eyes. Lee knew the guy was thinking the same thing that they all did: that he was crazy. He wasn’t! “I…what did you say your problem was?”

    “I need you to get rid of the little people stealing my socks.”

    The exterminator blinked again and shifted the small tank of poison he had carried up to the apartment. “Umm…yeah, Shoo Pests, Fly Away doesn’t specialize in…little people.”

    Lee took a deep breath and stepped aside for the exterminator to enter the apartment. The guy didn’t move. “Then just get in here and pretend you’re spraying for roaches. You do specialize in that right?”

    The guy slowly nodded and stepped into the room. Lee crossed his arms and glared at the man as he gaped at the mess that filled Lee’s apartment. Lee didn’t feel an ounce of embarrassment for the grease stained pizza boxes stacked in the corner or the shredded pieces of yesterday’s paper stuffed into the empty plant feeder on the couch.

    It wasn’t the guy’s job to judge, which Lee was quick to remind him of. “The problem’s in the laundry room, right inside my dryer.”

    The exterminator jumped and scrambled to keep up with Lee as he stomped towards the area in question. Lee pointed at the open dryer and half-filled laundry basket sitting in front of it. The exterminator blinked and fiddled with the nozzle of the tank. “Uh, your clothes are still—”

    “I know.”

    “This stuff doesn’t—”

    “Just spray the goddamn dryer already!”

    Lee nodded as the poor guy didn’t waste any more time, aiming the nozzle directly into the dryer and releasing the odorless toxin. Once the dryer and his clothes had been thoroughly drenched, Lee pointed at the basket. “That too.”

    “Um…” The exterminator snapped his mouth shut when Lee’s glare returned. He adjusted his hold on the tank and lightly sprayed the top layer of clothes. When Lee’s glare persisted, he drenched the basket as thoroughly as he had the dryer. “Is that—”

    “Yeah, you can go.” Lee casually walked back through the apartment, grabbing his wallet from the counter as he passed. He pulled out a set of crisp bills and gave it to the exterminator with a smile. “Nice doing business with you!”

    The exterminator took the money and shuffled out the door with wide eyes. Lee didn’t care—the guy could go running up and down the street saying he was a loon, and he still wouldn’t care. Lee sighed and collapsed onto his worn sofa, propping his feet up on the heavily stained coffee table.

    His problem was finally solved, and that was all that mattered.

    A soft snickering made him shoot up from the couch. He grabbed a nearby beer bottle and chunked it at the cracked door of the laundry room. The moment the bottle shattered against the floor, a tiny body shot out of the room. The little man stopped short of disappearing behind the kitchen counter and gave Lee a savage grin before waving the purple and blue sock above his head and disappearing.

    Lee screamed as three more little bodies appeared out of the laundry room and followed the first, all carrying different colored socks. The final one that exited the room stopped where the first one had to give Lee a happy smile. “You have to try harder! We brownies have long become immune to poisons.”

    High-pitched cackles nearly drowned out the scream Lee released. 

I've always wanted to write something like this! :D Back in the day when I still read about twenty books a day, I read Tithe by Holly Black and became fascinated with the urban fantasy genre. This isn't nearly as dark as her novels were, but I thought it would be funny (even if it's not original) to write about little brownies who have long grown tired of helping around the house and now wreak havoc.

This was written for theWrittenRevolution's A Storm of Stories: Week 1, mainly because I had a lot of fun writing for their genre contest last year. :D
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barefootliam's avatar
Hahahaha that’s fabulous. And inspired me to start writing a short story, i'll see what happens with it :D