Ari Jackson

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2019

Stories (9)

9 Stories

247 karma pts

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“The Boy, The Bear, The Man” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #239

When the missiles stopped raining on the grounds of Livernois, this house was the last to stand. When The Others hit The Shell gas station, it took out the whole strip. And when the shops were crumbled rocks on an unleveled ground, they took the houses, and the school, and the park. Laura says the people get off the main road, to walk the disheveled streets, and see it in all its glory, the old house standing tall, alone. She says if the boy wasn’t going to live there, then the city would take it, and make it some sort of landmark. Something...

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“Sunrise in the East” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #138

Daddy said the sun stopped burning when the baby died. Momma said it rises in the East. Daddy says when a boy sees death for the first time, it makes them a man, no matter what. He said words like heartache and pain, and explained they’re devils who come to collect the best of you when you meet loss, and you’ve gotta fight them till forever to get just a little bit of the good back. He said most people lose, while others pretend to have won, when really they just changed convincingly enough to make believe they’re back to normal, when real...

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“O-Hi-” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #97

“O,” Enoch mumbled. He opened the window after Bas knocked three times, but instead of letting him in, he stood guard over the frame. “Were you going to smash my window in?” “No,” says Bas, crossing his arms behind his back, crossing his fingers on his left hand, and clutching the brick with his right. He lets it fall into the grass when Enoch backs away from the frame, and he crawls through the wood. “I hope you have a reason for being here at four o’clock in the morning,” Enoch says, dragging Bas from his bed, and throwing him into the...

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“Promises” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #65

It was a horrible thing to know you. And a worse thing, to watch you go. In all, you weren’t so terrible, as I originally hoped you to be. Signed, Everett Greyhound. I want to remain a Greyhound, but the others say we’ve kept the name for too long. We will be Quincies now. Emily, Maddox, Harper, Jane. Lewis, Everett Quincy.  We’re moving into werewolf territory. The feud between us has been dead for centuries now, but it is always strange to be the least in a big place. We know people in Ettenberg. A family of wolves who will be our...

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“Apple Picking” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #63

Vernon’s a piece of living shit, and under any other circumstance, I’d cut off my left testicle before forking over any money to support his living. But he’s the only dragon dealer in town. “Well if it ain’t Joffrey Adams,” Clive Atkintyre calls from ten feet away, before he’s all of a sudden here, and’s got his arm around my neck. “Haven’t seen you in this half-a-town in ages! What brings you by this fine evening?”This fine evening’s been polluted with rain, soot, and old homeless men peeing on the church corner as if it’s God’s fault,...

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“Chameleon Tag” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #62

Her throat was overtaken by the taste of a childhood skill. The unmistakable tang of blood and mucus, clot against the back wall of it. Hot air travels up and down its pipe with every pant. She’s tired. She’s been running for hours. But she can’t stop, because she remembered her. Her was the woman from the house, called Elizabeth. Elizabeth was forty three, and worked in an office before she worked here. Her life devoted to milk colored blouses, and coal colored pencil skirts, and red wine lip stain, and whitening strips stapled to her tee...

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“Three o’clock Midnight” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #26

If I cross through Lincoln and Square at three o’clock, and head East for three minutes, I can turn into Aimee’s, and wait there until the next ceasefire. If they shoot till six, I’ll have to risk it, if I plan to get to the venue before dark. It hasn’t snowed all winter, but the lack of it hasn’t stopped the sun from dying early.It’s thirty steps from here till Lincoln, and I’ll arrive to Lincoln by two fifty-four. That’s six minutes until the cease. Everyday at three o’clock, both sides lower their guns in honor of the children lost or gon...

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“The Gift Shop” by Ari Jackson

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #19

Edgar Alan died in 1874, age ten, struck by the back-wheel of a horse drawn buggy. Some say the wheel found a deeper love within the strands of his burnt umber painted, feathery locks, and refused to part with them — for the wheel dragged him across the cobblestone by the knotted locks of his hair, forty-three feet past the starting mark before it finally let go. They say he painted the town red that night. The streaks of blood, splattered where he bounced, but painted beautiful straight lines down where he dragged. Crimson Valley, they call...

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“The Piper” by Ari Jackson

Submitted to Contest #18

Lukas Hitch said the children go missing, because of Captain Arrowood’s train. But not a single train’s run through Smokey Hill, since 1894. All that’s left of them were the old tracks, barely stable, with mud piles and wildflowers grown in between, surrounded by an abandoned wood left barren of a human heart since the 80s when the first child went missing — Arthur Green. The part of town surrounding it was empty by the 90s, after the tenth child went missing — Amelia Bennett. But their captor, was not a train, let alone one belonging to a g...

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Author bio

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Shortlisted 1 story ⭐️

Contest #19
The Gift Shop – read story