Chris Wagner

“Sketches” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #97

My superhero costume sent electric tingles through my body when I stepped through the secret door in Drew Kirby's closet. The tail piece of the spandex suit, ordinarily stiff and bulky, seemed lighter. Its fur stood on end like a child with his hands on a Van De Graaff generator. The squirrel ears on my head wiggled as if alive. The slight brush of by boyfriend's body against the tail, and the vibrations of his voice, set off new waves of tingling. "What is this place?" I slowed my breathing, focusing on my dusty surr...

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“Ashley” by Chris Wagner

Thin, chocolate skinned, thirty something. She came out of the apartment next door with a plump cairn terrier on a leash. My heart pounded as I came up the sidewalk, nervously raising my hand. "Hi." I thought I saw her smirk beneath her face mask when she waved back. "Hey." She kept walking. I opened my mouth to say something, but the words died in my throat.  If only I had some excuse, some reason to grab her attention! She turned a corner, walked up the street, not even giving me a second glance. I sighed,...

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“The Kirby House” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #96

A galaxy of superheroes silently greeted me as my flats clopped into the attic bedroom. A man-skunk statue roared at me from a sloping rear wall festooned with framed comic art. Space Rabbit aimed a blaster pistol at me from beneath a Kerpow Comics lampshade, a display of colorful action figures rotated behind glass like a Peewee's Playhouse set piece. My girlfriend's spandex squirrel costume purred as she approached a bed draped in a Kerpow character bedspread. "Is this a kid's room?" "Dunno..." I played with her costum...

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“The Dungeon” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #96

I regained consciousness cuffed to brackets on a clammy stone wall. My newly acquired petite breasts bobbed teasingly with each inhalation, but lay out of reach of my hands. Bodily things tingled and stirred beneath my pinafore in ways I'd never experienced. "Nice. Still think the view would be better from my old body." I stretched out my stockinged legs, letting the dress ride up. "Especially that part." I wiggled backwards to give my arms some slack. Sweat dripped down the dungeon walls, remind me of my th...

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“Slave” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #96

Oil patterns shined off the faceless black head of the thing holding my leash. I struggled with my dog collar, but my captor's bulky black spacesuit concealed strong muscles. I grabbed at the collar clip, pulling down to get more air. I stumbled through rows of bright multicolored vendor tents. The whiff of stale onions and Zevo bug spray assaulted my nostrils. Extraterrestrial food smells. I yelled for help, but the ones within earshot only stared and laughed. A hairy termite monster pointed at me. My leather ...

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“Empties” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #95

The doors shone unnaturally bright in the shadowy recess of the dripping cavern. One bore a fanciful round shape, covered in arcane designs in ornate gold leaf, the other a plan looking but polished wooden square with a number sign on the door. I frowned at the latter, with its ugly push handle, the mystifying label: `WARD 32.' "Gearhead, which one yields the treasure?" My clockwork mechanical companion crossed his shiny chrome arms, looking from one door to the other. "They both contain treasure, my captain. Unfortun...

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“Cyrano” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #92

Candles flickered in the Shadow King's throne room, illuminating walls and vaulted ceiling surfaced entirely from skeletons of innocent victims. Their blood gushed from grotesque magical fountains. I could see nothing out the windows - the Shadow King's power had filled the daytime sky with winged man-like abominations and insects in such great number that it blotted out the sun. The throne room itself, bereft of its owner's dark magic, had the spooky dimness of a cavern. It smelled just about as bad as it looked: Rotti...

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“Bea Aglacya” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #90

I lay in a hospital bed with a mattress the texture of a bunch of flowers, framed with something like rubbery vines, boa constrictor thick, with metal facets. It seemed like someone had grown it in a lab somewhere, stabilizing it with machine parts. Pictures and other decorations hung from walls resembling pollen under a microscope. Homelike, to an alien. A guinea pig-like nose and mouth wiggled on the nurse's hairless humanoid face. Her mouse ears twitched. "How are you feeling?" I stared into the Abreya's goat ...

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“Long Live the King” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #89

If Mom fully understood my fixation with Googly Goose and Friends, I doubt she would have left me alone in the house so much. Mom was a visiting home health nurse, and a single parent, which means I spent a lot of time alone in front of the television. I must have watched every episode of that puppet show. Googly is Canadian. He lives in a town with twenty five other alliteratively named puppets, one for each letter of the alphabet. It has nothing to do with the Google website, except for a few in-jokes. Mom overcompensa...

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“Dude” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #88

My bonfire crackled, sending dancing sparks between the twisting oaks of Death Forest. Fully orchestrated music flowed through the creaking boughs, a song I'd heard at least ten times since I'd arrived. Sages called it Ballad of Death Forest. Rather uninspired, if you ask me. I'd once tried to locate the string quartet, but it only led me to a tree near a goblin encampment, where I ended up hog tied inside a tent until Dude rescued me. Dude! Such an exotic name! I had to find him again, no matter the cost! I un...

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“Happy New Year” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #87

Every day at The Compound felt like an enormous April Fool's joke. More than a year ago today I had become imprisoned in this place, a collection of garishly colored townhomes situated in the apparent middle of nowhere. The interior of each building resembled a hotel room, and in fact we had room service. Although for the most part a convenient luxury, contraband seemed to walk off on its own, and April 1st, your entire home became one large booby trap. In the morning, room service awakened me with a Super-Soaker, and after I t...

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“Spring At The Compound” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #86

Spring Harvest Festival had arrived at The Park again, the watered down Easter-without-religion distraction they established to keep the peasants of The Compound docile. I paid no attention to their bright banners, light soulless jazz, or the pastel clothing of the milling throng. My attention focused on the brass plaque they had beside the Parrott guns in the Civil War display, far from the central plaza. The Mayor wouldn't advertise secret tunnels out of The Compound on a map like this, of course, but a trained eye could see ce...

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“Alone in Bencap” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #85

My alien girlfriend and I lay side by side on a giant Victoria Water Lily thing in an indoor lake, staring up at the starry night sky. "What do you think of Bencap?" she asked. I thought about it, but couldn't quite come up with an answer. Bencap was the kind of city I'd always dreamed of visiting ever since I was a kid watching Star Wars, but not everything was that fun. To make a long story short, I'm an engineer who used to live in a little town called Cole Camp. An alien spaceship crash landed in the woods a few mile...

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“Emojti” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #84

Dogos Facility M-39 Qaltozz Kaybok System Jutrogol Planetoid Please excuse writing, I was in a hurrah. I gotta get up at the asscrack of dawn. 12/31/2322 Dear Pal, This here's a shit way to start out the New Year. This horseshit is not what I signed up for. Don't ever work for no dam alien company unless you really like rocks, and wanna live like fucking Yoda and Luke Skywalker on extra terrestricle walrus milk, this is for the birds. I failed the examnations. Too many dam questions about alien currancy, marrage law...

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“Date at the Gejzol” by Chris Wagner

Submitted to Contest #83

The purple waves of the Rocbish sea crashed on ash white shores. Unclothed or swim harness clad furry aliens sunbathed, frolicked in the spray. I paddled after my alien girlfriend until my feet touched sand. An eel thick as a rainbow python brushed up against my leg. Lucky it was friendly. I waded toward dry land. Clouds obscured planet Pathilon's giant moon, and flocks of dark winged shaped flew past, sounding like a flock of yipping dogs. The creatures, up close, looked like bats with an enormous eye for a head...

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