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Set your entire story in a car, train, or plane.

Posted in Short Story on Mar 7, 2025

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✍️ 145 stories

Car Ride

Submitted to Contest #293

Car Ride The trunk’s lid slammed, forcing me to yank my head down, and I screamed. Well, I tried to at least, but the musty gag shoved to the back of my mouth held in every bit of the sound, swirling it around into a ferocious panic as it reverberated through the bones of my head. All around me the air was nothing but black. A black so thick I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. My hands were actually taped together behind my back, stopping me from testing my theory, but I knew it to be true anyway. The black was so thick I could fee...

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Cart 23

Submitted to Contest #293

She swallows hard. Her throat is tight, raw, like she’s been screaming, even though she hasn’t made a sound. The train keeps jerking, the metal frame rattling like it’s barely holding itself together. The flickering lights drill into her skull, buzzing, humming, never stopping. The voices around her blend into a shapeless mass of noise—too loud, too sharp, too wrong.It never stops.The fluorescent hum is under her skin, vibrating in her bones, needling its way through her skull like a drill boring into her head. The artificial brightness sear...

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Truth Or Lie.

Submitted to Contest #293

Set your entire story in a car, train, or plane Truth or LieBy Lucy AppadooCatarina sat in the back seat of the car as she gazed through the car window with twitchy fingers, bated breath and scattering thoughts. Something was on her mind while her and her family left their vacation spot at the seaside resort in Mondello, Italy. Catarina sat in the back with her twin sister, Louise, while her father drove. Her mother sat in the passenger seat. The resort lay between Monte Pellegrino and Capo Gallo, and was considered the most luxurious in Si...

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Recruitment

Submitted to Contest #293

The interior was lavishly decorated, a stark contrast to the rugged exterior. Polished wood panels gleamed under the soft glow of brass sconces, casting warm light over plush, velvet-upholstered seats. Everything about the space exuded wealth and power, a silent testament to the influence of the Empire. The rhythmic chug of the train beneath them was steady, almost hypnotic, as it pulled away from the station, leaving the familiar behind. Liam’s senses were overwhelmed as he took in the grandeur of the compartment. The air was thick with the...

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The Last Days

Submitted to Contest #293

Enderton Valley It has been 46 years since I last visited this town. Not many people have heard about it, and justifiably so. There’s really nothing extraordinary that goes on around here. It's the typical “everybody knows everyone” sort of town with a couple of local stores that you wonder how are still in business. People’s lives here involve a very mundane routine till the moment they eventually decide to move somewhere far away. Lost within this world and situated in the middle of nowhere, it felt like this town just never found its pur...

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If Only Love Was Enough

Submitted to Contest #293

"Get in the car, I can tell we both need this." Michael says as he looks over at the girl he loved and could see her mind was too much for her tonight. Alyse nodded her head and reached over grabbing her favorite hoodie of his. Anytime the demons in their head got too loud they would go on a car ride. They always said late night car rides were their therapy sessions. They would take turns picking a song, with the windows down so they could feel the fresh air on their skin. Between each song selection they would share a small piece of what wa...

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to the end of the line

Submitted to Contest #293

When I was a child, I loved trains. Pretty typical little boy enchantment, I think; wooden tracks and tiny metal wheels, a hundred different configurations across my bedroom floor with the train-track pattern carpet. We lived in the countryside, and the trains only ran through the city, so seeing the real thing on a rare outing was like Christmas and birthdays combined. I remember even when I got older that my mother and I would stop at the side of the footpath to watch as they shot over the tracks. I never liked Thomas the tank engine, thou...

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Death Management

Submitted to Contest #293

The first thing I noticed when I boarded the bus was that the driver’s belly was the size of a watermelon. I quickly averted my gaze and handed her the ticket. It wasn’t nice to stare. I plopped down in an empty seat. It was quiet on the bus. I looked over my shoulder. A woman wearing scrubs hunched over a textbook sat in the middle. A boy with his hood up sat by himself in the back, looking out the window at the decrepit skyscrapers. Pitter patters of rain tapped on the bus. Distant thunder boomed. “Gas masks on!” barked the driver into her...

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The Commuter and the Bearer of Joy

Submitted to Contest #293

Shari walked calmly toward the train station while everyone around her was a blur of activity. People almost ran her over in their quest to catch the train idling on the tracks. Shari was almost tempted to slow her steps to force the frustration of those around her, but it might be too early to be that petty. She readjusted her laptop bag on her shoulder and took measured steps toward the escalator, positioning herself on the right side and remaining stationary. It was an unspoken rule that the people on the right of the escalator, like the ...

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Trapped

Submitted to Contest #293

He is sitting in a carriage, jostled by every irregularity on the dirt road, the rhythmic clip-clop of horse hooves from up ahead drowning out the birdsong endemic to the woodland landscape surrounding him. The air is heavy with moisture, and every inhalation he takes carries a trace of the muskiness worn into the leather seats by countless passengers who’ve ridden this ferry from town to nowhere. Beads of sweat dot his face and the faces of the other two passengers sitting across from him, despite the breeze passing through the open sides o...

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Blue Line

Submitted to Contest #293

Middle of the afternoon, a typical summer day in Chicago. Eighty-three degrees, bright sunshine, a very light Gulf breeze in the air.And there I stood, in the sultry air on the Rosemont platform near O’Hare Airport, waiting for a Blue Line train to take me to the Loop. I was here to cover a media conference as a photographer at McCormick Place. Chicago’s CTA system is very efficient, allowing you to get around without a car, able to whisk you downtown from the big airport in under an hour.There hadn’t been much going in my life of late. I wa...

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Confessions of a drifting mind

Submitted to Contest #293

Today is March 13, 2025. I am stressedI am bald, so I do not have to worry about hair loss from all my stress. That is the silver lining, quite literally because I see lines of white hair on my faceAn average looking bald, brown guy, with white hair on his face does not look Good. But I have made my peace with my looks. But I have bigger problems. I will turn 40 in exactly 52 days.In 52 days, I will be 40 YEARS OLDIn less than 20 days I will also have our first child.Turning 40 is stressfulTurning 40 in a country where your President doesn’...

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Aboriginal Vision

Submitted to Contest #293

Bert was on an installation team of General Dynamics engineers who were implementing a computer system upgrade at Pine Gap, a joint Australian-US satellite tracking station, located 19 kilometers (12 mi) south-west of Alice Springs, Australia, that employs about 700 Americans and Australians. She had been at the Joint Defence Space Research Facility for only three days and the engineering team she was on was exhausted. One of their crates containing critical computer equipment had been smashed by a forklift driver in California and they...

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Red-Eye Threat

Submitted to Contest #293

The overhead light flickered as the plane rocked gently, somewhere over the Atlantic. Ryan shifted in his seat, stretching his legs under the tray table. It was a red-eye, the kind where most passengers tried to sleep through the monotonous hum of the engines.But he couldn’t sleep. Not with 37B beside him.She hadn’t spoken much since boarding in New York, just a quick nod when he let her slide into the window seat. She wore a gray sweater, her dark hair falling over her shoulder as she stared out into the night. Nothing unusual. Except for t...

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January 21

Submitted to Contest #293

It was another one of those days.  The rain was pouring down like iron sheets, the train had come half an hour late, and I had lost my wallet in the station bathroom. In moments like these, you truly wonder whether a higher power was out to get you.  When the train finally pulled up at half past one, I glared it down. Most people would’ve been blown away by the pristine white sheen, the unnatural silence of the engine, or the blast of subzero aircon that streamed out of the open doors. But not me. Twenty-one years of life had taugh...

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