A collection of stories concluding with unexpected cliffhangers - HITRECORD

A collection of stories concluding with unexpected cliffhangers

MattConley

Apr 27, 2024

Captivating cliffhangers are found in this collection of Weekly Writing Challenge contributions. The particular prompt was to "Write a short story or script that includes an unexpected cliffhanger ending" — and these all deliver just that, in their own unique ways.

So, first read through these suspenseful short stories, then go add your own HERE.

Kid Klingon

Joe Oct 31, 2014

Weekly Writing Challenge #5 ( contribute here )

My mom and I walked into the waiting area.  She signed me in.  By that age, some of the kids signed themselves in, but I still let my mom do it for me.  I was probably ten.  A dozen or so boys my age (and their moms or guardians) sat waiting as well.  Some were studying their lines.  Some were playing Game Boy.  That was all normal.  But this was not a normal audition.

If you want to be an actor, you have to audition.  No, let me rephrase that.  If you wanted to work as an actor in television and movies in the early nineties, you had to audition.  I started going on auditions when I was five years old.  I’d go on three, four, five of them a week, often two on the same day, after school.  My mom would work on the material with me.  Also she’d drive the car.

Auditions have their ups and downs.  On the one hand, it’s great practice to study and perform all that different material trying out for different roles, day after day.  On the other hand, it frames the whole thing as a competition, a yes-or-no question.  Did I get the part?  Yes or no.  I’m not sure that’s the healthiest attitude for a budding artist to have towards the creative process.  Ideally, art is about self-expression, embracing the present moment, things like that.  Not about winning or losing.

These boys were there to win.  So was I.  It was a cool fucking part.  To play a Klingon!  For those of you who’ve never watched Star Trek, a Klingon is a kind of species that has a body very similar to a human’s, but a head and face that’s pretty different.  Their hairline is way high on their head, like a Samurai, and the top half of their skull ripples into menacing bumps remnant of some kind of dinosaur.  Also they’re the baddest warriors in the known universe.  There had never been a kid Klingon before.  But there was about to be.

When you go on an audition, you never find out until later whether or not you got the part.  After you’re done performing, they say thanks very much, you leave, and you wait.  Usually, you wait for days.  Sometimes you hear back, and most of the time, you don’t.  If you don’t hear back, it means you didn’t get the part.  I’d been doing it for years, so I had gotten used to this.  My mom and I always used to say: “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” meaning don’t get your hopes up about any particular part, but instead let it be a wonderful surprise if it works out.  And that approach worked most of the time.  But like I said, this was not a normal audition.

Today, after performing, they asked us not to leave.  We all stayed.  And we waited while each boy went into the casting director’s office, came out, and sat down as the next boy went in.  It was because of the extensive prosthetic makeup involved in playing a Klingon.  The production schedule was tight, so whoever got the part would have to go into makeup tests that very night.  That meant they were gonna read all of us, and decide on the spot who’d be sent on to makeup.

When I went in, I thought I was pretty good.  I had built up a decently accurate radar for reading a room.  Sometimes I left a room just knowing I was gonna get it, and usually when I felt that way, I was right.  Although sometimes I thought for sure I’d blown it, only to be surprised several days later with good news.  And of course, sometimes I thought it had gone well, but then never got the call I’d been hoping for.  This time, I thought I did a pretty good job, and I thought they liked me, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

I thanked everybody in the room, took my exit, and sat back down with my mom, while the casting director called in the next boy.  We waited.  My mom asked me how I felt about it.  She never put any pressure on me about getting parts or not.  She just wanted to support her kid doing something I clearly loved doing, and she put great care into not letting the process fuck with my head.  I was fortunate.  Not all “stage moms” are so cool.

One by one, all the boys went in and came out.  After the last boy was finished, the casting director came out, thanked us for our patience, said they were gonna make their decision as quickly as they could, said she’d be back out shortly to tell us who was getting the part, and then disappeared.  We waited.

Finally, the casting director reemerged.  Everyone stood up, although we hadn’t been asked to do that; it was like we were compelled by some kind of unspoken competitive instinct, bravely awaiting the news of our fates.

“Thanks again for your patience, everyone,” she said, “you guys all did a great job, and it was a tough decision.”

My optimism had been growing inside me over the last half hour or so since I’d been in the room.  I imagined hearing my name coming out of her mouth.

There was a pregnant pause, and then she spoke again.

“The role of Alexander will be played by…”

WWC #5 She came in the moonlight

SarahScott Oct 30, 2014

I hear the scream of the smoke detector as soon as I open my car door but I don’t think much about it. The sound is distant and I have trunkful of groceries to deal with. It’s thanksgiving weekend and someone is bound to burn a turkey somewhere in my neighbourhood. I don’t think much about the noise until I see her pacing in the driveway. We have lived across the street from her for two years now and I don’t know her name. I worried about her once when the power went out in the summer, I knew she lived alone and was on my way to check on her when her son arrived.

Her lawn is always perfect, cut weekly by some young man; maybe a grandson, I’m not sure. I like my privacy and so I assume others do as well, but I have thought of her from time to time, worrying about her living all alone at her age. I pause for a moment when I notice her there in the driveway, she looks confused and she gestures towards my husband. Something about her mannerisms tells me this isn’t a job for him, this job may require delicacy and compassion. I leave him with the kids and cross the road to see if I can help.

“Something is happening in my house.” She says

“What’s the problem?”

“There is a sound, something is making an awful sound and I can’t get it to stop.”

Now I know my instincts were correct, the sound is clearly the smoke alarm, but she doesn’t mention that. She doesn’t tell me that she can’t turn it off, that she burnt some toast, or forgot to open the flu of her fireplace. She says nothing of the smoke or fire, she just seems confused.

“Okay.” I say reassuringly. “Let’s see if I can figure it out.” The detector is over the basement stairs so I silence it quickly. The house is filled with smoke.

“Did you burn dinner?” I ask as she hovers near the door, ringing her hands.

“What was making that noise?”

“It was just the smoke alarm. Was there some sort of fire?”

“I turned off the stove and the noise didn’t stop.”

“Well the house is pretty smoky. Why don’t I open some windows to air things out?”

The kitchen windowsill is covered in nick knacks, small glass figures and miniature wooden birds that I have to move to the counter before I can pry the window open; it squeals as I force it up. In the sink I see the charred remains of a dishrag and a teapot with something synthetic melted to the side. There is also a pot with canned stew in the bottom, a beige gelatinous mess. Dinner for one. She must have been heating it up and left things too close to the element.

There are no other signs of fire so I figure I can leave her once the house has aired out. I want to find another window to open but they are all covered by storm screens, though the summer is just ending. They must stay up all year now, sealing her in to this lonely place. The phone is an old fashioned one, blue plastic and mounted to the wall, but the receiver hangs uselessly to the floor, dangling by its cord. I settle it in its cradle as I walk past to check the windows in the back room.

The house is immaculate, but despite the fact that everything is clean and in its place, there is an overwhelming feeling of shabbiness. Each room is cluttered with things. China, doilies, unused ashtrays and delicate crystal dishes filled with ancient candy in yellowed plastic wrappers. Nothing has been boxed up or thrown away. Her lifetime of mementos are all on permanent display. I don’t want to be like this when I am old, fading away in a house that was once a home but is now a museum. I don’t want to spend long years alone, without my husband. I want him with me till the end.

I don’t know what else to do for the old lady, so I assure her that we are just across the street and if she needs anything she can come by anytime. She shakes my hand then, finally telling me that her name is Effie Pepper. I can’t stop the tears as I walk back to my family. The kids are running around on the grass and my husband is watching them play. The groceries melt in the trunk, waiting for our attention.

It’s late when the bell rings and I am surprised at first to see her there. Her house is dark behind her and she stands on my stoop, peering in through the frosted glass of the front window. I open the door, struggling to remember her name, something cute and related to food. Was it Mrs. Salt? In the end it doesn't matter. I just say hello and wait for her to talk.

"The heat is out and my house is cold."

"Come in." I move away from the door giving her space to enter the house. "Do you need to call someone?"

"I wouldn't know who to call. Not this late."

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

"Really I couldn't trouble anyone with this. Could I just sleep here tonight?"

I answer without thinking because really what alternative is there. She is a quiet old woman who is alone and cold, she needs our help and our company.

I settle her with a cup of tea and leave to make up the guest room. The kids are asleep and my husband is at the gym, leaving the house quiet, peaceful. When I return to the kitchen I see that she doesn’t hear me. She sits bent over the teacup, the steam washes across her cheeks and her hands shake ever so slightly against the porcelain. I imagine myself like her, alone and old after my children have grown and my husband is gone. I picture myself wandering through this house with its comforting ghosts, wrapped in the memories of the life I have already lived. Her skin hangs in soft silky folds, it is beautiful, pale white and almost shimmery. She looks up then and smiles at me with teeth that are somehow grey in between her thin cracked lips.

"All set." I reach for her hand like I would with a small child. She grips my arm as we slowly climb the stairs and I lead her into the room, settling her into bed. I shut the door and return to my own bedroom to wait for my husband.

Tomorrow I will help her to fix the furnace, I will try to get in touch with her son and he can decide if she should continue living alone in the old house.

When I wake in the dark room it is to the feel of someone settling on the foot of the bed. I can barely see in the moonlight, but I know it is her.

"I don’t want to be alone. Do you mind?" She pleads and I don’t have the heart to turn her away.

I nod and tuck my knees up to my chest, leaving her a spot at my feet. My husband wasn’t woken by her arrival in our room. I think I should tell him, but he looks so peaceful and she doesn’t take much space. She curls around herself like a cat, a flexibility I wouldn’t have imagined was possible from someone so old, and then she seems to fall instantly to sleep.

My breathing slows and my eyes begin to droop. Just as sleep is about to claim me I am suddenly brought back from the edge by her movement. She crawls across me, creeping towards my husband. She is balanced on her fingers and toes and moves in a fractured, jarring way that seems almost reptilian, it makes me shudder. She hears my sudden intake of breath and stops, her eyes darting to mine. I see something in those eyes, something I had missed before. A glowing, not warm, but angry like molten lead or smoldering embers, it spills out from the edges of her eyelids, and the cracks in her paper thin skin. She reaches a boney hand towards my sleeping husband and I suddenly know her for who she is.  She is death, she is the reaper, she is the shepherd of Hades and she is here for him.

"You can’t have him." I want to sound strong but my voice comes out in a whimper. "I need him still"

She hisses at me, and from the furnace inside her, seeps a poisonous mist, it clouds my brain and my body turns soft around me. I fight to stay awake, to raise my hand towards the man I love, he lies peacefully beside me, but I am powerless to call to him, my voice swallowed by fear. I hear the old woman cackle beside me and from her mouth, stretched wide, the smell of death spills out along with the violent glow of fire.  Helpless, I fall unconscious.

When my eyes open the sun shines through the window. Visions of the old lady and her nighttime visitation are gone. I sigh deeply, trying to push away the dark horror of the nightmare. I can hear my son singing in his bedroom, he always wakes up so happy. I roll towards my husband and my breath catches in my throat. The man I love, the man around whom I have built my whole world, lies cold and stiff, stolen in the night by a creature I invited in.

My sobs will frighten the children and I know I have to find a way to get up, to pull myself together and deal with this loss. I walk on shaking legs to the hallway with the phone gripped tight in my palm. As I dial the numbers with trembling hands, I stare at the tousled bed in my guest room, the sheets are empty and the old lady is gone. She came like a thief in the night and stole my world.

The 911 operator answers and as I clear my throat to speak I hear a sound from my son’s room that makes my blood stiffen, frozen in my veins. Another voice joins his in song, frail and wavering next to his sweet clear notes. I lower the phone and enter his room. He sits on Effie Pepper’s lap, her seemingly frail arms wrapped around his small shape. With shaking hands and my heart pounding in my ears, I join them.

The Neighbors (Writing Challenge 5 – Cliffhanger Story)

ThatGirlfromMars Nov 02, 2014

Lena was pretty sure that her new neighbors were responsible for her brother Ricky's recent disappearance. He'd been a terrible brother, and she didn't miss him, so it wasn't sisterly love that drove Lena to seek an explanation, just boredom and morbid curiosity.

A year before he disappeared, on the night of her 13th birthday, he'd offered his friend Chuck the opportunity to have sex with her in exchange for fifty dollars. Fortunately, she'd attached a string of jingly Christmas ornaments to the doorknob so that she would wake up if Ricky came into her room (he liked to sneak in at night and punch her half a dozen times on the arm or leg, shouting: "Ninja attack!"). When the Christmas bells rang, Lena was up and armed with an umbrella in no time, driving Chuck backward with the pointy tip while Ricky roared with laughter in the hallway. Their father had woken and come staggering up the stairs in a drunken stupor, baseball bat in hand, shouting that everyone had better shut up because he was trying to sleep. He never hit people, only walls, but Chuck didn't know that, and in his haste to escape, he'd fallen down the stairs and sprained his ankle, after which he crawled out the front door onto the rain-soaked pavement, sobbing like a baby.

Lena had wished that the universe would just take Ricky away then, and one year later, it had.

A couple of days before Ricky disappeared, she'd heard him babbling on to Chuck about the amazing home entertainment system, fancy computers, and other "awesome shit" that their elderly neighbors had, and how he could see it all through their back windows that faced the alley. "Those idiots always leave the back door open, so they pretty much deserve to get robbed," he'd said, and "I'm just the man for the job." Ricky was always bragging about what a tough guy criminal he was, and Lena didn't take it seriously. But then Ricky and Chuck had disappeared two days later.

Lena had spoken to the old woman from next door a couple of times. Mrs. Mackenzie had brought a home-baked apple pie over a couple of days after she and her husband had moved in, a kindly gesture that had nearly brought tears to Lena's eyes. Her own mother had run off when she was three (she couldn't even remember what the woman had looked like) and both sets of grandparents had died before she was born.

Lena had chatted with Mrs. Mackenzie again a few weeks later. She often walked home via the alleys and there was a great view of the Mackenzies' garden over the low fence. The garden was magnificent, and it had actual fruits and vegetables growing in it. Lena hadn't known it was possible to get food any other way than from the supermarket if you were a regular person. She'd thought that only rich women in shiny magazines did stuff like that. Lena had stopped at the fence for a few minutes, making small talk with Mrs. Mackenzie and fantasizing about living in that home where gardens were tended and apple pies baked, and again she felt tears prickle at the backs of her eyes.

Lena never saw Mr. Mackenzie outdoors. Mrs. Mackenzie had said he'd had a stroke, and Lena had once spotted the old man shuffling through the living room, a dark silhouette in a brightly lit space, surrounded by the couple's ridiculously expensive-looking home entertainment system and slick, fancy computers that must have cost a fortune. As Ricky had said, it was all right on display, visible from the windows facing the alley. It was as though they were going out of their way to attract scumbags, like the whole place was a Venus flytrap for assholes.

Ricky's picture had appeared in the newspaper alongside the other missing young men, under the headline: "A Vigilante Among Us?" Local bastards were disappearing in droves, and people were starting to notice. Lena had researched the missing men online, finding their stories remarkably similar. Cody Tranger was a petty thief who had done time for breaking six bones in his girlfriend's face. Robert Whittier had done jail time for theft – violent home invasions targeting the elderly. Bart Combs had also done time for theft, and was notorious in his local neighborhood for killing a dog – not in self-defense, but just for fun. The rest were similar, as though all the men had all been manufactured in the same shitty factory.

Over the past five months since the Mackenzies had moved in, 27 local scumbags had gone missing, and Lena thought that the sweet old couple with far too many shiny electronics on display might have something to do with it.

She began staking out their place, sitting behind a row of tall recycling bins, watching through the slim spaces between them. She had nothing better to do, because she no longer had any friends. Ricky had seen to that. Although he'd been 23 at the time of his disappearance, he'd been dating a popular 16-year-old at Lena's school, and he'd convinced her to plant a rumor. After Ricky's girlfriend told everyone that Lena had been caught having sex with a dog, the two girls whom she'd thought were her best friends had made the pragmatic choice to cut her loose. She didn't think they actually believed the ridiculous story, but they understood that hanging around with a pariah would be social suicide.

Lena barely went to school anymore, where whispers and snickers followed her and a bubble of cold, empty space opened around her as she drifted listlessly through the halls. She usually spent her days at the park, sitting on a swing with her headphones blasting angry music, or walking back and forth along the alley in the hopes of catching her elderly neighbors doing something cool. It couldn't be the husband, who shuffled along like the walking dead. It must be Mrs. Mackenzie, with a gun or maybe something even better, like a spiky ring that shot poison or a laser weapon. Seeing that old woman killing a scumbag with a laser would be so freaking awesome.

Lena began sneaking out to watch the Mackenzies' place each night, though she supposed that she couldn't really call what she did sneaking, not like what kids with real parents did, jumping out a window and climbing down a tree. Walking past her father, who lay snoring on the sofa with a bottle clutched to his chest, didn't require any stealth. She just strolled out the front door wearing dark clothing and hoping that it didn't rain again.

On the sixth night of her stakeout, something finally happened. A couple of young men stopped in the alley to peer through the Mackenzies' brightly lit back windows at their electronics showroom.

"This is the place," one of them said in a low voice.

"I see what you mean."

"Yeah, and the back door is open, as usual." The first man pulled a gun from his jacket and slipped through the gate, which was not only left open, but oiled so that it didn't squeak when touched. Lena felt a vicious glee rising inside her as she watched the men make their way up the garden path, which was lined with soft bark mulch for a silent approach. Everything about the Mackenzies' home was designed to put the bastards at ease, make them feel as though they had the advantage. The Mackenzies were rolling out the red carpet to their asshole disposal unit.

Lena emerged from her hiding place and moved to the fence for a better view, but the men were inside now and one of them had yanked the curtains shut. Lena felt a surge of fear then. What if she was wrong? What if the Mackenzies were nothing more than a sweet old couple who were about to be beaten, robbed, and perhaps worse? She could have warned them or called the police, but instead, she had just crouched behind the recycling bins like an idiot and watched, entertaining some bizarre fantasy about elderly vigilantes that was starting to seem really stupid. Guilt rose like bile in her stomach and she surged forward, taking the path in leaps and bounds, wrenching the back door open wide. She would take the bastards down herself, find a weapon, a vase, something. And the Mackenzies would be so grateful that they'd invite her to live with them in their clean house with its pretty garden, a place where nobody shattered walls with baseball bats or punched anyone in the night.

As she moved through the doorway, she grew confused and wondered if she had somehow read the situation wrong, because she could hear Mrs. Mackenzie chatting cheerfully to her husband.

"You finish up your supper dear. I just have to check that my shows have finished downloading, and then I'll be back to help with the cleanup and—"

The old woman shut her mouth abruptly when she saw Lena emerge from behind the open door, frozen in place by the bizarre scene before her.

Mr. Mackenzie was crouched on the floor, feasting alternately upon two bodies that lay on a sheet of plastic covering the living room carpet. He paused in his enthusiastic chomping to look up at her then, and it was not the vacant look of a corpse on his ghostly pale, blood-decorated face, the look that dozens of zombie movies had taught her to expect; it was more like the perplexed curiosity of a small baby.

Lena looked down at the thug's gun, which lay at her feet, and then up at Mrs. Mackenzie, who stood rooted in place, watching her, as the tantalizing smell of apple pie drifted in from the kitchen.

The Aging Disease (RE: The Future)

joellen May 25, 2014

When scientists and doctors started looking at aging as a disease rather than an inevitability, things changed.

Serums. Surgical procedures. Diets. These things were developed, tested, manufactured. And then, finally, they found the fountain of youth.

It’s not an actual fountain, of course. No. It was a tiny aqua colored pill—the color paying homage to the water Ponce de León was tasked in finding.

But youth was not cheap. How could it be? Something that was so elusive. Something that starts happening the moment you’re conceived, you’re aging. So it was only the rich and powerful who were able to buy this pill.

I watched as these men and women stayed young while the poor around them grew old. They were always on television or some tabloid magazine.I watched as they enjoyed their life.

Grabbing the remote from my nightstand, I turn off the TV. The tubes get in the way—my arms connected to machines that are supposed to keep me alive—but I’m too tired to fuss with them. There’s no point.

I’m in a room. A nice room. A room with nurses and doctors looking after me 24/7. A room that’s part of a mansion that’s by the ocean so that the salty ocean air wafts into my room when I ask for the window to be opened. The sheets aren’t the threadbare ones you find in hospitals. They were soft and smooth and ornately patterned—hand painted, maybe, but I don’t ask about that stuff. I abhor it, in fact, but what am I supposed to do? I’m too tired—too old to care anymore about the money being spent on me. There’s no use arguing over the bills. They will all be taken care of.

"Good afternoon, Miss Eve," Belinda, my main nurse, says to me as she comes in and checks the tubes and chemicals being pumped into me. She has long blonde hair I’m envious of. I’ve always had my hair cut short much to my mother’s dismay. She wanted me to be a little princess.

"Hey there Belinda—" But then I get into another fit of coughing. Belinda’s quick to help me drink from a glass of water. "Thank you."

"Of course." She sets the glass down on my nightstand and then goes to open one of the windows facing the ocean. "So are you excited today?"

"About what?" I ask. My mind gets foggy sometimes. Some things I can remember. Some things I’m supposed to remember, I forget.

"About your visitors, of course!" My visitors are already thirty minutes late if the clock on the wall is correct. I grunt in response.

And then I hear them. They’re chatting away with my doctors about how nice it is outside and how they’re going out later with their friends. A moment later they come into my room with their fake smiles and their fake tans. Have their teeth always been so unnaturally white?

"Eve! My Eve!" Clarissa comes over and hugs me gingerly, whether it’s because of the tubes or because of the old people smell, I’m not sure. Victor stands by the door for a second before coming over and giving me a quick hug. Belinda escapes, closing the door to my room behind her.

"Hi, Eve," Victor says, a pleasant look on his face—as if he actually missed me. I know they both would rather be elsewhere than visiting me right now.

"Hi, Clarissa, Victor." I hug them back as best as I can but my old bones aren’t meant to strain so much now that I’m well into my nineties and bedridden.

Clarissa sits in a chair by the bed while Victor stands behind her. "So, did you watch my new movie yet? I had the studio send over a copy for you to watch," Clarissa says excitedly. It’s really the only thing she loves in the world—acting. I mean she’s a terrific liar so it comes naturally to her, I guess.

"I did, I did. It was lovely. Very sad." They movie was about a young woman, played by Clarissa, who falls in love with an android.

"Did you like the movie, Victor?" I ask him.

He half shrugs. "I liked it enough."

"He’s totally lying. He absolutely loved it. I think I may have even saw him cry right at the end when they’re about to destroy the android and I come in and rescue him."

I nod along to what Clarissa says because I’ve found that’s the best way to deal with her.

"How’s the hotel business?" I ask Victor. Victor inherited his family’s business when he turned twenty-seven and has been fueling Clarissa need for wealth and attention with that money among other things.

"It’s good. We have plans to build on Mars next." Victor’s stoic. He’s very much like his father. When I saw pictures of them together, they always stood stick straight and had this intimidating look about them like they always mean business 24/7.

Clarissa’s phone rings. "Oops," she says when she takes it out. "I need to get this." She leaves, closing the door behind her. Victor looks away from me, like he can’t bear to look at me—at how age has ravaged my body. I hold out a shaking hand to him and for a moment when he looks at it, I think he may not take it, but then he does, and we curl our fingers around each other’s hand.

"This house feels empty without you two," I tell him.

"I know, but you know how Clarissa is—how busy both our schedules are."

A single tear runs down my cheek but I’m too old to brush it away. "I know, dad. I just miss being a family—the three of us together here in the house I grew up in." I see him clench his jaw when I call him the D-word.

"I know, sweetheart." He comes closer and kisses my forehead like how he used to when I was a child and he would put me to bed every night. "I know." And then he sighs, looking at me with the saddest expression on his face. "Why didn’t you just take the pill, Evey? The three of us, we could’ve been together for so much longer."

"Because, dad, it wasn’t for me." I had so many chances to take that pill, and while I could’ve been young forever, I wanted to live a full life. Not an unnatural one.

Clarissa comes back in. She ignores our moment as father and daughter. "Babe, our flight to New York tonight was canceled but there’s one leaving in an hour that we need to get on."

"Right," Victor says. He lets go of my hand. "It was good seeing you both," I say. I don’t want them to leave no matter how insufferably or cold they are. But they have to. They’re busy people with busy schedules.

"It was good seeing you, too, Evey." Clarissa—mom—comes over and kisses my cheek.

"Bye," I say and then I’m alone again as they leave.