The Empty Car

Almander found the car, empty, on a one-lane road alongside a fallow field. He folded himself into it with a rustle like a fall breeze through rows of old corn. At the edge of the headlight beams, Starla sniffed the pavement. After only a couple of moments, she lifted her head, nostrils flaring.
“You got ’em?” Almander got out, flicked a candy wrapper off his bare burlap arm.
“North. They’re alive”, her voice was nearly a growl. “But He has them.”
“Then we run”, he said, but she was already in the field, a grey blur loping in the moonlight.

I like this week’s Friday Fiction prompt at Phantom Sway a bit more than some I’ve used recently. It is more focused and seems to suggest a certain type of story. I say “seems” because, as a writer, you should never let your prompt decide the direction of your story. You can take the picture apart and pluck out certain elements, which become a lot more important. For this story, the woman crouching in the headlight beam and the starkness of the bushes behind her suggested I could do something with a little bit of a noir urban fantasy feel to it. But there are other ways to tell a story with that picture that are entirely different. Want to give it a go? Hit that Phantom Sway link and drop your 100-word story in the comments. Don’t be shy!