The April 2025 Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction challenged writers to create an original piece of fiction of no more than 500 words, which:
- included the word SEAL.
- included the action of ‘wiping out’.
- broke the writing rule ‘kill your darlings’.
The competition drew 307 entries from authors in 12 countries around the world looking for a slice of the AU$4,000 prize money. That’s 150,103 words for our judges, Ed and Amanda, to read. For reference, that’s about the same number of words as ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King.
For more fascinating statistics about the competition, and to get behind-the-scenes details of the judging process, check out the Longlist Announcement – April 2025 Not Quite Write Prize episode of the podcast at the link below.
To hear the winning and shortlisted entries read aloud by Ed and Amanda, check out the Winner and Shortlist Announcement – April 2025 Not Quite Write Prize episode of the podcast at the link below.
WINNER
ZOMBIE BABE by Lou Weasel
I can’t blast her. Not my Jenny-babe, even with her eyes crazy as a roll-on deodorant ball and that textbook zombie swagger. I mean, it’s kind of sexy, really. I lower my blowtorch.
Dead leaves scrape as she drags a foot forward.
The constable next to me squeaks. “Ah… Stop!… O-or I’ll shoot!” Can’t remember his name—pen-pushing nerd from the Nulkaba side office—but with the Plague wiping out half the police force, we’ve got jittery amateurs like him on field patrol, aiming his blowtorch about as steady as the wind sock on Mooney Mooney bridge. But he’ll still get Jen if he presses the trigger. They’re proper blowtorches, not those ones from Bunnings you get for creme brulees or clearing the dunny air after a steamer—I’m talking Hollywood flame-throwers.
Jen pauses, wavering on the spot.
Our radios crackle. “Kill the damn zombie! What are you waiting for?”
My rookie mate answers. “The Plagued One has… has halted. Over.”
We aren’t meant to call them zombies. Some high-up wanker decided it’s not people-focused language. I half get the point now that it’s my girlfriend, but ‘Plagued One’ is sort of a turn off. Whereas ‘Hot Zombie Babe’… well, that’s got a ring to it, putrefying flesh or not.
I nudge Rookie. “She looks harmless, right?” Maybe I can convince him not to fire.
Maybe me and Jen can run away into the Watagans and survive off the land, and she’ll be my Wilson, only I’ll be Steven Seagal instead of Tom Hanks, because I’m more Navy SEAL material. Well, less navy, more seal, but I reckon I’d be close if I did push ups.
Rookie lowers his weapon. “Yeah, she… she seems harmless.”
For a second, Jen’s blank eyes flicker with that old spark I remember, when I’d lie there smoking, with her tucked up beside me playing with my chest hair. She’d gaze up at me and say, “It’s only one chest hair, babe, maybe you should just pluck it.” But I never did, because I loved the way she twirled it while telling me I was her one-and-only.
“Jo-shu-a?” she moans.
That’s not my name. But Rookie’s voice shakes like he just watched the end of Red Dog. “Jen?”
I turn to him. “You know her?”
He ignores me, stepping towards her. “Hey, Jenny-babe. Let’s go, we’ll run for the mountains. We’ll be like Jane and Tarzan, only I’ll be Sylvester Stallone instead of Brendan Fraser.”
She nods at him, cheating slobber-lips groaning, and forms a love heart with her fingers, except two are missing so it looks like a damn moustache, which Joshua has, and I don’t. So, she wants more bristle on her gristle?
I reach down my shirt and wrench out my one and only chest strand, shoving it into the end of my torch barrel. I raise my flame-thrower, ignoring Joshua’s arm still in range, aiming level at her festering, clawed moustache-heart.
I can’t blast my zombie babe. But I’ll blast someone else’s.
SECOND PLACE
A BEACH, IF YOU COULD CALL IT THAT by M Springer
So a beach, if you could call it that. A narrow strip of shoreland wedged between basalt cliffs, maybe. Puffins, definitely, their black-and-white plumage poking out of rock crevices like mold on stale rye bread. Chanting, low and guttural, against the creamy orange of the setting sun.
So basalt cliffs, perhaps, and shoreland in between, and on it, humans, of course. An old-timer combing the coarse sand with her metal detector, hoping for a quarter amongst the electronic waste. And a father, and his teenage son, listening to the deep baritones of hundreds of puffins, their voices echoing from east to west, overlapping like the world’s least talented a-cappella group.
So a racket of seabirds, and unlawfully disposed of electronic waste, probably, under the shoreline wedged between basalt cliffs, and on top of the eastern precipice, a couple acres of oceanfront property, sealed off, still in development. And a billboard, announcing to the puffins nesting underneath that this, too, will become human land, in time. And the father enjoying the birdsong like he always has, not noticing the tune has changed, but the son understands, immediately, instinctively.
So a narrow strip of shoreland, somewhere, and an oceanfront property encroaching on the puffins’ habitat, and birds that once ruled over the vast coastland confined to the western bluff, perched together in their own droppings, drinking the same contaminated water. After a strained, final chorus, an infected puffin with thinning plumage stops mid-flight, as if burdened by an invisible weight, and so it begins.
So a teenager that has heeded the warning spilling down the basalt cliffs and fled, and puffins, flying erratically at first, then falling out of the sky like feathered cannon balls, and one of them strikes the old-timer, showering her metal detector in crimson droplets, and the father runs over to help, and so it spreads.
So a hundred strips of shoreland, and a hundred cliffs with oceanfront properties in various stages of development, and thousands of puffins dropping down like kamikaze pilots, and a hundred roads moving inland, sticky tar veins binding human life together like bubblegum hastily pressed between popsicle sticks, veins now transmitting deadly pathogens directly to its heart.
So a father that started coughing and faded away, and a son that becomes a father himself, later, for despite the birds’ wrath he hasn’t given up. But his resistance is in vain, because the puffins have been here since the Eocene, and humans have forgotten that, probably, and now it’s their turn to be forgotten.
So an unread billboard on a basalt cliff touting progress that won’t arrive, towering over a beach, if you could call it that, and an abandoned metal detector partly buried under the coarse sand, and silence, mostly.
And then, on the eastern precipice above a narrow strip of shoreland, a nest, maybe, and soft purring emanating from within, and after a while, the plumage of puffins emerging from basalt rock like the first petals of spring after winter.
THIRD PLACE
WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: “ARSON” ANDY & “SHADOW” SHARON by Chloe Paige
Folks ’round here like to argue ’bout who’s more deadly, Arson Andy or Shadow Sharon, but let me tell you there ain’t nothing more deadly than a woman after her share of the money goes
up
in
flames.
And the folks are talking ’bout her when Sharon prowls into the saloon,
her hat pulled low,
keeping a wily, hand-to-cleaver mosey. They’re cursing Shadow Sharon and her faceless wanted poster hanging on that wall over there. These folks only know
empty purses,
missing persons,
and never a ruckus, ’cause folks don’t notice they have a shadow ’till it’s too late.
But Sharon ain’t near those folks no more, ’cause there’s a man at the bar,
his hat pulled low,
keeping a shifty, hands-in-pocket silence. And Sharon’s looking like a butcheress by day ready to take out that man over there. This woman only knows
robbing homes,
burying bones,
and never a hatchet, ’cause spilling blood was always a sealed kind of fate.
And the folks are talking ’bout her when Sharon follows that man to the general store,
her hat pulled low,
keeping a sneaky, hands-to-self distance. They’re cursing Shadow Sharon and Arson Andy for having burned down that bank over there. These folks only know
empty cells,
burning smells,
and never no gossip, ’cause there ain’t no way that fire-whirl bastard coulda snuck in without her aid.
But Sharon ain’t near those folks no more, ’cause she follows that man to the abandoned jail,
her hat pulled low,
keeping a steady, hands-on-jerrycan malice. And Sharon’s looking like she’s ’bout to give that man a taste of his own petrol over there. This woman only knows
broken pacts,
stabbing backs,
and never her revenge, ’cause the butchered man she’s dousing has a stranger’s face.
And folks might still be talking ’bout her while Sharon gapes at the drunken decoy,
her hat pulled low,
keeping an antsy, hands-too-wet fumble. She’s cursing Arson Andy for laying low after burning that bank before she could sneak her money outta there. This woman only knows
bills in ashes,
petrol splashes,
and never a morrow, ’cause the cell door is slamming shut behind this dust-devil woman.
But Arson Andy ain’t near those folks no more, ’cause I’m here in the shadows,
my hat pulled low,
making a haughty, hand-on-flint entrance. And I’m looking like a gentleman by day who was never in it for the money. I only know
firebug thrills,
one-crook hills,
and always my manners, ’cause you never douse a darling, you let her do it herself.
Folks ’round here like to argue ’bout who’s more deadly, Arson Andy or Shadow Sharon, but let me tell you there ain’t nothing more dead than a woman with a shadow going
up
in
flames.
FOURTH PLACE
A PRIEST TO NO GOD by Taurenelle
Thirteen steps to the kitchen: five forward, three backward, six forward, two backward, one forward. But that was only when he thought about Sarah dying, which was nearly every morning. Otherwise, Dean’s coffee was just seven steps away.
The teaspoon only ricocheted off the inside of the mug once, producing a single concussive sound, which was never enough to stop his son’s school bus from skidding on black ice and flipping on its back as it collided with a speeding Mack Truck.
Three clinks. He needed to hear three clinks. But they couldn’t be forced, either. A single tap should allow the sugar to fall from the spoon, and the displaced weight should propel his wrist like a pendulum, ringing in the subsequent twin chimes.
He had four teaspoons of sugar this morning. He preferred his coffee with one, but the bus needed to arrive safely before he could put on his jacket.
“Good luck with the pitch.” Sarah kissed his cheek before grabbing her purse and swallowing a handful of vitamins as she ran out the door.
How does she do that without water?
She was choking. In his mind…she was choking. And those vitamins weren’t FDA-approved. They could cause cancer for all he knew. Sarah was choking to death during chemo. A scene that played out in his theater-of-one thousands of times before. He was eternally bound by the shackles of relentless thoughts, watching rehearsals for a show he never wanted to see. Praying for release.
But he couldn’t ask her to change her routine. He always concealed his obsessions, though his compulsions were hard to ignore—making him late to work and awkward at parties. But Sarah loved him anyway.
And he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
So, he slid his fingertips along the groove of the backsplash while quietly counting to seventeen. It used to be seven, but she had a particularly bad headache one day last year, and he’d lost ten more seconds of his life every morning since.
“Stop one ritual for one day,” the experts say. “See what happens. See that everything will be okay.”
But what if it wasn’t? What if one more clink could save his son from an unending coma? What if one more step keeps his wife from being stabbed at the supermarket? What if three perfectly aligned pencils could prevent a catastrophic stroke? How could he live with himself? He was sealing his family’s fate with thirty-two flicks of a light switch. A small price to pay for peace of mind. How could he risk changing anything? Things needed to stay the way they were. Always. These ceremonies, these observances, mattered. They were—
—where was his wallet?
Right. In the dining room. Where his world was ending.
Five steps forward, three backward, six forward, two backward, one forward.
He sacrificed his time to a second cup of undrinkable coffee.
A priest to no god. A suppliant to a strange faith.
He was late for work again.
FIFTH PLACE
MY PERIPATETIC SOUL LONGS TO PLANT ITSELF BESIDE YOU by Jo Binns
Confession: since the moment we met, I’ve been trying to kill my darlings, my darling.
At first they were small, and though I longed to speak them, holding back was like swallowing watermelon seeds in the summertime. Honey. Babe. Cutie-pie. Just a syllable or two. No doubt they would disintegrate in my stomach acid.
On our fourth date, you snorted beer out your nostrils laughing at one of my cheesy jokes. My darlings turned ridiculous to fit the mood. Pookie-pants. My charming little chookling-boots. They rose alarmingly in my mouth, ready to reveal themselves, but just in time you left to the bathroom to wipe beer off your shirt. So I swallowed those darlings too, though they felt like peach pits rasping down my throat.
I dropped around to see you one afternoon in autumn, two months after we started dating. You were singing to your pot plants as you watered them. Sunlight filtered through the windows and your smile shone as you turned to ask me, “What’s your favourite watering song?”
We danced around your apartment singing ‘Africa’ by Toto at the top of our lungs and then I went to make us coffee so I could stand in your kitchen a moment and whisper whimsical darlings like my mellifluous melody-maker and my perspicacious periwinkle. I couldn’t swallow them, they were too big. I pruned them ruthlessly, hoping they’d wither like a hacked-up rosebush.
You see, someone else killed my darlings, long ago. Cut them down when I said dear. Broke my heart when I said I love you. So I thought, with you, I’d kill them before you could.
I invited you around for dinner last night. Cooked all afternoon, set up candles, laid out shining silverware. You were late, arriving breathless with apology. “I got stuck reading. Do you mind if I just sit a minute to finish this?” You held up One Hundred Years of Solitude. I’d told you it was my favourite book.
You looked so handsome and happy to see me, but by then I’d lost my nerve so I sprayed this darling with pesticide: you’re the wave my heart surfs to shore upon.
A heart sealed tight can never hurt. Or so I’d told myself. As you shut your finished book and grinned at me, I no longer thought that was true.
So before I left for work this morning, while you lay sleeping in my bed, I wiped my old shopping list off the little whiteboard in my kitchen and, hand shaking, wrote you a note. Have a wonderful day, my darling.
I’d done it.
Throughout the day, all those macheted, half-suffocated darlings breathed loudly in my ear. My own breath was short with anticipation. I was excited rather than scared. I knew I’d get a message back.
When I got home, my whiteboard read: Good evening, my tenderhearted twinklebutt. Call me. I danced around my kitchen as my not-killed darlings blossomed in a riotous bloom.
And then I called you.
SIXTH PLACE
IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT by Greg Schmidt
The kangaroo is a silhouette against the moonlit paddock. Dad and I are in the tray of the ute. We do not speak, but our breath clouds in the night air. He nods, and I ready the rifle in my arms. Dad has bagged a few roos already tonight, but he’s finally letting me take the shot. My finger hovers anxiously over the trigger.
Dad flicks a switch, and a beam of light bursts through the night, illuminating the kangaroo. Frozen in the spotlight, it appears unreal, like a statue. I am reminded of the stuffed kangaroo I used to sleep with. On hot nights its plastic eyes were cool against my skin. I shake off the memory. That toy is sealed away in some box now, forgotten with other childish things. Dad says roos are pests, and there’s no place for them on the farm. I pull the trigger, and the kangaroo falls from the spotlight.
‘Got it!’ I cry. ‘Did’ya see, Dad?’
‘I saw. Let’s go check.’
Dad drives through the paddock. Behind us rattles a trailer with the carcasses of tonight’s earlier kills. Ahead, bright headlights stretch like fingers through the shadows, and a grim uneasiness grows within me. Out of the darkness, the fallen kangaroo appears, stark in the white light. It lays on its side, and steam rises from a bullet hole in its head. Dad leaves the headlights on, and we get out.
‘Nice shot, son.’
I’d expected pride at Dad’s praise, but it’s lost before the ugly reality of my own action. Not wanting Dad to see me flinch, I approach the kangaroo to make sure it’s dead. The beast’s belly ripples with motion, and I recoil.
‘It’s alive!’
A tiny nose pokes out of the kangaroo’s pouch. Two black eyes follow, shining in the headlights, and wide with fright.
‘No,’ says Dad. ‘It was a Mum.’
‘What do we do?’
‘It gets the same, son, less the bullet.’
Dad stands over the dead kangaroo. The joey tries to squirm back into the pouch, but Dad reaches in and pulls it out forcefully. He grips its back legs, and the joey wriggles as it hangs suspended upside down.
‘B…but, Dad. It’s only a kid.’
‘So? It’s a pest just the same, and you weren’t so shy to put a bullet in its Mum.’
I drop my head, and Dad raises the joey in the air. He swings it down hard, smashing its head against the ute’s bull bar. A loud clang echoes across the paddock. The joey hangs limp in Dad’s hand.
‘You want the farm someday? Here’s the reality.’ Dad offers me the joey. ‘Put it with the rest.’
I take it in my arms, surprised by the weight, and carry it to the trailer. I place the joey on the other dead kangaroos and it nestles amongst them. It could almost be sleeping if not for its black eyes, open and unmoving. In the pale moonlight, they look like plastic.
LONGLISTED
- RESETS AND REDEMPTIONS by Jaden Christopher
- TAR by Ben Daggers
- INFESTATION by Steven Huff
- A BOX BENEATH THE ROSEBUSH by Theo Carr
- A NEW BLOOM by Lisa Vitale *WILDCARD WINNER*
- BALLOON GUY by KR Emmanuel
- THE SANDCASTLE TEST by Phoebe Robertson
- THE NECROMANTIC OATH by Georgina Maxine
- LAUGHTER IS THE SIXTH STAGE OF GRIEF by Natalie Bucsko
- GRIMOIRE SHE WROTE by SJ Snyder
- THE PETER PAN WEDDING MASSACRE by GeorgeD
- SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET by Lucy Mac
- THE ART by Harry Humber
- THE REOCCURRING RESURRECTION OF ALASTAIR EMRYS, PART THIRTEEN by Kris Schnebelen
- ONE SMALL STEP by Ella Micallef
- WIP_FINAL.DOC by Corrie Haldane
- THE AMBIGUITY OF IDENTITY: JUST WHO ARE YOU, CARLA? by W. J. Arthur
- BORROWED TIME by Eloise Keary
- CRIME SEEN by Berni Rushton
- CREEPY CLOWN FOR THE WIN by A. J. Blackman
- CHALK SISTER by Holly Brandon
- NIGHT DRIVER by Sarah Jordan
- AFTER THE UNDOING by Athena Law
- THE MOON IS A PLACE YOU CAN GO by Kelli Johnson
- ALL I’VE GOT ARE MENTHOLS by Farrah Pascal
- THE OTHER ONE PERCENT by Emma Makarova
- PARROT IN A BLENDER by J. R. Lowe *WILDCARD WINNER*
- CHOICES by Thom Brodkin *WILDCARD WINNER*
- ALL THE TIMES I SAW CARL NAKED by Christy Hartman
- TO FILL A FOX by Chloee Thornhill
- PICKLING MEMORIES by MM Schreier
- THE SILENCE, THE SEA, AND THE BURNING STARS by Alexandria Bellani
- PETTY KALE by Autumn Bettinger
- HOARDERS SEASON 36, EPISODE 7 by Ashleigh Adams
Congratulations to our longlisted and prize-winning authors, and many thanks to ALL entrants for sharing your creative talents with us.
We hope you stay tuned to the podcast and write on!