A Little Story

I wrote this little story to go in a magazine. They said it had to be what they call flash fiction which just means that it must be very short.

Toy Bird

The screeching of grinding metal sounded like a car crash. Wood splintered as a metal wing sliced through a bed clad in a ‘Doctor Who’ bedspread. The creature staggered and hit a wall, shaking the floor. The two little girls in the wardrobe screamed. The bird lashed out with shining silver talons and tore huge chunks out of the pink carpet.
“What is it?” Lucy screamed and gagged with the overpowering smell of static.
Glass shattered.
“It was my little metal bird,” Beth said as she clung to an armful of clothes.
“What?”
The wardrobe shook sending the already squashed girls slamming into the side.
“It was just a little bird, but it got big.”
“How could it get big?”
A crash as something big fell over and smashed.
“What was that?”
“What are we gonna do?”
Wood crunched as the wardrobe fell against the wall and the girls screamed again.
“What’s happening, girls?” A voice yelled from downstairs.
“MUM,” Lucy shouted.
“Don’t,” said Beth.
“MUM.”
The scraping of metal against metal was getting louder and painful. Static smell was giving them both roaring headaches.
“Lucy? What’s happening?”
Their mum was at the door now.
“Don’t come in here, mum,” Beth shouted at the top of her voice.
Another crash as something fell on the side of the now diagonal wardrobe.
“What are you doing?” Lucy said.
“If mum comes in here, it’ll get her.”
“Lucy, Beth, open the door. What the hell is going on?”
Fits were drumming on the door. The screeching of metal was being punctuated by a thudding and a creaking of wood.
“The wardrobe’s breaking,” Lucy said.
“What’s that terrible noise? Let me in.”
A side panel in the wardrobe suddenly bowed inwards. The clothes rail jumped out of its holdings and smacked Beth across the side of the head, she whimpered.
“MUM,” bellowed Lucy.
“Lucy, Lucy, the door’s stuck. I’m going to try and break it down,” but the last words were lost in a roar of grating metal. Wood cracked as a flash of metal burst through the wardrobe door.
Beth grabbed the clothes rail as a shining silver wing slashed through the wardrobe door and opened a glaring red wound across Lucy’s chest. She clutched her chest, tears in her eyes and looked up at Beth.
With a thud the bedroom door burst open. Beth lunged forward through the wrecked wardrobe door and drove the clothes rail as hard as she could into the creature’s eye.
Their mum saw something very large and shiny with whirring eyes, a hooked beak and shining steel feathers before it vanished. Beth saw the bird shrink to its original size in a fraction of a second before she grabbed it with trembling hands and flung it through the broken window.