The Castle

The Castle

Few knew about the castle hidden inside the island. At least, those who worked inside knew it wasn’t a castle. They called it that because Secret Federal Government-Extraterrestrial Listening Post Number Seven just didn’t roll off the tongue.

To the commercial and recreational traffic on the river, the crumbling stone structure was the stuff of legends. The riverboats carrying their well-heeled passengers heard the tale of a man so smitten with a beautiful woman, he started to construct a castle in her honor, but she died tragically before he finished.

Jeff Parks, sitting at his console, deep inside the rock, waited for the slow-cruising riverboat to pass by before he rotated the powerful antenna disguised as dead trees. His cohort, slouched in the chair next to him, was monitoring data relayed from the gamma-ray platforms orbiting Earth, and unexpectedly bolted upright.

“Uh… Jeff… we getting any interference from that riverboat?

“No.”

“Crap… then we’ve got company.”

Word count: 147

Written for the wonderful writing challenge, Mondays Finish the Story. Each Monday, Barbara Beacham posts a picture prompt, along with the first line of the story. The stories must be between 100-150 words and must include the given first line, shown in italics in the story.

Special thanks to Barbara Beacham for sharing her excellent photography skills to provide such challenging prompts. Check out the MFTS blog… some great short stories posted.  https://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com/ 

Direct link to this week’s stories… http://new.inlinkz.com/view.php?id=564279