Lots of people enjoy a good yarn and in that vein the Dudeworld writers have got off their arses and written a few captivating short stories for you to enjoy over a beer or three. Cheers!

(Fiction)
Jess had destroyed many an ego and many a wallet with her sultry good looks, big dark eyes and deft wheelmanship whenever she went street racing down in the big smoke.
Closing the hood, her slender fingers traced the graceful lines of the fastback as she walked towards the drivers door and with a lithe little twist and a quick flick of her slender hips she slipped past the six point roll cage and into the spartan racing wraparound seat. Eyeing the chromed instrument pods, she thumbed the large red starter with a practiced ease... Read More

(A True Story)
Kicking the gear lever back to second I lined up a long weaving plank on the bridge and opened the taps on the heavy throttle. Four butterfly valves snapped open in four carburetors and fed a bucket load of fuel and air to a very healthy motor. The big katana violently wrenched me forward in a relentless, overwhelming surge of raw unadulterated power as the tacho needle ripped around the dial way past the stock 9000 rpm redline to bury its nose in 11000 rpm territory. My teeth clenched, my body tense, I am reveling in the sheer intoxicating power and trying to hold her in a straight line as the rear tyre claws for traction all the way from 40 to 100 kmh. Read More

(Fiction)
Phoenix shook violently with an intense burning hatred as she watched, powerless to stop them killing another of her children. Knowing that they wanted to lure her out of hiding and capture her, she remained secreted less than seventy yards from the scene of the fire.

Red and blue flashing lights echoed along the tall grimy brickwork that abounded in the old inner city near the rail lines. Built in the mid 1800's the brick terraces and warehouses were stacked on top of one another like dirty dominoes all in a row. Read More

(A True Story)
Over a final crest and there's the target, heavily fortified and camouflaged as we had been warned but since we are not the first to arrive the tracers were already flying. The element of surprise looks to have been pretty good, but it couldn't last. Ahead and slightly to my left a gun emplacement, twitch the nose over and fire, 20mm hits jumping all over it for a second, lift the nose, target hypnotism, and we're past, turning tight to attack from a different direction, the sky full of dancing tracer and ugly black puffs of smoke. Something hot and angry arcs over my canopy, snatch a glance back, Duv's still there, firing, and whatever it was misses him as well.

Peripheral glimpe of tracer hosing up from a blockhouse to my right, getting close. Change course, roll up, pull the nose down, fire back, push to lift over the blockhouse roof, finish the roll as we continue on across the target.
All a blur really but there are secondary explosions all over the place, we are getting hits. We exit the target area again, turning, another Mirage flashes past in front of us, little close, this is when it gets dangerous, third pass and everyone is all over the place. Read More


(A True Story)
“Fuck that Honda’s got some grunt” I think as I chase hard in third, powering towards the first big right hand sweeper. The Honda’s brake light is on and I hear him change down to second before the pair of us peel off to the right and start our charge up the hill. This will be a sheer horsepower test I think to myself as a small red sedan comes screaming at us backwards at 100 kmh and is gone in the blink of an eye.

I too changed down at the bottom of the hill but now we’re both in third and coming out of the sweeper at full noise. I quickly discover that Blue Thunder has no power advantage over the Honda as I cannot gain ground in the uphill drag race to the next bumpy left. I drift wider to the right than the Honda on the entry to the left and brake late to close the right up on his rear tyre. Back to second, I peel in a fraction early to get inside him and hold the inside line. Read More

(A True Story)
G'day There! Well here's a little piece of correspondance I sent to our good friends at McDonalds one day. I was coming home off dogwatch one morning, riding in my mates Toyota hilux, we grabbed a coffee (It was one of those shitty ones with the plastic lid you pull the triangular bit out of so you can drink it.) Anyway, we went over a bump and I spilt some coffee on my nuts.... yes it hurt... so I thought I'd send a complaint into Macca's complaints department. (For all you international guests reading, here in Australia we call McDonalds, Maccas) This is derived from our slang, basically if your last name is;
Mc xxxxxxxx
Mac xxxxxxx
Your nickname is Macca.
Just ask Elle McPherson... she's a macca too.

Anyway, here's what I sent them...... Read More


(A True Story)
What a difference 20 years (well, almost) can make. The events that I'm about to describe did happen. If it happened now, it would be all over the national media and there would be a statewide manhunt, with the people concerned more than likely undergoing councelling for years to come. And yet, it wasn't all that big a deal at the time, just something else that contributed to making me who and what I am. Read More

(A True Story)
The event was de-classified and forgotten years ago, but I can still close my eyes and remember it just as it happened...

20,000 feet, going up at 45 degrees, crowding Mach one but keeping it sub in deference to the residents of Eilat over there on the right. It's cold outside, we've climbed into sunlight, still dark on the ground when we were scrambled a couple of minutes ago.

On my left the needle nose of Duv's Mirage IIICJ keeps wandering into my peripheral vision. An eager kid, he still wants to formate tight, despite all my teachings. Well, not a problem right now, we're in friendly airspace and staying there, but another chat will be required. "I want you at least a klick away, give us both room to move and keep me out of the debris when some SAM smacks your cocky arse."

He's good, and he knows it. Read More


(Fiction)
His breath came in great ragged gasps mixed with the racking cough of an exhausted old man. His long unkempt silver hair was slick with perspiration and glistening beads of sweat slowly dripped from a long grey beard. His ancient body was tired and slow but his dark eyes burned with the brilliance of a thousand suns.

Gnarled old hands gripped a weathered oak staff with a large intricately carved head, in a low combat stance. The staff was older than he, handed from father to son through many generations and it was without peer. Its engraved runes of warding and health glowed with a soft pulsing yellow that slowly strengthened his battered body. His eyes never left those of his foe. Read More

(Fiction)
Blood trickled in long lines down her fifteen year old skin, following the harsh bite of her fingernails as she raked them across her own face in desperation. Tufts of silky hair lay strewn across the bed and around her feet where she had torn them from their roots with clenched fists.

The voices were here again.

Silently screaming she bashed her head against the cold wall again and again. They wouldn't leave.

From the depths of her own personal hell came the painful moans and sobs of agony no-one else would hear, no-one else would know, no-one else would ever understand. Read More


(A True Story)
There's a word in Hebrew, Zanek, usually seen as "Zanek!!" It basically means go.

It was a word I heard a lot during my time in the Middle East, controllers used it as a fast way to wake up quick reaction alert crews and get them rolling. There was even a book written in the early seventies that used it as the title. Not a very good book, but it did get across the pressures of flying during the war of attrition rather well. In particular keeping Arab recon aircraft from getting too much information on what and where everything was, and elint intelligence of our comms.

The following story is in that book, but from a very different perspective to my experience of a particular day.

Being part of a rather unusual squadron, something I can't say a lot about even now, we didn't use Hebrew much, not everyone was fluent, and all of our controllers spoke good English, but Zanek was one word we all understood.... Read More


(A True Story)
The finest tribute I can wish to my departed friend Mac is one last story of his Vietnam days.

As I described in earlier tales Mac flew the F4, the Phantom, out of Thailand, mainly on Mig CAP, covering bombing raids. But Phantoms are true multi-role aircraft, so there were occasions when they were asked to do other things, including from time to time reconnaisance, there was a camera pod for just that reason.

It wasn't a common assignment, a mix of RF101's, the Voodoo recon version, and the superb RF-5 Vigilante, plus from time to time SR-71 Blackbirds out of Kadena, handled most of that work, but sometimes it would come up, the other guys busy or the Blackbirds unable to get a good view through weather. So they'd strap some cameras on a pair of Phantoms and go be photographers. In particular that was likely to happpen during the monsoon season, when bases in South Vietnam might be weathered in and the clouds too thick for Blackbird runs of any value.

That was what led to this hairy little mission. Read More


(A True Story)
We passed gently through the then small village of Stirling, and as the 110 sign appeared Laura gave my knee a squeeze and said "Punch it."

Down a gear and foot to the metal, the little car seemed to squat for a split second, then the speedo was climbing fast as we accelerated into the long straight before the climbing curves into the ranges. 110 was passed in no time, and the needle kept on climbing to finally peg out, with the tacho just nudging into the red, a calculated 180KMh, back in top gear, not at all bad for 1300cc's. Stock 160 was about it, but the mods had provided acceleration more than top speed, that was what was going to make those corners rushing towards us now such fun. Read More


(A True Story)
I was having trouble with my ex about 6 years ago and figured I needed to get outside the situation; Quick.

Or I would end up 'inside'; Quick.

I had caught her kissing a bloke I knew one night as I was doing the rounds of pubs on closing time and being who I am I couldn't do what I wanted and settled for dropping her directly home.

This bloke turned up at my house one afternoon just prior to my little trip and called me out. He started yelling at me; "what's this you spreading rumours about me and your missus?" The anger rising, I figured then and there it was time for me to get some downtime.

I picked a cold beer up out of the esky next to me, (was working on my tinny motor) and handed it to him, telling him if he was gonna come round my house yelling he might need the beer before he left. He took it and looked at me oddly. Read More


(Fiction)
The night was an inky veil that had drawn itself tight around the spotlit road ahead. Their wheels whined in the lonely night and winter made its icy way through the slightly opened window. Dark clouds owned the night sky and sudden sheets of lightning lit the horizon in a macarbe strobe effect. The smell of ionised "rain coming" air filled the cab of the Commodore ute as the V8 grumbled quietly along the straight and empty road. They had been travelling for a half hour now, neither of them talking. Some tangible barrier kept them silent and Nev's hands gripped the wheel just a little too tightly, his knuckles showing white in the green glow of the dash.

The silence was as icy as the night outside. Like two dogs standing either side of a bone: neither wanting to retreat and neither brave enough to step up just yet, they danced silent circles of glances and glances away. Rob had never been good with silence. He was a funny bloke. Not peculiar, just funny. The sort of bloke who was always in the middle of the loudest laughing circle at the pub. Nev clamped his jaw tighter together just thinking over days gone by as if the physical effort of closing his mouth would stop the words from coming. Read More


(Fiction)
Jack stood holding the kettle, frozen in a world so suddenly empty it sounded hollow. Suburban sound came flat and lifeless echoing his grief. Mowers hummed and cars drove past but all of this took place behind a thick opaque curtain that stood between him and the world outside. His feet tingled and the floor felt like it would crumble away underneath him at any moment. He reached a hand towards the bench top to steady himself against the tilting room and wondered if he was going to actually feel something solid beneath his palm.

Was anything real ?

'This is so foolish' he thought briefly and then his red flushed face began to twist with tears torn from eyes that he knew to be much tougher. The kettle began to wobble in his failing grip and he thumped it to the counter. Angry came and went so quickly it had hardly made its presence known. Read More


(Fiction)
I’m lying in bed and bright rays of light shine through the curtains.

Arrgh - it's time to get up.

Then it hits me - I can’t get out of bed yet, as help hasn’t arrived. What help, you may well ask.

My nurse.

Pushing the white buzzer I ask to get up. A disembodied metallic voice tells me that they will be there shortly but they have to finish doing breakfast first.

Ah, yes - breakfast. I remember that vividly. Eggs, bacon, cereal....... Read More