I am holding a vaguely reassuring gun at some pasty, grizzled mess of a guy I have never seen before. I ask him what time the time is. Numbers tumble out of his mouth in a curious order.
If he’s right, I have only been out for five minutes.
Sugar Cookie’s By Alec Cizak
Cookie Doyle said, “Aren’t you broads in step yet?” She stared at Cynthia. The girl had gathered the other dancers near the door to the kitchen. For support, or something.
Joyce Crowley said, “What the hell’s that mean?”
“You know damn well,” said Cookie. Good grief. If she called her husband, Butch, he’d slap them and tell them to get back to work. “Well,” she said, “who’s got a plug?”
The girls looked at each other.
Waiting To Take You Away By Jason Michel
Dark.
Light.
The man blinks five times. Twice slowly with effort. Three times fast. His eyes are adjusting to the light of the room. There is no sunlight here. The sun has gone a long, long way from here. There is the smell of damp from the aged and tired wooden table to the side of me. The natural whiff of decay.
Per Your Request By Tom Hoisington
A drunk approaches a policeman and says his car has been stolen. The cop asks where the last place he saw the vehicle was. “Right here at the end of my key,” the drunk says, holding a ring of them up. “Okay,” says the cop, “but you might want to zip up your fly before we go looking for it.” “Damnit!” says the drunk, glancing downward, “they got my girl, too!” – ghost of Townes Van Zandt; Mission Beach, San Diego; 2000 A.D.
My ex-wife, who never bothered to legally become “ex,” let herself into my apartment with my extra key and slid into bed with me. She Continue reading Per Your Request By Tom Hoisington
The World Was Full of Monsters By E.M. Fitch
He squeezed the trigger with a slow, practiced pull. The sound of the shot pierced the air, just one crack among hundreds, thousands, that would sound that day. Her head jerked back with a thunk, the finality of her skull smashing into the pavement.
Death would be easier. Continue reading The World Was Full of Monsters By E.M. Fitch
The Tick-Tick Man By Benedict J Jones
Carl stopped dead when he reached the gate of the path that led to the large house. He struggled for a moment to remember why he was there but then his fingers touched on the cold leather of the tick book in his pocket. Carl took a deep breath in through his nose, blew it out his mouth and pushed through the gate.
Godlings By Martin Garrity
Beyond the detritus of the warp-ship graveyards, against the dizzying backdrop of the cosmos, the god child Qualito floats forwards and bowls a gas giant.
The rest of us godlings hang back in a huddle and watch the shot play out. Vapours hang behind the missile in effervescent trails. The gaseous projectile arcs through space and begins to spiral. It comes to rest in a stable orbit, barely a million miles from the target star.
Continue reading Godlings By Martin Garrity
The Bear By Mike Madden
It is business as usual at the Hampton Lounge on a random Tuesday evening toward the close of this most regrettable year, two-thousand and fourteen. The Hampton is an upscale martini bar which ekes out its meager existence amid the raunchy nightclubs of Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan strip. Tourists mostly avoid the Hampton which offers no entertainment, unless the term is defined to include staring drunk-eyed at the widescreen above the bar or at the patrons themselves, as sorry a group of aging hipsters as you’ll ever encounter.
Pick Your Brain By Jenny Thomson
“Miss McBride, in all my years of representing clients whom other less well attuned legal brains would turn down as unwinnable, I have never come across one single case I could not win.” He pursed his lips. Continue reading Pick Your Brain By Jenny Thomson
It Just Goes Downhill From Here By Ryan Sayles
So you’re out of breath when you swing open the trunk’s lid and you eyeball the space inside there and compare it to the dead hooker cooling ever so slightly at your feet.
Continue reading It Just Goes Downhill From Here By Ryan Sayles
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