Contributor: Marissa Halvorson

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My mind whirled as I spun in circles, searching for a way out. My face looked back at me from every direction, my eyes wide with fear. My feet moved without my volition.
A new face popped up in front of me. I stumbled back with a cry, heart beating an unsteady rhythm. “God, Noah.” I exhaled and wiped a hand across my forehead. “You scared me! Do you know where we are?”
“Not sure,” the face in front of me replied. He brushed golden hair out of his eyes and stared at me, unblinking. “There sure are a lot of mirrors, though. Maybe we’re in a house of mirrors?”
I bit my lip and swiveled. My reflection peered back at me. “Noah?” I didn’t look at him as I spoke my next words. “Do you think this is real?”
Silence answered me. My head whipped around to find nothing but my face. The unusual paleness stood out in sharp contrast to my dark hair.
“Noah?” I called, rubbing my hands over the goosebumps on my arms. The wind wrapped around me like a frozen blanket. “N-noah? Are you there?”
A bone-chilling laugh rattled the floors and mirrors. I opened my mouth to scream and the breath sucked from my lungs. My legs collapsed. “Wh-who’s there? Noah, is that you?”
“Noah? Who’s Noah?” the voice called, echoing from all directions. “It’s me, Cameron.”
With a sudden clarity, I realized the voice talking was different from the cold laugh. Cameron’s voice radiated warmth and femininity. With forced effort, I stood and turned, searching in my multiple faces for hers.
“Right here, silly.” Cameron stood behind me. Her auburn curls were an awful mess but as usual, a playful grin lit up her face. “Sometimes you’re really funny, you know that?”
“You’re just as bad as Noah,” I told her. “Would you guys stop sneaking up on me?”
Cameron winked. “We’re not trying to. You’re just not paying close enough attention.”
“Okay, whatever. So do you know where we are?”
“Well,” Cameron’s head turned, taking in the room. “It sure looks like we’re in a room full of mirrors.”
“That was Noah’s observation,” I sighed. “ But how did we get here? I don’t remember anything except waking up here.”
“I don’t know…maybe you’re seeing things? Why don’t you get us out of here?”
“How?”
“Well, if you dreamed it up, I’m sure you can take us back home.”
“Why would you want to go home?” questioned a new voice, slick and cold. A chill wracked my body. I turned away from Cameron to stare right into a pair of icy blue eyes. My legs moved back but my foot slipped and I hit the ground hard. A loud crack echoed through my ears. White-hot pain blinded me, sliced my skin open, shattered my bones. I gasped, holding my injured arm in one hand and grimacing through the pain.
“Sorry, did I frighten you?” It seemed his voice alone could create snowstorms, blizzards, and possibly ice itself. “It’s Crys.”
His matter-of-fact tone gave me pause and it took me a moment to realize it was his name.
“Wh-who are you?”
An emotionless smile played over his lips. “Your worst nightmare.”
Cold spread through my bones, numbing my pain. I clenched my hands, willing them to stop shaking. I swallowed the lump in my throat and opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, darkness plowed over me.
Light peeked out from behind thick curtains as my eyes shot open again.
Warmth shrouded my body, a blanket wrapped tight around me. I was covered in a thin layer of sweat. I sat up in bed, wiped my forehead and sucked in deep breaths. “Thank god it was just a nightmare,” I whispered to myself.
“You had a nightmare?”
“Cameron?” My shoulders jerked and tensed. I squinted through the dim light to make out Cameron’s figure sitting on a chair beside my bed. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d hang out here until you woke up so we could go shopping.”
“Same here.” Noah waved from over by the door. “Not so much for the shopping, though.”
A knock sounded on the door and before I could say anything else, it swung open. “Ava? Are you awake? I have breakfast ready.” My mother stepped in, her eyes squinted, adjusting to the dim light. “Come on, Ava, get your butt out of bed.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but a hand appeared from behind her, touching my mom’s arm. It was pale, too pale to be real. Then a face popped from behind her shoulder. I clapped a hand over my mouth and screamed. Mom jumped and looked behind her, eyes wide, but she didn’t seem to see the hand touching her arm, nor the face, the frozen smile or icy eyes.
“Noah, Cameron?” I whispered. They both looked at me and I continued, “Can you see him?”
Mom’s eyes darted around my room, passing over Noah and Cameron without stopping. “Ava, honey, is something wrong?”
“Of course we can see him, Ava. But I don’t think your mom can.”
“But why not?” I whispered.
“Ava, who are you talking to?”
My gaze wandered to my mom, whose eyes darted around. I swung my legs out of bed and took a step forward. “Crys?” I said.
A knife appeared in Crys’ pale hand. “No!” I cried and leaped forward just as the knife buried itself in flesh. A scream tore through my throat and then red and black spots speckled my vision.


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Author: Marissa Halvorson

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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Rain splattered the sidewalk fronting Red's Discount Palace in evening darkness. A sign inside the front glass promised "a gift for every child from Dave the Magician".
Inside, along a jewelry counter, a small crowd of adults and children watched Dave in a gaudy clown costume sitting on a raised platform. Slender, laconic, with oddly distant eyes beneath the paint, he performed magic gags. A jagged scar, poorly disguised by the makeup, ran from his left eye to disappear beneath his ear.
Ritzy, a leggy redhead assistant in skimpy shorts and large red-rimmed glasses, filled balloons. Dave's cellular rang. He eyed the display, put it back in his pocket.
Ritzy boosted a little boy onto Dave's lap. "Damn Dave, I hate this place. Maybe a Margarita when we close?" Her accent was hillbilly. Dave's cold eyes said no but he didn't speak. He rubbed his forehead, apparently working on a headache. He ignored the cellular ringing.
Two men in hoodies, one in a Mickey Mouse mask, the second a Goofy face, burst in waving pistols. "Everybody on the floor. This is a stickup." Mickey fired a shot into the ceiling. People screamed and scattered. Both intruders turned to the jewelry counter, backs to Dave.
Dave casually picked up a metal chair and splattered Goofy's head like a burst pumpkin, brains spewing. Mickey whirled. Dave slapped the pistol out of his hand. Mickey followed with a knife thrust. Dave parried the blade, then caught Mickey a crushing forearm across the lower jaw, the sounds of bone snapping vivid. As the man fell, Dave snapped his neck. Mickey fell dead atop Goofy.
"The clown's a damned monster," a mother ran for the door, slipping on blood and gore in the walkway.
"Jesus," Ritzy, aroused, breathed. "You tore them two guys a new ass in three seconds."
The manager rushed up, horrified. ""Dave, what have you...?"
Dave turned to the manager, eyes still distant, hostile.
"Man, it's okay. Don't hurt me." The manager edged backward.
"Dave, your arm," Ritzy gasped. Blood dripped on the floor. Mickey's knife had found flesh. Dave pulled up his sleeve. The wound was superficial.
"Ritzy will help you get to a hospital. I'll explain to the cops," the manager stammered.
"Hospital...Cops?" Dave's strange eyes showed concern.
A towel wrapped around his forearm, Dave drove his pickup in the rain, Ritzy riding shotgun. His cellular phone rang. The message read "Voice". He didn't answer. The cellular rang twice again in seconds. Dave pulled over and dialed a long series of numbers. "Leave me alone," he said softly into the phone. Then, "All right."
Dave swung the pickup into a parking lot, ordered Ritzy to stay in the truck and approached a parked SUV. He slid into the backseat behind two men in front. "Hello, Dave. Remember me?" one said.
Dave didn't speak.
"I'm Voice," the older man, flaccid, pale, with rodent eyes turned back in the passenger seat. The husky, younger man driving was silent. "You were hard to find...musta managed to remove your chip." Voice leaned slightly further back as if to inspect Dave's neck, then glanced at the towel on his arm without comment.
Dave massaged his forehead.
"The antidote, Dave...it didn't reverse the programming. The whole Chain Guard has the same headaches. Some have gone rogue, some apeshsit. We've reinstated you, effective last month."
"Chain Guard...yeah, Chain Guard," Dave rubbed his forehead. "The details are...fuzzy. My God, my name is..."
"We know your name," Voice shot a glance around. "Dave will do." He punched a button on his iphone. The chord from ...a bicycle built for two, played several times.
The tune visibly impacted Dave. His hard eyes intensified even further. "Jesus, Chain Guard...South American drug dealers...we were...killing people. Hey, I'm processed off that system...discharged."
"Discharged? You just canceled two men for Christ's sake. We'll clean up that mess you left in the store back there with the local cops...move your stuff outta the motel."
"If you sent those two humps I just killed," Dave leaned forward, inches from Voice's face.
"Cancel, not kill, Dave. We protect the Chain of Command. You're on record for 47 cancellations...all confirmed and archived. Plus two incidentals back at Red's. We need you back in play." Voice showed a thin smile. "And those two amateurs weren't ours."
"No chance...finished," Dave tweaked his forehead.
"Dave, High and Mighty found you," he pointed upward at the satellite, "...through your sister. We'll find you again."
Dave laid both hands on the seatback. The odd eyes were pure death as he said quietly: "Even mention my sister and your two clowns are statistics on your scoreboard. And that hillbilly chick in my truck knows nothing. She's just a dumb..."
"Dave, Dave," Voice said softly. "You know we wouldn't hurt your sister...and Ritzy, Jesus man, do you realize how hard it was to teach a Harvard girl that accent." He tossed the iphone on the dash.
"Ritzy...Harvard?"
"She's one us, Dave."
Dave looked intently at the two clandestine operators. Through the headache, he was seized with a fleeting vision of bloody, torn men...then of insects stuck on flypaper on the ceiling of old Mr. Nelson's drugstore long ago. Was this the sum-total of his life...trapped on flypaper...a killing machine?
Massaging his forehead, he stared at the back of the two bureaucrats' heads. His eyes focused. The headache drifted softly into memory. He stiffened.
"Welcome home, Dave, You're ours again." Voice said. "Early flight to Ecuador tomorrow. Ritzy has the tickets...and a sack of cash."
Dave reached up and snapped voice's neck - he was dead before the driver could react. Dave's grip on the driver's throat was fatal in seconds. The headache was gone, completely. "Home...ours?" Dave questioned softly. "You think?"
Dave hurried to his pickup and slid in beside Ritzy. "Could you handle retirement to Ecuador, Ritz?
"And do what?" she smiled.
"A hut in the jungle...all the Margaritas you can handle." He was free...at least for now. Flypaper didn't always stick.


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Gary Clifton, forty years a cop has over thirty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. He has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Lee Wright

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“What will we do when they come?” she asks.

I don’t know if she means the government troops, the rebels, the secret police, or one of the many militias. But it doesn’t matter; they all want essentially the same things, and they’ll employ similar means to get them.

I want to ask her, “What do you want to do?” But that’s not fair. She has made enough hard decisions in recent months. And, after all, broken or not, I’m the ex-soldier.

I go to the doorway of the room where our son and daughter play. They don’t seem to notice as I ease the door shut. Glassy eyed and lethargic from lack of food, it would take a close mortar strike or a screaming klaxon to get their attention.
I turn to my wife. As beautiful as the day I met her, she sits in the rocking chair that belonged to her mother. Her dark hair hangs limply in her face, hiding one of her wide, brown eyes. Pale skin hangs loosely from sharp cheekbones. Her lower lip has not yet healed.

“Maybe they won’t come at all,” I say. But we both know this is foolish. Even now, we can hear the rumble and crack of artillery beyond the ridge. If the windows were not boarded, we would be able to see the flames rising high into the night and the flickering pinpoints of automatic gunfire. It’s only a matter of time before someone pushes through or someone falls back. Our town is now on the patch of retreat and the path of advancement.

Already, various units, platoons, and barely-organized bands of armed teens have moved through on the way to the fighting beyond the ridge. The town bleeds behind them, but time and again we have bandaged the wounds. It’s all we can do. No one here talks about leaving. Even if we were lucky enough to make it past the checkpoints, there’s nowhere left to go.

“Maybe it will be better when the fighting is over,” I say. “It can’t last forever.”
She looks at me for a moment then turns away, says, “Neither can we.”
“Our side still might win,” I say, trying sound hopeful.

She smirks. “And which side is our side now?”

I can’t answer. The soldiers don’t come every day, but they’re here at least two or three times a month. Sometimes, they throw bread and bottles of water from the backs of their trucks. Sometimes, they spray bullets indiscriminately. On occasion, they do both. The flags flying from the fenders are never the same two times in a row, and it’s getting damned hard to keep track of the ideologies represented by the various color combinations. At our house, we fly no flag, but even that makes a bold and risky statement.

“If only they hadn’t taken your guns,” she says.

I don’t respond to this immediately. I suspect she knows the truth but doesn’t want to say so. Eventually, I admit, “I still have one. It was my grandfather’s.”

“The old revolver with the long barrel?”

“That one. Yes.”

“And do you have bullets?”

“No.”

“Then it’s no good to us, is it?”

“I can get bullets,” I assure her. “There are still things a man without pride can do in exchange for goods and services.”

She stands, comes to me, takes my hand, kisses me on the cheek. Tears well in her eyes. “You have pride,” she whispers. “It’s hope we’ve run out of.”

I kiss her tenderly, careful to avoid the broken lip.

For a long while, we hold each other, our hearts beating in perfect synch. Then, she stands in the doorway and watches as I hurry down the street in search of four bullets. I’m glad my back is to her so she can’t see the tears in this ex-soldier’s eyes.


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Lee Wright is a fat, surly, bald man who lives near Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his beautiful wife (who is only a little surly) and son (who is not at all surly and has made his parents considerably less surly).

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Author: Lee Wright

Contributor: Eve Lampenfeld

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Mark was showering when he noticed it. That’s where he noticed everything. His chest hair had gone from the tawny red color he had always ignored, to a muddy greyish tint. He shut the water off with a smack and grabbed the tweezers. He felt a little electric spark when he pulled the first one out, and a smaller and smaller sense of pure joy at the 33rd and 106th hair. This may not be the best idea, he said to the dark purple rubber duck his mother had brought home for him in 1955, when he was a nine-year-old boy, sulking in the tub. Going from a gigantic square in the center of his chest, over this year he shapes himself a heart, a daisy, and finally starts ripping it off in Dadaist clumps. “If I can’t have you, nobody can,” he says.


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Eve lives in Brooklyn, NY and wishes she had a dog. Her work has been featured in flash-fiction publications like Short, Fast, and Deadly. She adores twisted little stories. Visit her at www.evelampenfeld.com.

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Author: Eve Lampenfeld

Contributor: Regina McMenamin Lloyd

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Tommy was 14, it was 1987, it was his third summer in Wenonah, NJ with Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Al. His mom had to work and didn’t want him in trouble in Philly. She sent him to the suburbs. Aunt Eleanor was a school teacher and spent the summers running between the library and the pool. She would sit by the pool with stacks of books and sipping glasses of water with lime.
Aunt Eleanor would tell Tommy stories of Uncle Al, when he was the football star. She told Tommy’s about his father, Uncle Al’s best friend. Tommy tried to get Aunt Eleanor to talk about what could have made his dad put a hole in his head. She would avoid the subject. Aunt Eleanor liked to tell funny stories, like how the sisters met the best friends, dancing at a dance hall.
Uncle Al was disabled and spent most of his days at the VFW post in Mantua. Whenever, Aunt Eleanor had a doctor appointment she would guilt Uncle Al into taking Tommy to Wenonah Lake to fish.
“Someone has to teach him how to be a man, Al. God knows the examples my sister is bringing home” Aunt Eleanor said whenever she thought Tommy couldn’t hear.
Uncle Al would take Tommy out to the bank of Wenonah Lake. Uncle Al would talk about the fish.
“You know when I was a kid you saw more fish than you do these days Uncle Al said every trip.
Uncle Al would talk about Tommy’s dad now and then. How they had gone fishing together as kids. He would tell stories about tough cars and beautiful girls. His stories had such life that Tommy would imagine Tommy was the one in the ’63 Mustang with a honey-hued girl he’d call, Doll face.
One day Tommy broached the subject of his Dad, “Mom said he came back messed up from Vietnam,” Tommy said.
“Tommy, War does things to you” Uncle Al said as he cast his line.
“My mom said he came back messed up. But you came back OK? Right?” Tommy said.
“War changes everyone, Tommy” Uncle Al said as he looked away.
Tommy had no idea what Uncle Al meant, he had never even seen Platoon.
There were some kids to hang with, not the kind of kids Tommy would hang out with in the city. If he got bored with the pool I could always go play Dungeons and Dragons with Gil Faltzenbacker. The boys would ride 10 speed bikes down Main Street passed Katie Kennedy’s house. Tommy imagined he was cruising in his Dad’s old Camaro.
Aunt Eleanor cooked big meals. Steaks and whole chickens any day of the week. Once in a while she said she was “cheating” with a casserole and a spinach salad. She never served Hamburger Helper with peas and carrots like Tommy’s mom. She never made dinner “work” with a can of tuna and a bag of frozen lima beans. Every meal at Aunt Eleanor’s was an event. She and Uncle Al drank cocktails out of cut crystal glasses and she poured Tommy “New Coke” over ice in the same glasses.
Aunt Eleanor would have made a great mother. She and Uncle Al never had kids and Tommy never really knew why. She was a natural care taker and loved Tommy, as if he was her own child. In fact, at times when he was young, he thought she might actually love him more than his own mother did. His mom loved him, but Aunt Eleanor squeezed all her love into 10 weeks of summer and 1 week at Christmas.
They played board games after almost every night. Aunt Eleanor would get tired early and head off to bed. Uncle Al and Tommy would sit in front of the big console TV in the family room and watch Joan Rivers or Johnny Carson depending on the guest stars.
It was an August night and the locusts were buzzing. It was so quiet in Wenonah. Tommy missed the sound of the city. At home he would have heard the constant thumping sound of I-95 traffic in the distance, and neighbors sitting on their porch clanking beer bottles in the trash cans.
There was a crack in the night; like lightning, like fireworks, like a whip. Tommy heard a loud groan and a battle cry. He ran into their bedroom. Uncle Al was sitting in the corner. Blood soaked the bed where Aunt Eleanor lay. Aunt Eleanor’s hair was an island of blonde pinned with pink curlers bobbing in a sea of blood. Blood was spurting from a gash in Aunt Eleanor’s chest.
“Get to the Foxholes, G.I. It’s the Vietcong.” Uncle Al muttered.
He clutched the blood splattered pistol.
“She was a sleeper, an agent of the God-damned Vietcong. I brought her to the base for a boom boom, the whore was working for the Vietcong. She was going to slit our throats. She would have gotten you too, G.I.” Uncle Al said behind glazed, crazed eyes.
Aunt Eleanor’s face was ashen and her body was twitching wildly. She was dying but she was not quite awake.
“Heartburn from the chili, I ate too close to bed” sputtered out Aunt Eleanor.
Her last words were a guess at the cause of her pain.
Yet, she knew it was more than heartburn. Uncle Al, in his own way knew too, it was about more than VietCong.
“What have you done?” I said.
The words hung out in the air, like so much old laundry. The police came. Tommy’s mother came. There was a funeral. Tommy went home to Philadelphia.
Uncle Al splits his time in rehabs, mental and VFW hospitals. He forgets most things. For years Tommy watched as Uncle Al went in and out of focus. Sometimes he seemed to know Tommy and what had happened. Sometimes, he would ask for Eleanor. He was at times so apologetic and at times so angry. Uncle Al calls the kind nurses Doll face. Every few months, Uncle Al had an episode. In his dementia, he thought the doctor was a spy, the nurse a combatant, the orderlies he called private.
The state took his house, his family’s wealth; Uncle Al passed his days unaware of all that has been taken from him. All of his memories of Tommy, Aunt Eleanor, of fish, of childhood are gone. What remains is the God-damned Vietcong.
Tommy tried to wipe out the images of that August night; instead he pictured Uncle Al, as a young man, elbow deep in the hood of an old El Camino. Aunt Eleanor reading her books with her toes on the dashboard, the Beach Boys are playing on the radio. Tommy drives by the old house once in a while, the house is boarded up but one thing remains the tattered American flag on the flagpole.


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Regina McMenamin Lloyd is a mother of two young children, a wife, and a Writing Arts Major at Rowan University. Regina recently was an honorable mention winner of the 2012 Denise Gess Literary Awards for poetry. Regina McMenamin Lloyd’s writing has been featured on Smithsonian.com, Linguistic Erosion and Drunk Monkeys.

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Author: Regina McMenamin Lloyd

Contributor: Taylor Normington

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The other kids in my neighborhood wouldn’t go near Old Man Sylas’ house when they could help it. It was the only home on our street with a wooden stoop. The steps were in a state of dirty disrepair that audibly ached when the children of the neighborhood stepped on them, approaching the front door to knock on a dare or as proof of their courage. It was as though the elderly stoop had never known shoes of that small size.
Mom always said that Sylas had a kind heart and that he used to be very neighborly. Neighborly was the word my mother used to describe those she thought were good people. She always said his wife, Connie, had been dried up and that it hadn’t bothered Sylas but that it had bothered his wife and that’s why she did that thing she did before I was born. I never got to meet her but Tommy, the oldest boy on the street, would describe her as though she had been the most beautiful lady in the world. That’s something for Tommy too, because he never liked girls. He even spoke poorly of his own mother. My mom never talked about Connie.
There was one time when I was eight that Sylas opened his window while the boys were playing with sparklers in the street right in front of his house. We all thought he was going to complain about the noise, but he didn’t. He sat in front of the window and smiled at us and watched. The boys were spooked and said we should go down the street and then they did. I didn’t though. There was something about Sylas’ eyes that seemed kind. I didn’t find him spooky at all. If I had a father I would have wished he’d look at me with those eyes.
I went up to his porch after he waved to me and I waved back. I climbed the steps of the stoop, which sighed under my lesser weight. Sylas got the door and admitted me into his home. He sat me in the living room, leaving the window open, and made me some tea and got me a raisin cookie. I thanked him and ate and he smiled and waited. I told him I didn’t like tea but that the cookie was good and he laughed and drank the tea himself. He had a nice warm laugh that didn’t sound old at all. It made sense why mom called him neighborly.
He got up from his spot across the room and approached me. He brushed my hair back and looked into my eyes. I remember distinctly that the look in his eyes hadn’t changed since I first saw him that night, but now that I was up close I realized that they weren’t happy at all. They ached. Sylas let out a small groan and I ran home. I never saw Sylas open his window again.


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Taylor Normington is a recent graduate of Michigan State University with a film degree. He took interest in writing prose at a young age, and after a lengthy hiatus to develop screenwriting skills has returned to short story writing as well.

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Author: Taylor Normington

Contributor: Richard D. Priebe III

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Jennifer carried a bale of hay past the rusted and rotting Volvo to the pen by the stable. Hershey was waiting.
She broke and spread the bale, and watched as Hershey ate his breakfast. Her own stomach was growling, but the old horse had to come first. She was lucky to have Hershey.
Jennifer went back to the house and flipped the light switch. Even after four years without power, she occasionally forgot that anything had changed—it was better to forget. Still, she couldn’t help but wish that Jim was with her now, and not off fighting in the desert. Sometimes, when she lay alone in the darkness of her bedroom, she hated him for leaving her by herself, even if it wasn’t his fault. He had been drafted. She always felt bad after.
Jim was taken just months after their wedding. It had been so unexpected. One day the pumps just closed. That night the news stations said there was no more oil in the Middle East. The government was investigating. Then there was no more news—no more electricity. The “draft” followed soon after.
Jennifer remembered the day the government came for Jim. It was a Sunday morning, and Jim and Jennifer were still in bed. They came into the house with tactical rifles pointing. They gave Jim fifteen minutes to pack. They watched Jim get dressed. They pointed their rifles. They watched Jim kiss Jennifer goodbye. They wouldn’t leave Jim and Jennifer alone for a second. They just stared with their tactical rifles pointing. Then Jim was gone, and Jennifer was left in their bed, naked and alone.

Jennifer pulled a can of fruit cocktail from the cupboard and took the utility knife from her pocket. The can opener had fallen apart months ago. She quickly cut a jagged circle around the top of the tin and peeled it back, exposing the fruit within. It was her last can, and she wondered if Hershey would make it to the food center in town—she had put it off as long as she could.
There were only a handful of people at the center when Jennifer arrived, and she thought back to when the government first started the program. The line of hungry people had stretched for over a mile. She’d been served, but later heard that the food ran out soon after. It seemed like every time she came to town there were less people. She guessed pretty soon there’d be nobody left.
When Jennifer reached the counter there were only a few cans remaining. A mother waited in line behind Jennifer with a little girl. Jennifer’s stomach groaned. She asked the woman behind the counter when the next wagon was due. It wouldn’t arrive for three days. Jennifer left the cans on the counter and walked back to Hershey. Pretty soon there’d be nobody left.


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RICHARD PRIEBE received his MA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University in 2008 and has recently enrolled in their MFA program. He lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two young daughters.

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Author: Richard D. Priebe III

Contributor: Amy Cornelius

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I have seen unspeakable things in my life. People always say you are the master of your own destiny and that you can’t blame anyone else for your life. That if you want to change it, you can. But those people haven’t met my dad. He was born and raised on the streets of Detroit and he was tough as nails. He came to Australia when he was in his twenties and, now that I’m older, I suspect it was to escape his violent past.
Of course, all he did was bring it with him.
I never understood why my mother married him. All their years together I never can remember her looking at him with anything close to adoration. But then, I reckon it was more fear than love that made her agree to his proposal.
She died when I was only eight years old. I don’t recall that night all that well. All I know is that she went into their room after screaming at him that he was a cheat and a murderer and was going to rot in hell. He followed her in shortly after. He came back out. She never did.
Things were never the same after that—not like they were really that good to begin with—and it was like I saw my father clearly for the first time. Before then I had only had assumptions. Doubts. Niggling, creeping feelings that something just wasn’t right. But as a child you never want to believe it. Your parents are supposed to be these amazing people who always take care of you whenever you need them.
Not Thomas Harooma.
And it was after Mum died that he decided I needed to grow up, immediately. No longer shielded from the dodgy dealings he was connected to, I was surrounded by a swarm of men as low and deceitful as him. They were nothing more than the scum of the earth, rising up from the sewers to participate in any and all activities that could and would be classed as illegal. And Dad ran it all.
I would sit in the corner of the room as he would talk to this filth that were somehow classified as men and I would watch. I had nothing else to do. Dad had pulled me out of school once he realised the hassle it would be to take me in and pick me up each day. So instead, I stayed with him. And not a single client of his commented on the fact that he had a child present during their interactions. None of them cared.
My childhood was ripped away from me as easily as my mother had been. Within the first twelve months I had witnessed so many things that made me realise the rumours about my father were all true. And I discovered quickly that he deserved—whole-heartedly—his nickname: the widow-maker.
He had a short fuse of a temper and the smallest thing could set him off. I had seen the evidence with Mum, and then seen the proof up close and personal with countless associates. I dreamed of turning him in, but he fed on my doubts by claiming I would be an accomplice to anything he did because I had done nothing but sit and watch as he carved his name into the souls of those he killed.
So I bit my tongue and bore the pain of those horrid men and their uninformed families.
Dad never demanded anything of me except for my silence and the occasional serving of food and drinks—all of which I would never touch, knowing the likelihood of an arsenic cocktail was always high. That changed the day I came of age.
The police were a constant presence in my life, yet I could never confide in them like I wanted. And then it was too late. They would bring me home in the back of their cars, their lights and sirens blessedly off, and tell my father the next time they would charge me for solicitation. But they didn’t realise that he was the one sending me out and telling me to earn my keep.
I knew the cops wouldn’t actually charge me. They simply used bringing me in as an excuse to check on Dad. They hoped that one day they would find him doing something, anything, wrong. Enough that they could charge him. Enough that they could get a warrant. They knew all his dirty laundry would be found if only they had a reason to look in the first place. They didn’t know Dad had set up an alarm system at the front gate. The drive was so damn long that he had at least five minutes to hide whatever he needed to before anyone arrived at his doorstep.
The cops asked me questions as we drove toward the flimsy weatherboard house that was supposed to be home.
But nothing felt like home anymore.
Not the house. Not this life. Not even my own body.
Yes, I’ve seen unspeakable things in my life. No one could blame me for deciding enough was finally enough.


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Amy Cornelius is a freelance writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. She enjoys writing a variety of genres—including horror; romance; and fantasy—and loves spending time in her own imagination with her characters (otherwise known as “those voices in her head”).

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Author: Amy Cornelius

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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Survival...Hell, that's all it ever was, really. The dirtbag and I were the only guys within six blocks of Boystown who weren't gay. I'd bought the shit, handed over the cash, then attempted a simple buy-bust. He pulled a pistol and in the struggle shot himself in the ankle. He lost a foot, got ten years, and DEA transferred me from Chicago to Dallas. I asked IAD if he'd shot off his balls, would it have been Detroit? Nobody laughed.
I'm on the job five years, but when an agent is transferred, they put him to riding with somebody knows the streets for a month or so. I drew a guy like a toad with wings - totally useless. Ol' Hogan chewed this black-crap. When he drove, he spat regularly, coating the driver's side with a layer of black-crap residue. And he never heard a damned word said.
He insisted on driving - never more than 27 miles per hour. Fifth day, we headed out Irving Boulevard, lined with greasy spoons, fine cuisine and heartburn guaranteed. "Stop for some Mexican, Hogan?" I pointed at Los Niño's. "Gotta spit out that black-crap."
"Say which?" He pulled over.
The joint was cafeteria-style, a five foot brick wall dividing a walkway to the serving line. Halfway down, two gunshots cracked outside the front door. A stringy, acne-scarred punk, arms decorated with penitentiary tattoos, stumbled into the lobby. Waving a revolver, he grabbed a teenage, female hostage by the boobs and stood behind her, pistol at her temple.
"Heads up, Hogan," I said.
"Say which?"
A uniformed cop burst in the door, pistol in hand, held at bay by the toad with the hostage. "Put it down, kid," the cop said softly, leveling his pistol. The kid backed toward us on the opposite side of the brick wall.
We were dressed casually - shirttails over our pistols, trying not to look like the law. "Say which?" Ol' Hogan asked.
Snake-bit from Chicago, I sure as hell wasn't going to shoot first and check the target later. Ol' Hogan casually pulled a .357 magnum from under his shirt, rested it on the wall, and cranked off a round at the assailant from thirty feet. I hadn't realized he even had a pistol, let enough sense to use it. A hand's width from the hostage's face, the round caught the kid in the left ear, blew a messy gush of head innards out the other side, then plunked out a front window.
"Hope they weren't making a movie," I said.
"Say which?"
The kid hit the floor partly decapitated in a puddle of brains, the hostage fainted, and the uniform stood, stunned.
"Federal Officers," I waved my badge like a birthday surprise. "Don't shoot."
"Bastard busted two caps at me outside," the officer blurted.
"Say which?" Ol' Hogan slipped the magnum in his rear waistband.
"Hogan, I'm now eligible for the sub-shit-list," I said. "I hope to hell my next stop isn't somewhere without a zip code."
"Say which?" Ol' Hogan turned back to the lunch line.


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Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has over thirty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. Clifton has been shot at, shot, stabbed, sued and misunderstood and is now retired.

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: John Laneri

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The summer after my tenth birthday was a turning point in my life. It happened on one of those warm summer nights when I realized that GI Joe represented the ultimate military man.

For two nights, Billy and I had been trying to glimpse the new girls in the house next to his. Finally, after spending the entire day studying GI Joe comics, we were ready. The girls would not escape our mission.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Billy asked, as he glanced over the bushes.

“I’m not sure... hand me the binoculars.”

I took them then crept to another bush, just as I had seen GI Joe do in, “Search for the Missing Platoon”.

“What do you see?” Billy asked, as he edged beside me.

“I don’t know. Everything looks black. I can't see squat.”

In the distance, I could hear voices coming from their house. Through the foliage, I could make out two silhouettes on the back porch in the adjacent yard. I was certain the girls were unaware of our presence.

I nudged Billy. “We need to approach them through the woods then sweep along the side of the fence and strike from the flank.”

“What happens if we get caught?” Billy asked.

“We won’t get caught,” I said confidently.

“But, my parents…”

“Follow me private,” I said, as I darted into the shadows and began making my way toward their house, crawling silently from tree to tree.

I stopped behind an oak to survey the area.

“See anything?” Billy asked, moving beside me.

I pointed ahead. “I think their room’s at the end of the house in front of us.”

Suddenly, I saw a shadow move past a window.

“What was that?” Billy asked, his voice on edge.

“They’re headed to the bedroom. Let's get closer.”

I crept to the next tree. Billy followed. And soon, we were outside their window hidden in the shadows, our nerves on end.

“Lets go back,” Billy whispered. “We might get caught.”

Ignoring him, I eased closer to the window and chanced a look. At first, the room appeared dark. Then suddenly the bedroom door opened, and I saw two girls come skipping into the room.

Quickly, I dropped out of sight and hurried back to Billy.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “They looked different.

“Different?” he asked.

“They didn’t look like the girls at school.”

“Were they monsters?”

“No, they’re full grown women. I think they’re fifteen or sixteen years old.”

“I want to see,” Billy said, coming to his feet.

“They might spot you.” I reached to draw him to cover. “You need to whisper. We’re on an important mission. We don't want to be discovered.” My attention returned to the darkened window. “We know they’re in the room, so we’ll wait. That’s what Joe would do.”

I remained crouched in the darkness, daring to breathe, my ears straining to hear the girls. In the distance, I heard an owl calling in the night – it’s sound sending a chill snaking along my spine.

Soon, I began to grow uneasy. The girls were too quiet.

“Lets move closer,” I whispered. “Something is wrong.”

We edged toward the window, moving carefully along the side of the house. Then together, we looked over the windowsill.

At first, I only saw darkness. But as the minutes passed, I began to sense an eerie, creepy presence almost as if something was watching, waiting.

Then suddenly – like monsters in a nightmare – two hideous faces with sharp teeth popped up on the other side of the window and began screaming.

Springing away from the window, Billy and I hit the ground together, jumped to our feet and sprinted away, fleeing for our lives. Once safely in his yard, we ducked behind a bush to make sense of what had just happened.

“Were those things girls?” Billy asked, his voice trembling.

“I think so,” I replied, chancing a glance over the bushes.

“They were the ugliest girls I’ve ever seen.”

“No stupid, the girls were wearing monster faces.”

Deep inside, I knew they had fooled us. In the background, I could hear them giggling, celebrating their victory.

By then though, I was already planning another strike. I was GI Joe, and I intended to accomplish my mission even if it took all summer.

Truth be told, I got my eyes full the next week when the girls were showering. And, the best part of all – they knew I was watching.


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John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit can be found on the internet and in several print edition periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri