Contributor: Joyce Chong

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“Slide Brothers Circus Presents: The Great Landon Winnsfield at Blue Valley Falls”

Dmitri Petrovsky adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses as he peeked out from behind the curtain and examined the large banner strung across the fairground entrance. A whispering crowd of onlookers stood before the outdoor stage, clapping as the animal trainers made their exit. Dmitri ducked backstage where Sandra was rushing to and fro, tools in hand. A mechanical vest sat on the table, the secret behind most of Landon's stage performances. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun that jostled each time she shifted her head, Dmitri smiled at the sight of his wife hard at work. She called her husband over, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“Can you tell me where the spring is? I need it for the confetti finale.”

“Bottom pocket in the suitcase.”

“Thanks, honey.” She paused, giving her husband a concerned look,“You don't have to help, I know how to do set-up on my own.”

Dmitri nodded, jaw clenched. Sandra's brow knit in concern and she stepped close to him, whispering.

“We should leave this stupid circus troupe. You can't work for a lowlife like him. We'll find work somewhere else.”

“It's fine.” said Dmitri.

Sandra's voice was low this time, full of danger, “It's not fine. He's a fake! What kind of magician uses another man's work? Look, just go. I'll take care of it.”

Dmitri nodded, stepping outside for a smoke. He watched as mist floated up from the Blue Valley Falls and stiffened when he heard steps behind him. His two seconds of peace were up.

“Hiding again? You always were a worthless performer. That's why I'm the one on stage.”

Landon wore his stage costume, an old tattered hat and a suit thick enough to hide his trick gear underneath. Dmitri took a deep drag of his cigarette, watching with eyes narrowed at the man who had used his inventions for the past six months, propelling him into an absurd spotlight of attention and fame. Landon's grin seemed to grow with the silence.

“I'm just thinking, we don't really need you anymore. Your pretty wife can stay, though, I like having her as my assistant.”

Landon's snide grin was brief because in one movement, Dmitri had punched him in the face. Cigarette still crushed between his fingers, it burned against skin. Landon screamed and clawed at Dmitri. The man's snarl was beastly, grotesque.

“Get out. You're not coming back, tricks or not. Get out of here!”

Dmitri finished his pack, inhaling mist with his bitter smoke as he leaned against the railing, bordering onto the Falls. He would tell Sandra after the show; at least he'd get the opportunity to see his wife on stage. Dmitri laughed to himself when Landon appeared, his left cheek patched up. Sandra wore a sparkling silver dress and had her hair down, smiling to the audience, glaring to Landon's back.

When the grand finale approached. Dmitri knew where to look. Landon tripped mid-show, and sure enough, it was Sandra who stood back up, dressed in a man's suit. She bowed to raucous applause, then the stage lights shut off. A spotlight cut through the dimness, and there was Landon, standing on a platform above the Falls. Dmitri had seen this routine practised, so when the man threw his arms out for the grand finale, the last thing he expected was a gush of blood. The confetti still shot out, though.

Landon was frozen in shock, crimson seeping rapidly down his shirt from the base of his neck. The blood soaked his suit and revealed the mechanical gear beneath, of which a sharp piece had stuck itself into the magician's neck. There was a brief moment where Dmitri saw the man's face, blank with terror, before the coloured paper pieces obscured his view. Landon fell back as the crowd's cheers began to dim, and before the confetti could settle, he was lost to the misty waterfall and the currents below.

On stage, Sandra screamed, but the sound was dulled by everyone's cheering. She was on her knees, and when Dmitri saw her, he sprinted onto the stage and took her away. There was the chaotic sound of shouts and whispers, clashing against each other. Everyone struggled to understand what had happened and brief, discernible bits of conversation cut through to Dmitri from the cacophany.

“Is that for real?.......that thing under his suit.....he's a fraud...........Is he dead?”

Sandra buried her face in Dmitri's shoulder, sobbing quietly. The crew watched with eyes wide as they approached.

“I'm taking her to our trailer,” whispered Dmitri to the crew, who nodded, still in shock.

Sandra sat down as soon as they were back in their trailer. Dmitri sighed, unsure of what to do or what to say. Then she looked him right in the eyes and smiled.

“Honey, that was one of the best shows I've ever seen.”

Dmitri was perplexed. That had hardly been a success. “What are you talking about?”

”I told you I could set up his gear on my own. It's about time you saw one of my tricks.”

Sandra smiled and gave Dmitri a quick kiss on the cheek. He suspected that she really did love him.

“So, what was the trick?”

“Make Landon Winnsfield disappear.”


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Joyce Chong is a hobby writer, currently studying health sciences in Ontario, Canada.

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Author: Joyce Chong

Contributor: Lauren Hoyt

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I see the world through men’s faces. Men with religious beards and carefully acquired wrinkles. I see women and I don’t. Every woman has my mother’s face, my wife’s face, my daughter’s face. Only the eyes change. Black, almond, brown, round, squinted, sometimes painted up like a cheap whore. Masha’Allah, the eyes.
I walk through the streets of Dammam and see women paces behind their husbands. Their eyes are hidden behind their niqab. The men nod to me, Salam, muttawa. I sift through my prayer beads, reciting the Qu’ran. I hear the Salah ring through the streets, and I go to a mosque. We wash our hands and feet in unison, speak in unison, pray in unison, bow to Mecca in unison, in a sea of black eyes. Praise be to Allah. We try to be the same in our piety, a world of uniformity. I do not want this for my sons, my daughter, their sons, their daughters.
I leave the mosque silently, their bodies still posed in worship. I hear the House of Allah moan prayers, shout praises, curl words. I walk down the dusty road, staring at the beads in my hand. I feel the smoothness of them and the soft whisper of the tassel brushes my palm. While walking, I see a man with blue eyes sitting on a bench. I let go of the beads and they drop onto the filth of the street. I hear men leaving the mosque, muttering praise be to Allah.


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Lauren Hoyt is a senior majoring in English with a minor in creative writing from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. She grew up in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, but her family is from Baytown, Texas.

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Author: Lauren Hoyt

Contributor: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

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Jeremy tried to hatch eggs by sitting on them and keeping them warm. It’s not funny. He did a lot of things like that- he was just an odd kid. Ok, Jeremy was a weirdo. He invented a time machine which really meant he would lock his “friends” in the closet and flick the lights on and off, then when they got out he would hand them a faded rock from the driveway claiming it came from prehistoric times and show them a black and white postcard of the Queen Mary trying to pass it off as a picture he took of the Titanic in 1912. I don’t know if the Titanic was sunk or not by then, but regardless that was always the year he claimed- 1912. Jeremy often pretended he was a dog. He would lay on all fours mimicking a dog’s position while he lapped water from a bowl and scratched invisible fleas. At night he would curl up into a tight circle and drift off to sleep, truly believing he was of the canine world. Except for the time when he was a human marrying a dog. Back on the blacktop at recess, a group of us gathered to be the witness, flower girls, and chorus for his wedding to Wishbone- the ever famous t.v. dog. The wedding procession was set to Christmas carols. It was April. Another one of Jeremy’s favorite activities was making outrageous claims. He told us he would win the Nobel Prize for writing and that he could be an Olympic ice skater one day if he wanted to. He didn’t know how to ice skate very well though. Then again, anyone can win the Nobel Prize I suppose. I could win it for this eulogy for all I know. Jeremy boycotted the rise of all boy bands. He thought they were cheap and that bands should stay female only. Due to this he had very little to converse about with his peers at snack time. He also loved to keep files on everyone. After snatching a copy of Harriet the Spy from his older sister’s bookshelf, he became enthralled with the idea of spying on people and keeping tabs on them. Jeremy loaded a box full of notecards where he listed each classmate’s name and what was good about them and what wasn’t. Much like Harriet, he got caught. Yes, Jeremy was a strange kid. He’d eat lunch in the bathroom or the hallway early in the morning just to avoid the fear of loneliness and rejection from others. He held block parties in his room like they did on the radio where he was the DJ and the only guest aside from his 50 stuffed animals. It’s all true, but it’s not funny because now he’s dead because of you. All of you. He was 20 and because all of the shit you put him through in college and high school and middle school he killed himself. You had to go all the way back to elementary to even find me- his only true friend- to write his eulogy because you all treated him bad. I used to say it back then when people would laugh at him and I’ll say it again now. It’s not funny.


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Currently, I am obtaining my MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte and live with my husband in Durham, NC. I also wrote a book which is due to be released later this year.

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Author: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

Contributor: Regina McMenamin Lloyd

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There was a sound. It was ear piercingly loud. My chest was ripped open. It felt like the warming sting of heartburn, like the time as a girl I swallowed a whole blue mint and waited gasping for the sugars to melt. It was reminiscent of the panic attack I had on a roller coaster when I was a teen, it felt like the first time Pete Gorman, my first boyfriend, made my toes curl between the rumpled sheets of my first dorm room cot. People say at death’s door your life will flash through their eyes. For me it was my brain remembering the feelings of this throbbing anguish and trying to identify the source.
I felt myself float out of my body. Before that moment, I had felt the body that housed me was me. But I knew all of me was still here in this purple plasma jelly. I tried to force my body to pull me down, like the string on my jelly plasma balloon soul. I felt unformed and free. My body is solid, concrete like a stone of unmovable flesh below. My soul is a float in a mass of spilling energy like the hot gas of the sun.
I watched the shooter taken out in handcuffs. I had no idea who he was or why he had shot me. The news reporters will probably say “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
But like trying to read in a dream, I cannot speak. I hear talking but it is murmurs and I can’t make out the words. It makes me angry to listen, like the adult on the phone to my Charlie Brown ears. My body lay against the blacktop in the street. Strangers are circled around me.
I followed my body to the morgue. The undertaker took photographs of my body. His hair was greasy black and combed over the waxy balding spot of his head. He measured the bullet wound. My body was naked and I felt humbled. The gaping hole in my chest looked so shameful I longed to cover it up with newspaper or a paper blanket. I stared at that weird mole below my left breast. I had always thought it was ugly.
The undertaker moved to my breast and flicked my nipple. I watched annoyed. I saw him turn and run his hand over the length of my body. The hair stood up on his forearm. I could see he was aroused. His hands pawed my body in a frantic molestation. I was disgusted at him even though I couldn’t feel his exploitation of my corpse.
When he finished with my body, I lingered. Where would I go now that my carcass had been killed, and violated? The doors opened. A corpse is wheeled in. She is about 9. Her hair hung in 2 long French braid pigtails. Someone had lovingly cleaned the vomit from her angelic face. Her purple jelly plasma balloon wafted in after her body.
The undertaker began taking off her clothes. The hair stood on his arm. I was finally able to move my own purple jelly plasma balloon away from my remains.
“We are done here; I will take you to a playground.” I say.
“Where are we?” She asks.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find out together”
This time, I was in the right place at the right time.


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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, Your Kind of Town.

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Author: Regina McMenamin Lloyd

Contributor: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

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“I heard it was murder.”

“It wasn’t murder, it was an altercation. Self-defense if anything.”

“Wait, what happened exactly?”

“Well, the Daniel guy was trying to get out of drugs, trouble- you know what I mean. Trying to get his life back together. He never really was the same after his sister passed away.”

“Yeah, I heard about that! That was so shocking and sad.”

“Yeah it really was. So, he had this party and a few of the guys showed up with stuff. They were trying to shoot up in his bathroom or something, and he didn’t want them to. One guy got really upset- said he was “disrespecting” them or something, can you believe that? Just because he didn’t want them doing drugs in his bathroom? So the fight between them just got bigger and bigger.”

“Wow- well, what did the rest of the people at the party do?”

“I don’t know…you would think there would be some interference.”

“Yeah, really. I’d be scared shitless if I were there though.”

“No kidding. So then the guy pulls a gun on the Daniel guy, or there was a gun near them, I’m not sure whose gun it was or where it came from but I just know Daniel shot the other guy first.”

“So it was self-defense. Kill or be killed.”

“Pretty much. The bad part is that the Daniel guy felt so bad and freaked out about shooting this guy that he yelled to his girlfriend to call an ambulance, and then while she did that he went into the other room and shot himself.”

“You mean he’s the one that killed himself?”

“Yeah. What a horrible situation to be in….”

“So he murdered himself.”

“You can’t ‘murder’ yourself.”

“Then he murdered his guilt.”



Walking around the neighborhood and hearing people talk this way, I know they have it all wrong. Sure, they may have the story down more or less- but not the details. Nobody living knows the exact details. They may know the story, but they don’t know a damn thing about my cousin Daniel or the reasons why he probably shot himself. And they never will. For some reason it makes me bristle to hear people conjecturing, discussing things in such a calm manner. And every time I hear someone proclaim that suicides go to hell, I go red and think, “So will you.”


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Currently, I am obtaining my MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte and live with my husband in Durham, NC. I also wrote a book which is due to be released later this year.

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Author: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

Contributor: George Sparling

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Smoking black hashish with Mary as we sit on a foam mattress upon plywood held up with cement blocks in a one-room shack at the edge of a hacienda, bathroom in an adjacent white concrete building. I saved money from my American job and then quit. I fled bosses, alcoholic DTs, a woman who may or may not have told cops I raped her, collection agencies, jail time for two bad checks, my infant son taken away by my ex-wife, hiding from loan sharks I owed money.

1968: the army massacred students in the Tlateloco housing project in Mexico City. Mary and I know some of the students but not what happened to them. Who knows the fate of our bones or how many times we’ll be buried.

Shit, I was high. Mary stares at my reflection in the window, hashish made from female flowers of cannabis plants, females stronger than males. I stare at her glassy image too. Mary says, “Take a look at yourself,” and I took my hands off her breasts.

Have I got uglier since we first met? She deflects my potential to verbally or physically attack her, and says, “I know a drummer in San Antonio, let’s hitch there, it’s over 800 miles, here’s the last of my Dexedrine.” I put up no resistance.

We each swallow two tablets and finally make it to a main highway headed north. The truck driver evicts his partner from the cab and he must hang on to exposed cargo. Shaky life being odd man out. Mary chatted a bit in Spanish, the driver pleased to have a nice-looking gringo so near and sometimes he touched her thigh after shifting gears. He pulls over and we get out, the helper climbs up and assumes his rightful place.

Nearer the border, I try conversation but she turns her back. Mary will not have sex with me across the road in well-concealed foliage; we could, and she knows it and looks peeved, her face serious. What’s a reflection mean?

Mary’s stern face, her eyebrows bent low over bright green eyes, her smooth arms hug me out of comradeship, and she spits a thick wad of mango into the dirt and says, “Not ripe.” Fatigued, I want to quit and sleep by the side of the road, hoping some peasants will feed me when I awake and take care of me forever.

Yet it isn’t that bad hitching, especially when we talk about the students and revolution. Mary reads headlines at a nearby newspaper stand and tries to learn more about the students.

“Sometimes I think those students should give up,” she says, “Don’t you ever get that feeling?”

“I don’t think real revolutionaries ever give up. Do you?”

“They should save their lives if they know they’ll lose.”

She gives me $50 so when we cross the border, agents will not consider me a bum.

Neal Cassidy, close friend of Kerouac’s, died on Mexican railroad tracks earlier this year. We talk about the psychedelic bus’s name “Further,” what it means, and how Cassidy threw a 4-pound hammer in the air ad infinitum, catching the handle every time, and Mary tells me her drummer boyfriend had dark skin beneath hollowed out eyes like Neal. A small herd of goats crosses the street with a bearded goatherd.

I see her as she walks fifty feet ahead, standing on a road in position for a ride to the border, while I lag behind watching her black hair blow around her head, and remember sitting in a dark theater and saw Kim Novak in the movie about “The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders” on our first date, my first time with a young Italian woman, how I stroked her hair, its black, lustrous strands in affectionate darkness.

I nicknamed her Moll but she never came up one for me.

Three rides later, we were so near the border that we walk across a bridge at Nuevo Laredo, then into Laredo and at customs border guards separate us, Mary led away and I enter a room with five uniformed guards and show them my passport. They strip search me. For drugs? For guns? For intimidation? For political suspicion? Cannabis aroma? I grab my balls, and one checks my rectum with a flashlight, jokes about my girlfriend, Did I sleep with her? Mary tells me they did the same with her, but brave enough to curse the guard when her rough gloved fingers were abusive.

We wander around the U.S. side, uncertain of the unaccustomed noise. We finally make it to San Antonio, and Mary phones her friend who picks us up. He has an apartment and looks at me as suspiciously as the guards had, and he and Mary talk about old friends, what happened to them. Had they intercourse or just talked, I didn’t care. I flop on thick coats, using a few shirts as a pillow. They stood in the next room as drummer talked about making it someday. “You gotta keep the band together, otherwise the band breaks up faster than one night of quickie sex.”

Later, around noon, Mary tells me she’s not going back, she wants to stay in San Antonio with drummer. Mary gives me another $50 and we hug, bonk fists like revolutionaries do. Too tired and winded for my 26-year-old body, I’m vulnerable and afraid I’ll get busted. Suddenly, it’s like a four-pound hammer hitting my head---we no longer are a couple.

I hitch back to the shack, smoke hashish on the mattress, and see my double stare back at me in the windowpane. After more hits, I see Mary’s face, but it slowly dissolves.


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Author: George Sparling

Contributor: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

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Gray sky, cars honking, and a homeless man sitting against a doorway with a brown-bagged wine bottle behind him - another day in the city. He was almost your typical homeless man, with a withered face and ratty gray dreadlocks, his black skin creased by the sharp chilly fall weather of at least a decade. Now it was hot and sticky in the midsummer heat. He had an unusually cheery demeanor though, talking to all who surrounded him and not asking for anything though a hat with money sat in front of him. His left pant leg was torn, faded, and rolled up to the upper thigh revealing his prosthetic. People passed- a lady with a chic leather trench coat, a man carrying a bouquet of flowers, several youth covered in headphones or talking on cell phones. And then there was a twelve year old boy passing through slowly on his red ten-speed bicycle. He was almost your typical boy, with an LA Dodgers baseball cap and a backpack carrying what little math homework he had been assigned. He stopped in front of the vendor situated a few feet from the homeless man and ordered a blue popsicle. As he pushed the change on the counter towards the vendor, he turned to hop back onto his bike, when he noticed the man sitting in the doorway smiling despite his rotten luck. He looked at the popsicle, then at the man, and then rode his bike up in front of him.
“Hi! My name’s Manny. Like Manny Ramirez,” the boy said in a friendly and unafraid tone. He may as well have been talking to anyone he just met.
“Really? You don’t say,” the homeless man rasped. “I’m Billy.”
“Like Billy Joel!”
“Yeah, yeah! That’s not bad.”
“Would you like a popsicle, Billy?”
“Oh, thank you, thank you! That’s so nice.”
Manny handed the popsicle over to Billy who gratefully took a lick and smiled back at the boy with the few teeth he had left.
Just then a different nearby vendor came over and present Billy with a hot dog, then walked back to his stand. Apparently they were old friends.
“I love you, man!” Billy yelled. The vendor laughed.
Manny eyed Billy’s prosthetic leg but knew he shouldn’t ask.
A female cop walked up and Manny got nervous she would be angry.
“Hey Billy, how are ya?” she asked with a small smile.
“I’m alright, I’m alright. Got this young man here and that clown over there being all nice to me. It’s great.”
“Making new friends, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Well, good. I’ll be back to check on you later.” The woman walked off slowly and calmly.
Manny drank the man in through his eyes.
“It was really good to meet you, Billy,” Manny said.
“You too, you too. Thanks for the pop! You too.”
Then Manny hopped back on his bike and pedaled back to his home near the tracks.


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Currently, I am obtaining my MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte and live with my husband in Durham, NC. I also wrote a book that is due to be released later this year.

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Author: Allie Coker-Schwimmer

Contributor: Jim Harrington

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I crouched behind a lilac bush and watched the horse gallop down the street and stop in front of my place. I hadn't received any mail for three days and wondered what was going on. I thought maybe kids were pranking me.

The rider wore a Stetson, chaps, and cowboy boots with silver inlays in the toes. His back was hunched, and he must have weighed 125 pounds stepping out of the tub. He rode a black stallion big enough to win a game of chicken with a bulldozer. His pants were AWOL.

"Hey, pardner," I said, as he reached down and opened my mailbox. "What the hell ya think you're doin'?" I didn't normally talk like this, and even odder I felt like spitting into a bucket.

He snatched my mail out of the box, rifled through it, and spurred the horse on to Fred's. I sauntered over--I'd never sauntered before either--and repeated my question. He looked at me like I was the one who belonged in the hoosegow.

"Only advertisements." He looked at me and shrugged. "Same as you get every day."

We stared at each other for a moment and when I didn't respond, he reached down and opened Fred's box. The horse snorted and pounded the ground as if instructed to count to three. I took a step back.

"Well, it just ain't right--stealin' a man's mail," I said, my thumbs hooked in the waist of my jeans.

When I realized where my hands were, I lowered them and watched the rider take Fred's mail. It didn't look any more important than mine. Still…

I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to get into an argument with anybody, especially someone not wearing pants. I couldn't call the police. They'd ask lots of questions and make me write stuff down. I was too busy for that.

I looked up and spotted Fred waving at me through the window. I couldn't see him well enough, even squinting over my glasses, to know if he was waving me inside or telling me to get away. I knew he wouldn't come out until the guy left, then he'd blame me for his mail being stolen. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Fred knew about the half-naked highwayman before I did.

I turned to see the rider put something back in Fred's mailbox. Without looking at me, he said, "Bill. I got enough of my own." He closed the box and picked up the reins.

"Well, tomorrow I'll be out here with a gun," I said. "So you better not come back." I realized my hands were at my sides as if I was reaching for a pair of holstered, pearl-handled beauties.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," he said and rode off to Edith Clanton's.

I watched him stop at two more boxes before I turned and headed into the setting sun, even though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon.


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Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. He serves as Fiction Editor for Apollo's Lyre ( http://apollos-lyre.tripod.com/index.html) and Flash Markets Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/). Jim's Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

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Author: Jim Harrington

Contributor: Marissa Halvorson

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Whimpers pierced the cold, dank air of the dark room. In the shadows cast by the dim light filtering through the bars, stood a woman. Dark hair tumbled down her shoulders in voluminous curls. A hood, attached to a black cloak, hid her face. She faced the room, where a man lay on his cot, whimpers caught in his damaged throat.

“Franklin Jae Lynford,” she called. Her voice rang out in the emptiness like bells echoing off the dark walls. Her rich voice held no trace of emotion.

The whimpers came to an abrupt halt, and the man uncurled himself and looked around. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face and soaked his shirt through. Bright with fever, his eyes darted from side to side. The woman stepped into the dim light.

A grimace twisted the man’s features as illness once again overtook him and he pushed himself away from her. The spasm lasted several seconds before he was able to look at her once more.

Finally, she removed her hood. Underneath, her skin glowed pale, her eyes red. A cruel smile warped her features, which would otherwise have been quite beautiful. She undid the clasp on her brooch and let her cloak fall as she stepped forward, toward the man. “Franklin Jae Lynford, you have been summoned.”

The man’s eyes widened, and he stumbled out of his cot, away from her. Her red gown swishing around her ankles as she moved, the woman laughed, a cold, cruel laugh. “You cannot run from your fate, Franklin. This is who you are.”

“Who are you?” Franklin’s voice rasped out, barely audible even in the silence of the room.

“Franklin, Franklin…you ought to know. You spent most of your life worshipping my master. Why, then, do you run from him now?”

“I have family,” Franklin gasped. “My children—they’re counting on me!”

“Be honest, Frank. Your family lost faith in you a long time ago…I believe it was after you murdered that poor woman…what was her name? If I recall correctly, Jane Kaikoura died on the night of December 24, 2001. Six years ago. Her family spent Christmas in mourning. Isn’t that right, Frank?”

Frank whimpered, deep in his throat. He covered his eyes, as if by acting like she wasn’t there, it would make her go away.

“Then, of course, you knew what would happen, so you ran. Am I right, Frank?”

Frank moaned and his fingers clutched at his face. “Stop. Please stop,” he groaned.

The woman smiled. She tossed her dark hair over her shoulder. “So, you ran, but you didn’t stop. Your murders continued all the way through the country as you traveled from place to place. I could list off every single one of your murders. How about it, Frank? Would you like to hear about your kills?”

Frank lifted his face, his eyes wide and full of unshed tears. “Please, no more. I know what I’ve done. I’ve changed, though, I swear!”

The woman threw back her head and laughed. “People don’t change, Frank. I know that better than anyone. Devlin summons you, Frank. Do you answer his summons?”

The tears in Frank’s eyes spilled over and poured down his unshaven cheeks. “No!” he cried. “You can’t take me!”

“Frank, you know what will happen if you do not answer the summons. Your life is over. You are dying. If you do not answer Devlin, you shall never have an afterlife. Devlin would be most disappointed. He might even be disappointed enough to appear here himself to…convince you.”

Frank’s face paled, rough stubble standing out against the white of his face. “I don’t want to go,” he whispered. “I don’t belong there. I’ve changed.”

The woman held out her hand and her cloak rose and draped itself over her shoulders. “The summons is not an option, Frank. Either you come, or we take you. Devlin takes you.”

Frank squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists tight. The woman watched his fists relaxed and he fell limp. “Alright.” He slumped against the wall. “Take me to hell.”


- - -
I have been writing since I was ten and have been working towards publication of my novel. Occasionally I write short stories and flash fiction, and I'm hoping for publication of this one as my first.

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Author: Marissa Halvorson

Contributor: Elyk S. Von Ire

- -
Jon’s drunk again. Swaying at the table. Willing his eyes to stay open. Hebrew swirls in the air around us with the smoke. Jon stares forward. His eyelids are anchors that tow his head down with them. He snaps it back up and looks around. Again, he stares. He nods.
The three Israelis are either too stoned or too wrapped up in their own
conversation to notice Jon’s slumping head or closing eyes.
But I’d never be able to tell for sure. I don't speak Hebrew either. Maybe they are discussing it ad nauseum.
Jon nods. His eyes closed. When he opens them, slowly, he looks at me. His eyes are glistening. He opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t. His eyes rest on the bottle of rum, it's triumphant last inch still at the bottom.
He grabs the bottle and turns the label towards him. I assume he is staring, not reading. His hand slips a little and the bottle wobbles, then rights itself.
Jon leans back in his white, plastic chair. On two legs, against the wall, he looks up through closed eyelids.
Suddenly, he snaps his head forward and stands up. Again, I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. The Israelis look at him, conversation on pause for one pregnant second, then turn back to one another with bouncy, guttural conversation.
I wonder what Jon’s thinking about.
I wonder if he's going to be whistling in bed like my dad used to, his iPod speakers on all night, music coming through the paper thin walls to my room.
Like last night.
But we were on mushrooms last night, so maybe that had something to do with it. That Irishman, I tell you. Quite an influence.
I look up from my reverie and Jon is nowhere to be seen. I’m not about to venture from my hammock, so I start to wonder what the Israelis are talking about.
I know two of them. The guys. Besides Jon we’re all in our early twenties. Gal and Eron are fresh from mandatory military service, and I met them and Jon a couple days earlier in La Cieba, just a quick ferry ride from the island.
The third Israeli is the girl I never officially met. She’s been at the hostel for awhile now, at least a couple of days. I saw her at a different hostel back in Guatemala too, so I recognize her. Attractive people, Israelis, that’s hard to deny.
Cool accents too.
Goddamn I miss Emily.
Jon has resurfaced. He peers out the door, leaning heavily on the
frame. He looks at me.
"Diving man," he says, managing to keep his eyes open almost the whole time he speaks.
I nod. Diving indeed Jon. I think to myself as he sinks back into his room.


- - -
Elyk S. Von Ire is from Minneapolis. He is currently working on his first novel. He thinks that you are just great.

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Author: Elyk S. Von Ire

Contributor: Peter Baltensperger

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Black clouds hung from the night sky, forbidding tapestry traveling slowly through the darkness, obscuring a sickle moon that should have been floating somewhere. Sharp flashes of sheet lightning carved the horizon into ominous layers, electric javelins for the brooding night. The wolf man from the carnival in the fairgrounds sat at the edge of a forgotten pond in an ancient park, waiting for a rain that wouldn’t come, trying to dispel anxieties, nightmares. The clouds refused to yield.

Somewhere an empty train charged into a black tunnel, the engineer mesmerized by the meaningless presence of a minuscule light somewhere at a distant end. The wolf man cringed with his own troubled visions of incomprehensible endings, unfulfilled promises, scratching his mind for solutions, relief. He hadn’t come to the park to wait, even though he knew well enough that the waiting was a necessary part of a whole.

A silent marching band wound its way into the park from some inscrutable source, a troupe of clowns with invisible balloons in its wake. He could hear the flapping of their oversized shoes in the dry grass, wished he had a balloon of his own, an anchor for his confusion. The marching band began to weave tightening circles around the pond, hedging him into his solitude with its persistence. The clowns never let go.

He waded into the old pond to escape the inevitable noose, only to get sucked into the silty bottom of his own destiny. He flailed his arms to keep himself afloat, tore himself loose from the treacherous mire, howled his frustration at the invisible moon, yet all he could hear was the echo of his own voice. When he freed himself from the entrapment and floated on the churned surface to get his bearings, the band unwound itself from the pond and vanished into the darkness, leaving the balloons hovering on their strings.

As soon as they were gone, he walked out of the stale pond and shook his body to rid his thick fur of the water. He grabbed a handful of strings, to remember, and made his way back to the fairgrounds, the balloons following behind, his nightmares surrounding him like an irritating cloak. There was no point in waiting, not after the clowns. He had the balloons to get him through the night, keep his thoughts from floating away, remind him of what could have been. The night might have been different.

The bearded woman was the only one still awake, the light from her window drawing him into its spell. He could see her pacing back and forth in her trailer, plagued by her own shadows, monsters in dark corners. She let him in when he knocked on her door and he gave her one of the balloons, setting the others free to reclaim his space. She let the balloon float up to the ceiling and pulled him on her bed. He helped her dispel her monsters and she screamed her excitement into the room until his nightmares cracked and shattered to the floor.

It wasn’t until then that the lightning bolts tore the clouds apart and the rain began to gush down to the roar of thunder. The sharp drum solo on the metal roof of the trailer drowned out the moans of their passion as they found themselves in each other in a brief crack of light in the turbulent night. Then the unforgiving darkness engulfed them again, plunging them back into their shadows, obliterating what they had come to know.


- - -
Peter Baltensperger is a Canadian writer of Swiss origin and the author of ten books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He writes, and has been writing all his life, because he has to and loves to do it, and because it adds a significant dimension to his personal quest.

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Author: Peter Baltensperger

Contributor: Samantha Memi

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I got the call at four in the morning. “Steve, get up! We’ve got a job.” That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Some kid had got himself drowned in the river. Jed was on his way to the station. I’d have to meet him there. As sleep drifted away my first thought was Mary; I saw her running down the street towards me, felt her arms around me, her warm breath on my neck as she whispered “Who’s the most beautiful woman you know?”

Getting out of bed was the hardest part. My breath stung the air into cloudy reactions. Two hours before sunup the earth held the cold. What if some crazy kid was floating down the river? Hurrying now wouldn’t help him. I needed to fix the heating.

I had forgotten to buy coffee. I couldn’t function till at least two coffees. I found a pack of ready ground in the back of the cupboard. It was unlike Mary to have overlooked it, perhaps she had kept it for an emergency like this. I smoked my last two Luckies and set off for the station.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as I arrived. The chopper was fuelled and ready. Jed explained that Davie couldn’t come because he had been fixing his old flat-bed Buick and it needed new piston rings. He said we would manage okay between us, I wasn’t so sure. We took the cargo hoist and tongs with the idea of winching him up as neither of us could go down and hook him.

When we got there we could see why they couldn’t get a boat to him; he was stuck on a rock in the middle of a spring torrent which had washed away most of the bank and left vicious peaks sticking up from the frothy water. Bruce was there already looking mighty important standing on the bank, his car behind him with the door open and the red light flashing. Jed kept going on about how the Packers beat the Bears and how Rodgers was the greatest quarterback since Favre. But all I heard was Mary clumping down the hall dragging her old-fashioned heavy case I had told her to throw away years ago, and her words ringing in my head, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.” Why did she scream like that? I had never hit her. What had gone so wrong to make her believe I would do that? Why did she leave? I told her I’d find a better job. I even promised to give up drinking.

The tongs wouldn’t hook in right. I hadn’t used them much before. It was Davie who did them mostly, but with his busted piston rings I supposed he deserved a couple of hours lie-in. I just wished I had stripped my motor down. It needed it. So did I.

Then the boy got caught. I tugged him tight and the tongs swung him up into the air. Everyone on the bank was waving, except for some guy staring into the water, close enough to get wet. Bruce radioed to bring the kid in, said the loner was his dad. Jed took us directly over him and I dropped the kid at his feet. Simplified identification I reckoned. Then we shot off. Jed had to get his daughter something for her birthday. I had to kill a Jim Beam.


- - -
Samantha Memi is a patisserie chef in London. Her recipes for a happy life can be found at http://samanthamemi.weebly.com/

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Author: Samantha Memi

Contributor: Miles Gough

- -
I just got back from the hospital and I’m too wired on pain killers to not want to go on about it. Don’t worry about me and the hospital, it was just five stitches on my forehead, not even a wound if you ask me. Toast Club got out of hand last night, but that is the kind of thing that happens at Toast Club. I heard that the guy from The Castle Cafe will have to wear an eye patch for a while, now that’s a wound. Maybe I should wear an eye patch, cause that shit’s cool.

Toast Club is the best after hours underground competition we cooks have done, and now, who knows if it will ever happen again. The idea is simplicity, which is usually not my thing, but this is extreme simplicity, so I’m with it.

Everyone always says that great chefs are better than anyone else, no matter what the hell they’re cooking. Some French dude just wants you to cook an omelet to see how badass you are. To our thinking, that’s too complicated for the test. If you say a great chef can make anything better, then they can make toast with butter better than your average schmuck. So me and a few real believers started Toast Club. We do it once or twice a month in the back room of Julio’s kitchen, the one with the craps game. We do it on days when dice ain't flying.

We have two contestants. They start at the same time. They are given two identical pop up toasters, four pieces of Wonder bread and an ounce of Land O Lakes butter. They have to make four pieces of toast and put on butter and the four judges figure out who is the supreme chef from the results. That’s pure. All the contestants can control is how long to toast the bread and how much butter to put on. And that’s all you need to figure out who should be swaggering big and long.

The judges are beyond reproach and yeah I am one. Can you think of anyone better qualified? C'mon. We been doing it for some time and the best chefs in town are almost always the winner. Sometimes a dark horse brings out an amazing win, like Noberto working the line at Altese, he is a genius with the butter, right amount every time. After he trounced all comers, he got himself a name and was promoted to Chef d’cuisine. This ain’t no joke if you were wondering.

This all gets us to last night. We were pretty wasted on kosher wine from this insanely elaborate bar mitzvah, so maybe we should have canceled, but the crowd was hungry for it. Of course we ran it. Miles who works at a upscale pizza joint out by the mall was one toaster and then there was Stan. God, you got to know Stan. Worked every place. Had style, but was an annoying shit. With that bad an attitude, its a wonder he doesn’t have a restaurant empire by now. He was a return combatant, had lost three times already and if I can remember, they weren’t even close. I think one time he even burned the toast, now that’s amateur.

The contest started with the pomp and circumstance of Lucas doing his MC routine. He did the stupid first rule of toast club, is don’t talk about toast club. For real, first rule of toast club, is that no one should stay that stupid fucking line anymore. But give it up to Lucas, he worked the crowd and we were ready. The toasting began and Miles was calm, doing a neat trick of warming the butter knife on the side of the toaster. Stan looked in his element, which kind of worried me, because he was never a relaxed dude. The toast popped and the buttering began. My favorite part, this is where the finesse happens. And then the presenting of the toast.

We bit into the offerings and Miles’s was good. This tasted like a fine piece of breakfast. I gave it high marks. Then I moved to Stan’s plate and holy shit that was fantastic. In all the times of Toast Club, this was the best goddamned piece of toast I ever ate. We had to give it up to Stan, though it pissed me off to do it.

Lucas ran over to Stan and raised his hand in victory. Stan had tried to move away but Lucas was too fast. Then Lucas’s eyes got all big. He took his hand back and looked at it and then smelled it. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “this guy spiked his butter. He has bacon fat on his finger.”

Can you believe it? He had come in with a finger full of bacon fat and when he was spreading the butter, he had put a little of it on each piece of toast. You know that no cook can resist bacon, so of course we were goners for it. That was a dirty trick and me and the other judges jumped the no good shit.

One thing for Stan, he can tussle in a fight. And he is smart enough to bring some back-up. He and his buddies brought their knives and it got nasty. Eventually, we made a lesson of him, but not without injuries. No one disrespects the sanctity of Toast Club.

At the ER, me and Lucas and a couple others were talking that maybe this was a sign to end Toast Club. If one asshole can play us that way, maybe we didn’t have the best contest devised. Next week, we’re going to debut Chip Club. Who ever can open the best bag of potato chips and pour the finest beer, wins. You should come, it’s going to be spectacular.


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Jon Wesick

- -
“Your death is the only thing you own,” the old woman began.

She was fat, so fat she took up the whole couch. Layers of flab coated her arms so they were as thick as a normal person’s legs. The blue skirt she wore was big enough to shelter a whole troop of Boy Scouts from the rain and her white blouse was stained from greasy fingers. The house stank of rotten food no doubt from the bones of several chicken roasts on the table. She would have eaten the whole world if only she could have found a way to make it hold still.

Neither I nor the others sitting on the dirty carpet in front of her wanted to be there, not Joe nor Dave nor Ray nor Lisa. We had only one thing in common. We were fifteen years old, the age our elders told us we had to complete this rite of passage.

Technically no one has to undertake the Runge Kutta initiation. I could have been like Randy Sullivan who endured whispers of “Randy the Pansy” and having his locker stuffed with dog crap all through high school. Indeed my harassment already started by none other than Principal Walters all big belly and skinny legs of him. The other week he walked right past Missy Oliver and Frank Dolan, who were practically giving each other hand jobs, to yank my arm off Wendy Rogers’ shoulder. It was clear that to have anything like a normal life I’d need to submit to the stupid ritual – the week-long fast, white robes, and gift of food to the witch sitting on the couch.

The old woman placed a pinch of powdered incense on a burning charcoal and waved her hands while reciting some gibberish in a language none of us understood. This went on for some time. How long I’m not sure since I was pretty light headed from fasting. At some point Ray giggled until Dave elbowed him in the ribs and told him to shut up. While the old woman sang, I pictured the meal I’d have as soon as this was done. A cheeseburger would be nice as would a big plate of spaghetti. Hell, even a grilled cheese sandwich would do just fine.

Finally the old woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped forward. When she straightened up, she seemed to be in some kind of trance.

“Who will be the first to accept your gift, your gift and your duty?” Her voice sounded different like a Russian in a bad movie.

Mouth in a smirk Ray moved forward and knelt before the woman.

“At fifty-four years old you will die of a sudden heart attack. You will feel no pain.”

Ray shook his head and returned to his place. Dave was next.

“In less than a year a robber will shoot you in the head and you will choke on your own vomit in the hospital.”

The old woman was on a roll. She told Joe he’d come down with dementia and die confused and alone while Lisa would have her throat slit after being gang raped by a bunch of meth-crazed bikers.

My turn. I moved close enough to count the black hairs on the old witch’s upper lip.

“An artistic death. Your body will be racked with cancer and you will not be sure if the disease or treatments is worse. You will die lying in your own filth.”

While the old woman chanted her final mumbo jumbo, I pictured myself bald and puking with a full colostomy bag swinging from my belly. After the ceremony was done, Lisa, Joe, Dave, Ray, and I gathered on the front porch. Everyone but Ray looked like they’d swallowed live sea urchins.

“Awe, you don’t believe that old witch. Do you?” Ray lifted his robe, dropped his pants, and pressed his butt cheeks to the old woman’s picture window. “Now, who wants to go to Artie’s and get a burger?”

Lisa, Joe, and Dave made lame excuses and left. I should have gone home like the rest of them. After all, my parents had plans for me now that I knew my fate. There was supposed to be a party with my mom’s friends and dad’s business partners. I could almost imagine the parents bragging about their kids and the long-winded lectures about hard work, responsibility, and the good grades needed to get into some MBA program. The thought of making small talk with all those hypocrites who wanted to know what I thought of the ceremony (but really didn’t) made me want to puke. Yeah, I should have gone home but didn’t. My parents’ plans could wait.


- - -
Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published more than fifty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, Tales of the Talisman, Blazing Adventures, and Metal Scratches. He has also published over two hundred fifty poems.

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Author: Jon Wesick

Contributor: Malika Manai

- -
"They think me a dancer of sorts.
My movement through time and space inspired them to new beliefs.
I awake, after a short century-timed period of rest. I lounge as I acknowledge the new reality and review my territory. The changes they made will not detract me from performing.
Keep moving my feet on the black wooden boards; keep my poise straight and my head high. The short days I live lazily and the long starry nights I adore. To me the elegance of the night belongs; to me, the dark shadows and their poetry.
My back aches from the sudden movements I need to make to test my equilibrium. I remember how sometimes I start to feel lead-heavy by the end of the performance and the rest I need to take prolongs under the hours of the sun. But I can never give it up.
The night smells of fear as I prepare my dance.
My head, inclined to the left, still rests blissfully, my eyes closed as I consider carefully the choreography and envision the opening scenes.
The bluest blue of my eyes blinks in the awakening moments. Under the darkest sky, my ears twitch as they hear the tiniest moth flap her wings a thousand steps away.
Remembrance becomes even more vivid as I recall how, admiring my agility and my strength, some had named even gods after me.
But simplicity defines me. I have but a wish, but one thought – I live by the cruelest of laws – I only want to survive.
Time has had its dues paid by them, but not me. My perpetual travel can’t cease, my perpetual needs do not falter.
The striped shades, of dark gray and black on my fur, ripple like velvet under the gentle wind. I’ve wiped clean my whiskers and now they tingle with anticipation.
My mask falls, my entirety revealed to the light of the moon, in the man-made citadel I will survive still.
Hear me roar, humans, and watch as the dance begins."


- - -
"I've enjoyed writing since I was about ten. Growing up, I got to fly around the world, aboard a well known Arabian airline. I love SF and Fantasy literature and movies, and spend my free time learning how to become a professional writer."

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Author: Malika Manai

Contributor: Jackie Macintosh

- -
“This’ll do, there’s no-none about. Slow down but don’t bother stopping. Serves the little bugger right”

The shabby, rusty old Ford pulled into the lay-by, the rear nearside door swung open, and a brown object was hastily tossed into the hedgerow. The car gathered speed as the door was slammed shut from the inside, and it sped off into the night.

A small brown dog, ragged and unkempt with feet two sizes too big for his body, leapt to his feet and started to race after the car. He ran, barking, for a couple of miles before realising that there was no further scent trail or sound to follow. He slowed to a trot, his feet sore from the tarmac and the unaccustomed exercise. His stomach groaned even more than usual. He lapped eagerly from a roadside puddle and stood, whimpering and scared.

He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and his ears pricked eagerly, but it rushed past, alarmingly close. He retreated to the verge bushes and curled up, tucking his nose under his tail and slept.

He awoke with the dawn, stood up and stretched his aching limbs and looked about. The lane beside him was little used now that a bypass had opened. However, it was still a fast road and he was nervous after the previous evening’s close encounter. He sniffed along the verge hoping to find something to ease the ache in his stomach. He was eventually rewarded with a couple of soggy chips which he tore from a polystyrene box. They had a sharp, unpleasant tang but he was past caring; it was food. He licked out some crumbs from a triangular carton which had a magical fish scent still lingering on the cellophane.

He spent that day and the following one mooching along the lane sniffing for cast out leftovers but finding little. Several cars swept past and he soon learnt to cower into the hedgerow but, even so, was often subjected to a prolonged blast from a horn and the occasional shout. That was normal; in his short life he was used to being shouted at.

On the fourth day, his energy levels waning, he was lucky enough to find the squashed remains of a young rabbit. It had been mostly picked clean by crows but provided some sustenance for his frail frame.

That night, however, menacing blue-black clouds gathered and the winds increased to become a gale which brought in the storm. Terrified by the unknown rumbling enemy and the streaks of yellow light flashing across the dark sky, he tried to find shelter in the undergrowth but the rain soaked through and his matted, wispy fur gave him little protection from the cold. He lay curled up all night and throughout the next day; a bundle of misery and despair, his will to live gone. He could fight no more.

+ + + +

“Has Grandma made us a chocolate cake?”

Eddie looked across at his daughter in the passenger seat. He detected some enthusiasm and anticipation in her voice, which was a rarity nowadays.

“Yes,” he replied, “she knows how much you like them.”

“It won’t be the same without Mummy or Abbie to share it.”

“No, it won’t but Grandma will want you to enjoy it for them as well.”

Eddie gripped the wheel, his knuckles were white and he took several deep breaths to help maintain his composure. For months he had had to contain his own grief to help Susie – well both of them – come to terms with the consequences of a hit and run driver. They only had each other now; the days had been and still were long, lonely and dark. They wept together, held each other for comfort and struggled in the gaping void left by the loss of his wife and daughter; Susie’s mother, her twin and not forgetting their dog, Coffee.

Eddie reached across and squeezed Susie’s hand. She was so brave; he knew how she felt uneasy in the car now but a change of scene would do them both good.

He reached into his jacket pocket and passed her his mobile.

“Have a go at Angry Birds,” he said, “see if you can beat my score.”

He pushed play on his IPod and drove on.

“Dad, I’m hungry. Are we there yet?”

“No, open the glove compartment; there is a drink and some sweets in there, but put away my phone first.”

Susie munched contentedly and even fed her Father an occasional Harribo.

“Dad, I need a pee.”

“Oh Susie, we’ve just passed the services. I should have stopped. Never mind, I’ll come off at the next exit and we’ll stop in a quiet lay-by. Can you hold on?”

+ + + +



Near to death, the dog was awoken by the rattle of tyres on gravel as a car swung unexpectedly to a halt. The doors opened and footsteps crunched towards him. The man turned away and stood for a few moments facing the hedge but the small girl came towards him and crouched down. He lifted his head slightly and whimpered quietly.

“Daddy, Daddy, come here. I’ve found something.”

Zipping up his trousers, Eddie turned and went across to Susie. She stood pointing into the overhanging branches and tangled wayside grass. He peered in and just made out the partly covered form of the puppy.

“He’s alive Daddy, I heard him cry.”

She reached forward.

“Get back, he may bite. Let me see.”

Eddie bent down to assess the animal.

“He’s very weak, he may not live.”

“Please help, Daddy, please. He’s alone and scared. Don’t let him die too.”

It was a plea from the heart.

“Get the car rug,” he said.

Eddie spread out the rug and gently lifted the unresisting animal onto it and wrapped him up. He could see no obvious injuries.

“He must be hungry. Do you think that he would like my chocolate milk shake?”

Eddie fashioned a saucer out of a discarded polythene bag and placed some milk by the dog’s nose. A dry tongue tested the offering cautiously then greedily lapped up the rest.

“That’s enough for now; let’s get him into the car.”

“On my lap, Daddy, he’s so cold,” said Susie, scrambling back into her seat.

Eddie put the bundled dog on his daughter’s lap and got back in himself.

“We’ll need to find a vet quickly,” he said, pushing speed dial for his parents and passing the phone to Susie. “Tell Grandma or Granddad what’s happened and ask them to make an emergency appointment.”

They drove on, Susie cradling the dog and stroking his head gently. He looked up at her from mournful brown eyes, quiet and accepting.

“I’m going to call him Rolo because he likes chocolate and he will be my best friend.” She said determinedly.

Eddie had no doubt that she was right. He listened as Susie chatted animatedly about what they would need to buy for Rolo to help him recover. The list was extensive and grew as she excitedly envisaged their future: she started with essentials such as food, bedding and a lead, then progressed to various toys and treats which she thought he might like. Her world had a new focal point.

They neared his parents’ house, their journey almost over, but the road to recovery had just crested a major hill and was starting to look like an easier ride for all three of them. Eddie sighed with relief: for the first time in months he, too, had something to look forward to.


- - -
I live in Bere Regis, Dorset and have been with our local writing group since it was formed last autumn. I am 60 years of age and enjoy this new challenge.

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Author: Jackie Macintosh

Contributor: Hollis Whitlock

- -
An old man is sitting next to a fire, with a cup of steaming tea, staring into the blue eyes of a young woman. Her gaze entrances him in streaming tears for an hour, reminiscing on romantic strolls, warm nights and lustful passion, but winter's chill is whistling in gusts of crystallized white and blackening the smoldering red embers into wafting clouds of gray smoke. Even the tea has cooled to a distasteful bitterness.

He treks along a path, across a field, through knee deep snow toward a pile of wood stacked next to a fence. Exhaling vapor fogs through frosty swirls of blinding white in the darkening dusk of grayness.

Memory guides to the entrance of a vacant stable where cavalry once flourished. The haunting war ingrained in the subconscious, shifts subtly between dimensions in an overlapping transformation of vivid apparitions.

The shelter becomes an outpost upon the onslaught of invasion. Cleared pathways resemble a maze of trenches. Fortified fences of barbed wire suffice as barriers from charging soldiers. Rumbling vibrations from above spew a haze of exhaust, darker than the blackening skyline, toward the woodland meadow by the lake.

Imagery of gliding sensually on the ice above the frigid waters, with love in arm evokes mournful regret. Shattering thin ice plunges dreams into a dark icy abyss. Terror searches frantically for enchanted blue eyes, but a thunderous crash resonating from the forest's glen awakens the old man to the plight of another.

In a tearful rush, the removal of a glove, to turn a key, pierces painfully into numbing fingertips. Club like boots sweep soft powder from around the base of the entrance. Creaking heaves, on the rusted hinges of the door, reveal a vehicle. The bucket can hold seven days of fuel. Usually, forethought makes four trips. Today, there can only be one.

The glow plug counts from ten to one like the final gasps for air between the thin layer of ice and water. An axe, flashlight and medical kit, lying in the passenger seat, reminds of the failed rescue. Sputtering and wheezing becomes a rumbling cough, leaving the faint hope of salvation. Smoke rises from afar through the thick haze, above the barren trees that gleam with crystallized ice.

A familiar voice seems to be calling, through the internal storm, in a tone so familiar that further hallucinations of love form ghostly pale images in the falling sky. The stark whiteness drained of life looks helpless, as tears peer from above with no means to aid. Desperation cries into the forest's echo, hoping help is listening, but only a bluster replies.

The need to redeem the failure inspired years of medical training in an institution where retribution remained studious to the practice of medicine. Waiting in depression after graduation for the opportunity to make amends finally happened during the global intrusion.

Stationed at an outpost, working methodically through all hours of the day and night, earned numerous medallions for heroic bravery in battle, but none of this mended the heart that bled from within. The wound would not coagulate and continued to linger long after the loss.

Each waking hour, torment reenacted the event, hoping a miracle would resuscitate the motionless face of love. Gratitude and thanks were in abundance from the mortals who lingered in the spirit world for days on end before becoming animate.

Now lost in an enveloping camouflage, magnetic guidance directs through the darkening blizzard along plowed pathways to the vanishing plea for help. Two beams illuminate the dire circumstances of the catastrophe, as dark ashes speckle drifting streams of crystals in a fluorescent spotlight of the sun's fading light.

The pathway ends in a jolting halt, transgressing morals to the strife of a life at war. Trapped in a standoff behind enemy lines, the bucket methodically digs a trench closer to redemption, until a marching line of hedging stands fortified like a frozen barrier without conscience or remorse.

Surrounded in a whirlwind of blackening white, determination steps from the comforts of the enclosure, into an oncoming squall of hail. With blade on shoulder and red cross in hand, a yellow beam reflects a halo of hope for the helpless waiting to parish in the barren wastelands.

Trudging onward into the forth dimension, via mental regression to a day more vivid than the present, brings sight in the blinding darkness of the night's storm. Guided by the vision of saving another, self-sacrifice strives onward through the onslaught of nature's cruelty believing that atonement will rectify the previous failure.

Engrossed in the hallucination of a time prior to the present, objects in the current space become unseen barriers that entangle in sharp tearing punctures. The reality of pain warps the timeframe to a latter date of war. Fighting for redemption, hoping that life still lingers in the fading cries for help, slashing blows cut the barbs that bind.

In the distance surrounding the lake, beauty lies on a pond of melting ice entrapped in a circle of flames. Invigorated with a youthful insurgence, from an adrenaline rush evoked by the sight of love lingering between life and death, perseverance surges toward the hallucination determined to change the past.

With tears dripping from the tips of branches, beside the warmth of the smoldering wreckage, the old man walks cautiously onto the slippery surface toward the young woman who is sprawled partially above and beneath the ice. Blood leaks in a fine stream from a laceration on the forehead to a crimson pool, swirling gracefully along a thin fracture in the ice toward salvation.

A murmur of consciousness rustles from red lips in an inaudible indication of delirium induced from the chilling of icy waters, wretched winds and ghostly shadows of barren branches twisting in firelight. Without concern or fear of plunging into the abyss, anguish glides gracefully along the luring trail of life giving fluid to the bare palms of a love so intense that all fear for self-being vanishes into the surrounding flames.

Time regresses to the day of remorse when love was taken to another realm. Blue eyes peer upward, with a feverish sweat of running rouge droplets, pleading for life. The old man kneels before the young woman and clasps both hands in prayer, begging for the chance to resurrect love. Years of devotion to the craft of healing grant his life long wish and resuscitate life. The old man finds peace and lies down to rest.


- - -
Hollis Whitlock is an insane writer, hoping to one day live out his idiotic thoughts.

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Author: Hollis Whitlock

Contributor: Jacob Christensen

- -
The ominous jingle of the bell hanging off of the ramen-vendor door was the last sound Kyo was able to catch. There was a violent downpour swallowing up Tokyo for the past week and a half. Inches of rain began to pile up on the nightly weather forecasts during the news. It was the kind of perpetual rain that seemed to defy logic and challenged nature itself. Some would even say it was a storm that only gods could conjure up. To Kyo, however, this storm was a sight for his sore eyes. Kyo was always fond of the rain, even as a child. He would casually arouse himself from his bed to rub his stiff eyelids and throw his legs over the side of his bed where his toes would fall just short of touching the hard, cold wood flooring. The first sense that would come to him would be the sound coming from outside his stuffy room. The crescendo of raindrops pelting his window panes caused Kyo's heart to pump warm blood furiously through his veins as if his body were preparing itself for battle. To Kyo, the sound of rain was his own personal drums of war. It was a symphony that was beautiful and bitter sweet; the kind of song that not everyone could appreciate and cherish, but to the people who did, it was the sound of indulgence.

Young Kyo would jolt like a lightning bolt out of his bed and begin to sprint through his small, cramped apartment where he lived with his single mother. She would call out to him worriedly as he began to dart out into the rain; unabashed by his mother's warnings of catching pneumonia. His mother's screeching pleas were completed blanketed by the sound of the storm while Kyo descended the apartment complex's stale, concrete stairs. To him, nothing else in this world mattered but precipitation. It was as if they were the tears that rained from the clouds like mourners of some monumental death, solemnly shepherding a casket to its final resting place. As far back as he could remember, Kyo would run out into the deserted street which resembled a chaotic lake and he would tilt his head as far back as he could. He would then open his mouth wide to accept the tears from the swollen, black clouds. This was something he felt akin to his soul, something he had to do and something that required his being to be completely synchronized with earth.

Kyo reminisced about these days long past before the jingling of the shop's bells pulled him slowly out of the blanket of nostalgia. There was a bone-chilling cold that instantly greeted him at the open door and Kyo tugged his collar tightly around his neck to insulate his precious body heat. He then slipped his hand into one of the many pockets of his ragged leather jacket. His hand swam in there until it finally caught hold of his most prized possession; a small, silver lighter engraved with the number, '0'. Kyo didn’t have the faintest clue where this eccentric lighter wound up into his possession, but he felt that the question was unnecessary so long as he was able to use it.

He then fished for his Lucky Seven cigarettes and pulled one out which was sort of bent from being thrown around into his jeans. He pursed his lips tightly and placed the end of the cigarette gently between them. He then pulled the lighter closer and lit the cigarette while using his other hand to conceal the flame from the humid and harsh wind outside. He took a long puff, heavily inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs like a vacuum. Kyo put the shiny lighter and package of cigarettes back into his jacket. He exhaled the smoke through his nostrils which flared like the smokestacks of a steam locomotive. He then prepared himself and ventured outside.

Rain pelted his jacket and the sound left his ears deafened. Trying to hear anything else was out of the question. The rain wanted to receive all attention of his undivided attention and was aggressively forcing all other noises out. That's when the voices began to start. Kyo heard them although he thought it was his imagination at first. But no, this was not his imagination; this was something he had grown accustomed to. They started echoing in his head, barely audible at first. They were subtle and faceless, but steadily they rose in volume until they were blaring throughout his skull, each unique and distinct voice reverberating around the insides of Kyo's skull. He felt as if his brain would be pummeled to mush from the sheer intensity of these voices each time this happened. However, this was something he had accepted; a necessary curse for the responsibility and privilege of Kyo's power. He winced; his eyebrows pulled close like two worms trying to sniff the other out and began his journey into the black abyss that used to be Tokyo. For as long as Kyo could remember, he was able to hear people's voices in his head when it rained...


- - -
I enjoy adjective pornography as I have an unyielding hunger to create an atmospheric presence in my writing. I am an amateur at best but I am a hopeful wielder of fiction and prose. I hope to leave something behind; a memoir or rather, a defining moment whether that be fictional or not to show who I was through the process of painting what I saw. Thank you for your time!

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Author: Jacob Christensen

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
These caves go on forever.

Be seated among the brethren, the memory of an absent light breathes, speaks in eldritch whispers which presuppose that God is not dead.

Be seated. We are at rest.

I avoid the caverns that scream, the caverns that lurk, the caverns that step through the darkness, hunting, waiting just beyond reach, waiting like sharks until a stumble, a blind groping. When they come, they come with teeth. They come to swallow. I flirt with the death therein, touch it, dance away.

I walk the dusty caverns. I pick the depths that open without footsteps, that offer unpolished stone and a gathering of shadows. On and on, these caverns roam, deeper and deeper, dropping into vistas, cities unlike anything on the surface, the sunlit structures that crumble with the slightest glance, prodding touch. There is more to see and understand in the depths than any one man could paw through in a lifetime. There is more in the depths than one mind could hope to hold, but all the cities hold the same statues, the same heroes. I give myself a glance at each, move on.

Occasionally, I find a box shuffled away in a crack, a fissure in the stone walls, and my hope surges. Most are empty. None of them hold water. None of them hold the water I need. None of them bring the manna I hunger for.

In the dark, I shape stones as I walk, drop them when they dull. In my mind, I draw pictures of caverns as they might progress, as they might meander, drop them when they turn to dust at the touch of shadow. Still I walk, still I hope, study, create, ignore the voices that whisper louder and louder with each passing day: you are a fool. Die, fool.

Die, fool!

Alone, I carve my wooden pocket-wand. I shape it as my soul tells me to, cut it and bind it and burn it and etch it until there is nothing left but the wand I see in my mind. Chaos lives here, it whispers to me, and I know that the void which echoes in its voice is the darkness I must rise to avoid. Chaos lives here, it whispers, and I know that the void in its voice is the womb of creation, that birth lies in the hands of annihilation. All around me, the caverns yawn, open. To them, this is ancient knowledge. To them, it is a realization long past.

To me, the past is just beginning. The now is my forgotten sepia photograph.


- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books and chief editor of Thunderune Publishing. Find out more by visiting www.eswynn.com

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: Okey Fitz

- -
“I am a down to Earth girl. I know that money doesn’t grow on trees and that in order to have something in your life you need to work hard to get it. I know that you get a job and then get fired from it after twenty years of dedicating work. I know that people meet, fall in love, fall out of love and then meet someone else and everything starts all over again. I know that marriages fall apart and Happily Ever After is for five year olds. I know that people are born, grow, get old and die. They also poop, fart, burp and masturbate. No one is perfect. A lot of them try to be but fail. Because we are weak and we always have someone else to blame. We see sins of others but never notice our own. We go to Church and pray every day, calling ourselves Christians but then limit our children and judge everyone else who is different. I don’t ask God to make me a good person, I do everything possible to be one. I don’t like when people pretend to be my friends and then talk behind my back. I don’t need the appreciation of the whole world. I am who I am and I feel good about it. I am a realist. And reality comforts me because I am always ready for the worst”.
I sat back in my chair, holding onto the glass of Red I had in my hand. I took a sip, let it sit in my mouth for a few seconds and then swallowed it. I wish I was smoking. I bet the combination of wine and cigarettes feels great. Making your body relax to the point where the thoughts and emotions you never thought you had before are coming out and forming this magnificent circle and dancing, dancing, dancing. Oh, wait, no, it’s when you smoke weed. My bad. I sure do miss smoking weed sometimes. Having a pothead boyfriend had one advantage – I got to smoke whenever I wanted and for free. But I am glad I got rid of him. He wasn’t a good influence. He made me wear hills.
I looked at the computer screen where I just typed a short description of myself for this interview I am having on Thursday. I read it again, and then again. It is not how you write cover letters. I shouldn’t be sending that if I want to get the job, I thought. From my own experience, there are not a lot of people out there with any kind of humor. I am not even talking about a good one. I kind of like it, though. It is a perfect two hundred and thirty five word picture of real me. Most of the time, I try to be considerate because it is another downside of being a realist. I have to understand that I live in a society of approximately seven billion people and I need to be nice to get what I want. And in order to get this job I better write something like “I look forward to contribute my ability and experience in your company”.
“Tell them what they want to hear, smile and be nice” - I can still hear the voice of my mom. Poor Mother, she already gave up the idea of me getting married and having babies. “The last thing you owe me is to show that you can take care of yourself” – same voice again. I guess she is right. I am such a disappointment. I never did anything right, or at least not the way she wanted me to. Some of it because I did what I thought was right for me and some of it is to piss her off. Mostly, piss her off. Christian to the marrow of her bones, she was trying to make this ladylike brainless manikin of me for a future husband to “love, and care, and bring home money”. Not so fast, dear Mother. I think Jesus understood way before you did my real intentions. I wanted to write books, publish them, get famous and travel. But until my future bestsellers are published I need to feed myself, and pay rent, and afford gas. And that’s why I am about to write something sweet and wonderful for my employer so he can hire me.
I suddenly started feeling the positive energy coming through me. It felt very good and refreshing to have something to hope for. I got so excited I smacked my right hand palm against the desk, and my left hand shook and wine from the top of my glass got spilled on the keyboard. I said “shit” multiple times and tried to wipe it off with the tissues I usually keep on my desk but today they somehow traveled all the way to the nightstand beside my bed. So I pulled the bottom of my T-shirt and started cleaning the buttons one by one to catch as much liquid as I could. I stopped after five minutes and realized two things. First – I will have to buy a new keyboard and second – I accidentally hit the Enter button while flipping out about the spill. I felt this unexplainable shivering down my spine. It was the only interview I got out of fourteen applications I submitted for the past two months. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to break something. But the only thing I could do was to sit down and breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Oh well, I thought, at least I wrote “Sincerely yours”.


- - -
I was born in Western Ukraine. Grew to love mountains and Ukrainian culture. Came to America in 2010 and slowly building my life here, secretly missing home. I have a wonderful ten month old daughter and a husband who is also my best friend:)

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Author: Okey Fitz

Contributor: Alina Yudkevich

- -
“Huh. How ‘bout that,” he said, turning off the weather report. “Grandma dies, and a month later we get Tropical Storm Josephine.”

“That crazy bat would share a name with a natural disaster,” his fiancée said, quickly adding, “Sorry. She hated me.”

A week later, the storm raged on. On the day of their wedding, its status was upgraded to hurricane.

The garden arch blew over and fell neatly around the minister, whose shriek wasn’t heard over the roaring wind. The guests swarmed the gazebos when the torrential downpour started.

Weighed down by her waterlogged gown, the bride plodded slowly behind, sniffling.

The hanging church signs flapped violently, hurling letters and wooden debris in all directions.
A bronze P knocked the bouquet clean out the bride’s hands, and what remained of HOPE sideswiped her seconds later.

“Classic Granny Jo!” yelled the groom. The flower girl howled with laughter.


- - -
Alina Yudkevich is a 17th grader at the University of Georgia, studying English and Film Studies and working part-time at a particle accelerator lab. She enjoys pugs, video editing, running, b-horror, and exploring the unknown via Google street view.

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Author: Alina Yudkevich

Contributor: John Laneri

- -
Hours after the fire, people continued to wander the ruins – their thoughts lost in the swirling wisps of smoke drifting from blackened rubble and scattered debris. They were in Neverton, a small community along the cattle trail to Fort Worth and each of them knew that life was about to change in their town.

In the saloon, Vernon Carter's eyebrows lifted heavily. “As mayor, I’m tellin’ you gents we have a serious problem confronting us. We need to get our brains together and think out a solution.”

He paused a moment, his eyes moving from face to face, studying the other two men on the town council.

“In fact,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, “Our town will dry up to nothing unless we come up with some serious thoughts. As I see it, things are about to change faster than a fellow can spit.”

Across from him, Roscoe Sayers, the newspaper editor, looked up, his lips quivering. He was a skinny, little man with bulging eyes and a balding head. “The community may never recover from the loss. It's a calamity that perverts the goodness in nature.” He turned away, his features grim.

To Roscoe’s side, Sheriff Matt Carson sat slumped with his head bowed and his boots propped on the back of a chair. Ordinarily, he was an easy man with a confident attitude. He opened an eye. “I feel like the world’s coming to an end. The Lord has truly forsaken us.”

“I hear what you’re sayin’,” Vernon replied, as he reached for a bottle of whiskey then poured a shot. “I haven’t eaten all day – no appetite. With her house gone, she doesn’t have reason to stay in our town... says she’s taking the girls and movin’ on.”

“Taking the girls!” the Sheriff said, coming to his feet and kicking the chair aside. “My God... it's worse than I thought. If we lose the girls, our community's doomed. We’ll see more brawling about town, certainly more gun fighting. Hell fire, we’re talking about Aunt Jillie's Boarding House, the finest establishment west of Fort Worth. Fellows can get powerfully restless when faced with a dry spell.”

With those words, a lengthy silence followed as each man searched for direction – anything to lift the weight of reality from their shoulders. Life, as they knew it, might never return to normal.

Finally after several minutes, Roscoe cleared his throat and edged forward, his eyes beginning to dance with that spark of energy only seen at Aunt Jillie's. “As reasonably intelligent men, we might consider other alternatives.”

“Like what?” the Sheriff asked, turning to him. “Most of your ideas are about as far fetched as using dynamite to clean outhouses.”

Roscoe glanced about, his manner turning cautious. “Maybe they are, but I’m of the opinion that we need to put some of the money from our Courthouse Building Fund to good use. It’s just sittin’ in the bank doing nothing."

The Sheriff returned to the table and lowered his voice, his words directed to Roscoe. “Are you talkin’ about using the town's tax money to build a new establishment for Jillie and the girls?”

“That seems the reasonable approach. We live in the present. The future can take care of itself.”

“Won’t the town people object?” Vernon asked, as he stepped into the conversation, his neck coloring. “You fellows are talking about taking money from the community coffers and using it for your own. That's almost criminal.”

The Sheriff turned to him. “Hold on a minute, if we take a positive attitude, the people won’t question our motives – they never do. And like Roscoe was sayin', the money's just sitting in the bank collecting cobwebs. For what it's worth, a courthouse isn’t all that important. What we need is a wholesome place offering the kind of services fellows appreciate – something to make life worth living.”

Vernon tapped his whiskey bottle on the table. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I’m hearin’ from you gents is that you want the community to provide the money to build a new establishment where Aunt Jillie and her girls can continue to enlighten fellows in a proper manner.”

The Sheriff and Roscoe looked toward one another and nodded their heads in agreement.

“Then as mayor, I'll make it an official. Our town needs to move forward. And, for the record, my two boys can build exactly what you fellows have in mind, provided of course, the town pays them a healthy price.”

“They're hired. We'll pay 'em full fee. And for your information, I’m already startin’ to feel like a new man. Dodging bullets is not my idea of clean livin'. What do you think, Roscoe?”

“I’m getting happier by the minute. Now, I’ll still have a place to sleep when the little lady throws me out in the streets.”

Vernon reached for the whiskey bottle and poured another shot. “You fellow make me proud to be a part of this town. For awhile though, you had me worried... thought maybe I'd have to go back to sleepin' with the missus. And, let me tell you, waking up to her is a mighty cruel way to face the day.


- - -
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

Contributor: E.S. Wynn

- -
“Doctor Williams!”

Gerald glances up from the ragged chunk of glassy-smooth sediment in his hand, lets it fall, unremembered. Eyes rise through the bioplastic of his helmet, focus on the distant silhouette of a figure waving arms where a dip, perhaps a crater, breaks the monotony of the stone-scattered wasteland.

“What is it, Dinsmore?”

“Something interesting,” comes the vague response.

“There's nothing interesting on this rock.” Williams grumbles, unwilling to budge. “Nano-survey said there would be fossils. All I see is a lot of pyroclastic breccia.”

“This is way more interesting than fossils.” Dinsmore persists, and the sound of the grin in his voice makes Williams squint. Briefly, Williams considers calling up to the orbiting ship, requesting a Q-anchor to portal them back to the gate-bay. Childlike curiosity keeps his finger hesitating at the panel on his hip, unwilling to tab the comm key.

“I'll bet you a hundred Creativity Units this is going to amaze you.”

A hundred CUs? Williams considers. Half a month's allotment. Enough to print the paint, brushes and vellum canvases he's been putting off in favor of bioprobes and testing rigs.

Bioprobes and testing rigs ultimately wasted on too many dead planets.

Williams lets his eyes fall to the ground. 100 CUs is enough to keep him sitting in orbit of KP-1138, playing chess against Dinsmore for sixteen more standard planetary rotations if he loses the bet.

In the end, he says nothing. KP-1138's weak gravity gives him a drifting, skipping gait as he crosses the wasteland to Dinsmore's dip. Overhead, one of the planet's twin moons races across the sun, drops a shadow over everything that leaves as quickly as it comes.

And then Williams sees it. He sees it, and his irritated features open in wonder. Dinsmore's laugh comes choppy, static-laced over the comm channel.

“Dismore. . .” Williams breathes, crouches where the dip drops away suddenly into sprawling, cavernous depths. Almost immediately his eyes find the glass spires, the glittering meshwork towers, the crystalline domes stretching endlessly into the darkness, impossibly huge, all glowing, all lit from within by some internal light source.

A city, Williams thinks. No, a nation.

A civilization.

A civilization, just beneath the surface.


- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of over thirty books and chief editor of Thunderune Publishing. Find out more by visiting www.eswynn.com

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Author: E.S. Wynn

Contributor: A@ron What

- -
“No, you have the wrong number.”
A reasonable conclusion. As far as I know, that is not my name. My name is Character Label. I am a background description living in exposition. Of course, this could all be just some big misunderstanding. Perhaps, through some elaborate series of mix-ups, I am Xaiver Figueroa after all and this phone call was meant for me.
There are two reasons I pick up. First, fuck you, it’s none of your business. You’re just the reader. I don’t even have to acknowledge your existence. Second, I don’t know. I’m drunk.
“Could you please remove this number from your list?” Mid-sentence, the voice, this “person,” goes from words to sounds to hallow cadence to this stupid, repetitive, muffled bass line echo, thumping relentlessly, vibrating the floors, walls, everything, and I just . . . I want to hang up, but it reminds me of this. . . and I miss . . . and even though I know that, at the time, it was far from perfect, occasionally I just wish things were more like then, when you could . . . or urinate without worrying about the next guy putting your junk on the internet or. . . or have the power to destroy someone with a glance, but choose not to because it was the right thing to do. The truth is, I can’t hang up. The thing about a conversation is . . . because without human interaction, life is . . . excitement is that at any moment, they can sever this connection I’m talking about—it’s not like you can call back. Think of it as an opportunity. This one shot. And because of the infectious nature of an idea, it only takes one because it will spread from that person to the next person to the next and (assuming the validity of hope as a general entity) soon you, this previously insignificant faction, have made some difference—no matter how small—and you might not even know it, but still, it was you. Not the next guy. You.


- - -
A@ron What is a future person (from the future). He or she publishes for the purpose of documenting his or her presence in our timeline, so that colleagues from the future will send a retrieval force.

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Author: Aaron What

Contributor: Miles Gough

- -
For a change of scenery, the Grand Fiend took me to an abandoned hunting lodge. We sat well above the city, that was now engulfed in flames. From our vantage point, it was hard to determine who were the humans and who were the marauding monsters. “Conflagrations are so beautiful to gaze upon and consider the joy of it all, don’t you think.”

I was just happy to not be in chaos below so I had to agree. We watched for several minutes and I asked, “Do you know what the monsters are?”

“I am sad to admit that I am not quite certain, though really, I think they are doing a fine job, a little on the grandiose side, but isn’t that anyone's prerogative? Monsters can interpret the job anyway they so desire.”

Watching further, I began to see glints of light reflecting off some of the marauders. “Look at that, I think those monsters are metallic. Its possible that what we are watching is a robot attack.”

“Robots,” the Grand Fiend pronounced the word slowly, as if testing it on his tongue. “That is slightly disappointing. Shouldn’t this be a job for living monsters? Another instance of automation taking over jobs.”

“I’m confused, what is your opinion on robots? Do you feel they are monsters or are they not to be considered one of your ilk?”

“Now that is an interesting debate and a divisive one in the extreme. Most monsters look at them with disdain. I think it is because they are created and originally maintained by humans. Its like food that create their own assistants. Imagine if you will, a hamburger who decides that being a hamburger is too difficult a task and needs to create a metallic semi sentient hamburger to help them in being hamburgers. Its absurd. We monsters are own creatures, we do not conform to the whims of our food supply.”

“But,” I interjected, “don’t vampires and werewolves come from humans as well? They were men and now they eat men.”

“And that’s why the issue of robots is so problematic. Yes, the similarities between vampires, zombies and lycanmorphs and the robot horde you see below you are evident. Perhaps the difference is that robots were created to be subservient to humans, while we nether creatures were never anyone’s beasts of burden.”

I cleared my throat, “I hate to be contrary, but wouldn’t being forced to be the servant to humans give robots a better reason to hate and attack them?”

“If I must consider that, I would say that you are correct. But we are monsters, we are fiends, we have the right to be discriminatory. I am a master of fear and attack. I am the beast you wake up screaming about, and I do not want to be compared to a toaster with a foul disposition.”
I opened my mouth to add one more thing, the Grand Fiend gave me a shake of his giant head and I knew to remain silent. “Let us not worry about who is doing the killing. Let us just celebrate that killing. They are proving themselves worthy by deeds. Let’s just revel in the sheer artistry of this messy anarchy.”

From our vantage point, the smoke was almost complete, though when the wind was favorable, we were still allowed to hear the faint screams of the survivors. The Grand Fiend smiled and quietly said, “Robots.”


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Author: Miles Gough

Contributor: Matt Shaner

- -
The apartment building is three floors, a converted house next to a river. The storm started the day before and now the four of us sit in my living room. Rain still hammers the windows. I’ve spread four candles in the corners with the remaining light coming from a pair of cigarettes. We lost power two hours ago. The smoke hangs in the room since I can’t open the windows. Lightening punctuates our sentences.
“This is shit,” the girl says. She’s just out of college, blonde, wearing a sweatshirt and shorts. “I’m losing sleep.” Her apartment is flooded.
“Sleep? This is like a movie. I wonder if the foundation will hold.”
“Oh stop.” This is the couple below me. They are elderly and made their way to my place long before the sky darkened. I fed them dinner before we lost power and the water is now nearing their windows. He is a war veteran, retired from factory work and she was a nurse. They have family in California. He smokes despite her objections.
“More drinks? Anyone need anything?” I ask. I’ve started on the whiskey and attempted to get the others to join. The girl takes a beer and the old couple sticks with water. No one answers my question. The building shakes. Suddenly I think the guy’s concern about the foundation is valid. A spotlight crosses the ceiling. The girl gets up and runs to the window.
“It’s a boat.” She starts to hit the glass.
“They’ll never hear you,” the old guy says.
“Shut up.” She keeps hitting. I can barely make out the motor against the wind and rain. She strikes harder and I picture the boat getting closer. She starts to yell. “Hey. Hey, help us!” She sinks to the floor.
“See,” the old guy says. His wife is asleep.
“Fuck you.” She leans her head back against the sill. The house shakes again.
“Listen, we’re probably here for a while. We should just relax.” I say this and can see the words take shape into the humidity. The room is a jungle. The girl takes off her sweatshirt and a t shirt under to reveal a black sports bra. Her skin shines in the candle light. Her hair hangs in wet strands on her face. She shuts her eyes.
Thunder.
I down the rest of the Beam in my glass and attempt to sleep. It seems to be the theme of the moment. Sleep pulls at my senses. The air could be cut and served for dinner. I dream I can hear the water, dream of jumping out the window and enjoying the cold waves. I see the girl getting up, walking to me and stripping off the rest of her clothes. We kiss. She pushes me on the couch and forces herself on my body. We exist together in the moment. I hope she doesn’t see my arousal. Just before falling under, I realize I’ve never spoken to these people in my life.
A scream cuts through the room.
Wind blows the candles out. The moon is the only light. Rain soaks the carpet.
“Who opened the window?” I try to take inventory. I stand and reach for the old couple. They are on the couch. That leaves one person. No way.
I go towards the window, raising my arm to block the rain, soaking my clothes.
The river is alive, pushing against the house. Her skin looks gray in the night and her arms fight the current. I shut the window and sit down, not lighting the candles.
The house shakes again and the floor shifts, boards crack, stone gives way.
The couch starts to slide.


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I am a writer outside of Reading, PA with twenty short story publications online and in print included one selected for anthology by Fantastic Horror. My novel The Reserve and novella Life After Death are available through amazon.com and Eternal Press. I am currently a student in Fairfield University's MFA program.

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Author: Matt Shaner