Contributor: Peter McMillan

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Day 1
There was a different guy on the corner. I wondered what happened to the old man.

Day 5
On the second day, the new guy greeted us pedestrians by humming loudly, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!" At first, it was funny, especially for the morning rush, but you were still torn between chuckling and wanting to throttle the mockingbird.

In passing, something about the new guy—I called him Panhandler Pete—reminded me of a homeless guy I met when I was in college. I was visiting D.C. It was on the Mall and we happened to be sharing a bench. He told me his life story, at length and without any prompting. He'd been a psychoanalyst before getting blacklisted. He said he had no regrets though, not of any duration anyway, because he got rid of them by shouting through the fence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This, he said, served the additional purpose of securing short-term food and lodging. I dropped a couple of bills in Pete's coffee cup.

Day 6
Monday morning—worst time of day on the worst day of the week—and again we're serenaded past like Disney drones. Not really thoughtful, this new guy. Quite insensitive really. “No money today,” I shouted as I ran past. He had to learn the rules.

Day 26
After a brief settling in period, Monday mornings began to look less miserable and gray. Panhandler Pete's "Hi ho, hi ho" thing didn't vex any more. And he'd taken to entertaining. Last week, he introduced magic tricks. At first nobody stopped, but day by day we got more curious, and we moved closer. By week's end, some of us stood and watched, mesmerized by Pete's show. Meanwhile the traffic light changed again and again. I was late for work three days and missed my performance review ... twice. “Train delays,” I said.

Day 31
Pete showed off a new set of tricks ... making stock picks. He would run through 10 stocks and give his buy, sell, and hold opinions. A beggar predicting the market? It was laughable, except that as he spoke, the language of the Street fell so fluently and melodiously from his lips, he had to be in the know. I couldn't swear it was him, since we'd only ever talked over the phone, but listening to Pete evoked images of my former stockbroker, the fellow who helped me see the need for a second mortgage and a moonlighting job. However, even if it was him, I couldn't exactly beat up a homeless guy. It would be me that got mobbed. Instead, I approached Pete and whispered, “It’s good to see you again.” He smiled.

Day 40
It was brutally cold. I don't know how these people do it, but there he was day like the postman ... of yesteryear. I hadn't forgotten about our possible history, so when I dropped change in his cup, I greeted him by name. The first couple of times he was taken aback, but he got used to it, likely judging me to be no real threat. However, he did stop picking stocks. The magic tricks were out, too. Come to think of it, it might have just been the cold. Now, he was shrunk into a ball to give the wind less to cut into. You couldn't see flesh. It was all tucked away into this snow-encrusted human ball. As I came closer to drop my coins into the coffee cup, which was nearly hidden in the snow, I saw a yellowish stain on the ground. My god! All of a sudden, I forgot everything about why I thought I should hate this man. I reached down and asked whether I could take him someplace warm. He raised his head slowly and choked out words to the effect that I should smile, because it wasn't as bad as it looked.

Day 41
All weekend I hadn't been able to get the image of Panhandler Pete out of my head. I brought a blanket, and not wanting to humiliate him, I gave it to the little girl in the private school uniform I'd seen watching the magic shows. I asked her to give it to him, and when she took it over to him, he turned his head graciously towards her, and I was speechless. It wasn't Pete.

I shuffled over through the snow, and asked what had happened to Pete, and the old man said that Pete was just temporary. The old man had collected a lot of money—he wouldn't say how much—just to give up his spot for 40 days. Pete, he said, had a bet on with some hustlers at the Exchange.

All that was left of Pete's turn on the street was a half-empty Lemon Gatorade bottle.


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The author is a freelance writer and ESL instructor who lives on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario with his wife and two flat-coated retrievers. In 2012, he published his first book, Flash! Fiction.

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Author: Peter McMillan

Contributor: Jessica Schmitt

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He cracked his knuckles like an instrument. The muffled pops of individual releases was void here. His efficiency culminated in both hands simultaneously flicking away the tensions built in the minutia of his joints. He had that accuracy and efficiency in all that he did with his hands. Today these hands played chess across the room from her. Her knuckles were thin, curved in the bony way that lacks comfort. Not a motherly hand. She clearly played the piano, long fingers like that, it had to be. They didn’t appear to go together and yet they had. Married couples seem to fit after a while. Not in a puzzle piece way but in the way that Sunday afternoons and reruns of your favorite comedy go together. It just fits. You can inhale the comfort, the knowing closeness of two people so in sync.

The first kiss was unexpected. They loved each other that much they knew yet neither could grasp their togetherness. The idea of marrying this person or even being with them seemed foreign and still it happened. Warmth from that authoritative first press of his lips warmed her from her hips up through her shoulders. The core of her being felt solid and bold while her skin became alert to every move his fingers made. The weight of his presence meant more to her than his actual touch. She reached around for him, she had him but it wasn’t nearly as good as when he had her. She thought he could have her forever and really should.

She lay there in the still morning across from his eyes. He looked so different to her lying there. It was as if he was a different creation, one that wanted her no matter how different he looked at seven in the morning with beams of the October sun kissing his nose in much the same way she had done the night before. He couldn’t really know that he had changed in her eyes even though she had done the same in his. It was what he had wanted for as long as he could remember. He chose her long before she knew she had been chosen. This clarity of mind he employed resided kindly in her conscience allowing her to peacefully exist in what he was.

She married him in the rain. That late August storm was ominous. Steel toned skies guarded the heavens against them. Nature disapproved of their union; still they danced in the park. Incompatibility was not their problem. The tension of so much connection scared the natural order of life. When she said yes he grinned. When he said yes she chuckled silently to herself. It was never supposed to be him and yet there she stood having made an agreement with someone she couldn’t not be attached to. Sure there were better matches but none elicited the love that wishes to provide copious amount of unsolicited affirmation to another for eternity.

He looked at her across the car. She was angry with him. He could tell by the way her chin wrinkled that this was anger, a deep and hurting anger. When she was disappointed her eyes sunk deeper into her face than usual and frustration led to a quick darting look followed by quickly raised and lowered eyebrows. A wrinkled chin could not be repaired with a kiss of his, in spite of her fondness for those. She fixed her eyes on the yellow line of the road as each section slipped underneath the wheels. Those wheels gave them another four minutes and seventeen seconds of each other.

He buried her in the sunshine. He had made all the arrangements for that sunny Wednesday as if it was a staff meeting complete with bagels and coffee. On that day he didn’t bother to ask why she was taken from him. She liked little moments. The ones so full of everything that they pulsed in anticipation waiting to combust. He would allow those moments to be her, now that her legs would no longer carry her from their bed to their coffee machine. Her hands would no longer tap out memorized melodies or be thrown up in exasperation with his forgetfulness. Her voice would no longer squeak at the idea of finally taking that trip they had been saving for or murmur kindly over his ear while he avoided leaving their bed to go to work.
He felt it; the feeling of sharing the same coffee mug, not caring that someone else’s lip had touched it. He had already had that lip in all sorts of ways. Scanning that mug for the remnants, the touch of that familiar feeling as if all the ways in which she had loved him would come rushing back to him with the steam. She didn’t come back to him, of course she couldn’t.

He started sleeping on the couch. He thought about the kids they couldn’t have, how just one fraction of her breathing into this world would still make it a worthy place to exist. He waited at the dining room table like a dog waits at the door waiting for the return of someone so necessary to the balance of the world. He wanted the world to turn faster as if going faster could bring them any closer. He wondered if she was somewhere wandering about looking for him in some distant afterlife. Some other dimension where they still existed together is what he hoped for during the day. During the nights she was there. He would hold her memory in his arms and smell her drugstore shampoo on her pillow.


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Jessica Schmitt lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. She currently studies at Concordia University as a double major in Interdisciplinary Studies and English Literature.

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Author: Jessica Schmitt

Contributor: Samantha Seto

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Water brushed the current, greenery invaded my imagination, the sky had perfect clouds, soaring. Sunshine glazed overhead, pond water was murky, diluted filled with colorful fish and spiders. A white heron stood on drifting grass patches, explorers came to gaze down the water, looking for tadpoles. Quietness of pine trees and willows rustled in leaves, cold wind hit my skin. Shadows lined the dock, I could see my reflection in the water, traced the outlines, blueness in my eyes. Sunbathe burned, warmth to soul, frogs croaked, blowing bubbles in gentle blueness. Listening to wind chimes, wooden dock swiftly rocked back-and-forth, like a baby cradle.

The moon caved in. The earth grew dark and dirt flew everywhere. My first instinct: I thought it was a natural disaster. But then people started to disappear into thin air as their bodies evaporated. I ran to seek shelter. Soon enough, I found myself drifting away.

All I could hear was chaos. I reached into my pocket for an Advil but my bare skin had bloodstains. The world was crumbling before my eyes.

The dark cold wind outside almost whipped across my face and burned my eyes. I was crossing a gray-stoned bridge and the dark waters below became frightening. My hair grew dark and wet in the rain. My clothes sunk into my skin. I could barely see the direction the road was taking me.

Streaming white light burst in my eyes before I was gone. Spun out of control. Blackout.

The Mayan calendar never predicted this day.


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Samantha Seto is a writer. She has been published in various anthologies including Ceremony, Soul Fountain, Nostrovia Poetry, Coffee Table Poetry, The Screech Owl, and Black Magnolias Journal. Samantha studies creative writing. She is a third prize poet of the Whispering Prairie Press.

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Author: Samantha Seto

Contributor: Lauren Erath

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Two bells and a pearly button on a purple ribbon, the clinking of such has always given me grief. Even so, Katarina insists that her bracelet is more bearable than my biscuits. Yet no guest has bemoaned my breakfasts, unlike the patter of this impatient pest, the trauma of which proves permanent.
“They’re too soft, like Pirouette, and who would crave a kitten like that?” she asks, analyzing the bread as an artist would a brush’s end.
Bored, Katarina places her thimble on her pinky, with which she clanks the candlestick holders. Her twinkly eyes wander about the worn table cloth. Meanwhile, Pirouette parades atop her shoulder.
“Eternal child, take that cat from your shoulder and don’t tamper with the candlestick holders any longer. We can’t afford another catastrophe like last April,” I shrill amidst my clinking dentures.
“How can someone be troubled by something so silly and simple?” Katarina asks, placing Pirouette on an apple.
The pet poses as if such an action were subtle, while Katarina plays with its purple bow. It matches Katarina’s dress in tone.
“What seems simple and silly to you is nothing less than horrific and cruel to everyone else. Have you forgotten the near forfeit of Ms. Erica’s pulse?” I inquire, wishing I’d have hired that ‘antique collector’ after all.
I snatch Pirouette’s new pedestal, polishing and returning it to the table.
“I can’t recall that incident,” Katarina says, fixing her frills and stroking her wit, “common sense states Pirouette and I couldn’t have been there, which Ms. Erica made most clear.”
“Oh, certainly! Certainly! How much longer must such humor haunt my scant guests and me?” I demand, knowing Katarina will reply gaily,
“It will continue until I’m undoubtedly dead.”
Katarina, bold as ever, chances another clank against a candlestick holder, chuckling as the candle crashes into the crepes.
I sigh, apprehending a cloth from my apron with an arthritic hand, muttering “Your naughtiness is why I won’t light its neglected end.”
The doorbell decrees that raw guests wish to request our residency.
“I’ll get it!” Katarina insists as she masquerades into the main hall with mocking innocence.
“Stop your stomping and sit. I’ll greet our guests!” I say, crossing the room as the clock cries noon instead of nine. “Must you meddle with the hour hand?” I ask my little madam as I clasp the door knob.
“Oh my, come in!” I exclaim, letting in a grim, sickly man stricken by rain.
Hopefully, this one’s mundane.
“May Pirouette and I play in the puddles?” Katarina asks, peering through the shutters, “Perhaps our guest should retire in a relaxing atmosphere. Should we remain he may claim we’re...”
“Yes, before your impatience is more severe,” I whisper, wrapping my sweater on the sneezing sir.
“What was that?” he asks, extracting the sweater and seizing a cask from his coat.
“Oh you mustn’t mind,” I entreat, ushering him upstairs to our handsomest of suites. “I converse with myself from time to time. Since I lost Herald to a tuberculous spine I…”
“Hear that?” my guest mutters, concealing a mucid cough.
“Pa-pardon?” I sputter, aloft the aged staircase, cursing Katarina and her childish haste.
“The screeching. How strange,” he replies, straining his rosen ears, “Too strong and rigid to be mice, I fear. Storm-caused? How odd. Should have picked a sturdier stay I suppose.”
“That’s those blabbering demon-birds. You know, they crowd the courtyard in droves,” I assure, snatching his abhorrent liquor. “Now come along and change your clothes.”
“This room’s air is rather stale,” he states, sulking about the suite like a lake-less loon. “Rather like a tomb…”
“Lone chambers are quite lamentable. Surely your wife would make such solemnness less tangible,” I say, dividing the drapes.
“I’m a bachelor,” he barks, “and will bald before I marry, I swear. This mare isn’t fit for matrimony’s reigns. Besides, women are wearisome as an ink stain. Once they appear, there’s no thwarting them.”
“Oh my!” I exclaim, clutching my chest at what I witness beyond the window. “What the screeching is, you’ll never guess! Surely it isn’t the crows!”
“Stop fretting, such frivolity’s grotesque…by God!” he gawps, galloping off, moaning “Demonry! That damned swing is possessed!” while the stairs shudder at his departure.
“I’d rather ingest every screech of someone who is troublesome and sweet than bear the blatant pounding of a presumptuous, drunken poltergeist!” I cry, gazing out the glass and echoing her laughs as thunder blares and bold lighting shows the impossible to and fro of that phantasmal child, forever known as my darling Katarina.


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Lauren Erath studies Creative Writing at Concordia University Saint Paul. She enjoys writing fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry

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Author: Lauren Erath

Contributor: Nick Keller

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If ole J.C. could handle getting spiked to a tree, I guess I can handle sitting in this cell for a few years. They say he did it for us. Even for me. Sacrificed himself to save our dumb asses. I never really felt all the redemption I was supposed to feel from that day, though. Oh well, maybe it’ll be different for my brother. After all, I’m sitting in here for him. But that’s our little secret.

He was always the smart one. Real clean cut guy. Went to college, got a degree, snapped up a job making some heavy dough, got himself a little wifey. Hot piece of poon, too. Good for him. Now they got a big home and two little girls. Real slice of the American pie, my brother.

But me — shit, I’m the drop out. Rough around the edges. Tough as rust and don’t take no shit. A little stupid, I guess. Suffer from chronic unemployment, too. Growing up people called us identical. But today, hell, we ain’t nothing alike.

So when I saw Candy approach him at the bar my balls shriveled. That bitch was trouble. And we all knew it. But Ted was new to the place. High class guys like him don’t ever go to Barney’s. Only reason he was here was to meet his brother for a few pints. Why he left with her, I couldn’t tell you. It’s amazing what a little cleavage and micro-brew can do.

We all knew her reputation. Candy was one of those rough-riding types. She didn’t look it, but get her in the sack and she’ll hump like a gorilla. Serious. She liked being pinned and cuffed, too, or smacked around, even whipped with a belt. When she orgasmed she liked being choked out to the point of asphyxiation. Had a fetish for bruises, I guess. Made her feel like an animal. Damn, this end of the world burps up some real psycho-bitches, man. And Candy — she was one.

So after my brother’s tussle with her, all the evidence was there. At first it was just blackmail. But then came the threats. Ted did everything he could to cut it off with her. Changed his numbers. Had a P.I. track her in case she ever found out where he lived, which she did. He had to hustle home from work a time or two to intercept her. I watched his whole life become a series of lies. He was on the verge of losing it all. Shoot, it was his fault. Maybe he deserved it. But my brother was always one for learning his lessons. I knew my sacrifice would be worth something.

So I rented a suit with my last dollar, cut my hair, shaved my face; made myself look like an upstanding milk-toast A-hole, just like Ted. And I met her clean. She was happy to see me, even called me by his name. I told her I’d give her what she wanted. She was all-too-happy to oblige. And boy, I gave her what she wanted. When I strangled her, I strangled her.

I was charged with 1st degree murder. But everyone at Barney’s testified on my behalf. Hell, they all knew her. Painted her up to be a violent lover. Almost insane. A real sadomasochist. But me, I mournfully claimed it was an accidental death. I only wanted to love her the way she wanted me too, I said. Didn’t know it would kill her.

The charges got busted down to 2nd degree manslaughter. When my brother came to visit me in prison that first time, I had a gift for him. The Holy Bible. I told him to read it and give me the full report. Especially about ole J.C. I was curious.

Man, it’s a real bitch being the bad twin. Or maybe I’m the good one. Who knows? I will say this, though. I sure saved his dumb ass.


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Nick has been slinging short fiction for two years, though he's been dreaming about it for much longer. In that time he's nabbed a number of publications as well as several, "Hell no"s. He's a graduate of UNT's film school, has a son that's about to go to UNT's music school, plays the hell out of air hockey and loves a good cheeseburger. He lives in Dallas.

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Author: Nick Keller

Contributor: Brent Rankin

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“It’s just not right! Him making all the rules.” The kid, his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his shoulders bent over, skulking in circles, kicked a brightly colored ball that exploded into orange glitter. He down sat cross-legged. Pulling the hood of his windbreaker low over his eyes, covering the skewed ball cap cockeyed on his head, he huffed.
Whining alone, he said, “Can’t do that! Can’t do this! He doesn’t know everything. ‘I’m your Father and you work for me.’ Nay, nay, nay…what does that make me? Your slave?
“Do as I tell you, not as I do! What an asshole….” Something white flittered out of the corner of the kid’s eye. He quickly reached over with both hands and crushed it in a clap. “Damn.”
Then he heard that voice. That awful deep baritone. “Just what do you think you’re doing? You’re on the clock, you know.”
The kid stood and crossed his arms. ‘Yeah? So?”
He said, “Oh, don’t start with me, not now. Not ever.”
His chest inflated almost twice its size when the kid inhaled…and held it, his cheeks all puffed out and red. He finally exhaled. “Stop telling me what to do! I can make trouble, you know.”
He said, “Trouble? For me? That’s a good one.”
“Hey…I can, like…get an army together. Take over everything. You know.”
He laughed, “An army? Who’s going to join your army?”
The kid dropped his crossed arms and made fists with both hands. “There are some of the others working here that are pretty pissed off, too, you know? We’ll get together and toss you out on your ass.”
“Watch your language, boy.”
“See? See what I mean? ‘Watch your language, boy.’ Who are you to tell me what I can say? What I can do?”
“You forget who I am, don’t you? You dare me?”
“Who are you? Like I really care. You’re just a…bully. Yeah, that’s all you are. Pushing us around. Ordering us to do things you don’t want to. Or you can’t.”
He laughed. “What can’t I do?”
The kid hesitated. He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “See? See? ‘What can’t I do?’ What? You think your perfect?”
He said nothing.
The kid pointed to the broken ball. “Yeah, I busted it. It was crap anyway.”
“A perfect world. And you crushed a cherub. Make you feel tough?”
The kid re-crossed his arms and stomped his foot down twice. “It just isn’t fair, because, yeah. I’m tough. Tougher than you.”
“You conceited, self-absorbed little brat! I can do things to you, you know?”
Pouting, the kid said, “Well then do them, stupid old man.” He saw malevolence and disgust in the kid’s eyes.
Enough. He said, “And to think I used to call you The Morning Star, you little devil. Why don’t you go to hell?” He raised his hand and the kid vanished in a yellow flash of sulfur and stink. “Shame he became a bad egg, but I should have known Lucifer wouldn’t end up right.” God rubbed his nose, turned, and went back to creating the Universe.


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It all had to start somewhere, I suppose.

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Author: Brent Rankin

Contributor: R.A. Conine

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She woke to a sort of fog. She had that sometimes. The world was blurred over, covered in an unnerving mist. It made her think of a particular old aunt who had milky cataracts, a woman long dead and gratefully so, from a childhood barely remembered. She wondered if the gauzy morning haze wasn’t some potent harbinger of her own future. She could see herself grown old and doddering, slowly going blind, a lifetime of scrabbling for hard cash wasted. She envisioned dying with the question “why” still framed by her wrinkled lips.
The air in the room was warm, musky. She shook her head and the fog cleared, as it always did. That future, if it was hers, was far away. For now there was sun and warmth, freedom and the road. There was shame too. It was always with her no matter how far away she ran. Along with everything else her old shadow bought to the table, shame was a cheap date. He always took her to places like this one, cheesy hotel rooms in dead end towns with names like Winnemucca, Nevada.
She threw aside the ancient paisley patterned coverlet, rose naked and dropped her feet over the edge of the bed. The carpet beneath her toes was threadbare and gritty. She shivered a little. She didn’t remember much. The night was a blur of roughened flesh, sweat and tequila. His beard was harsh and prickly. He laughed too much.
She couldn’t recall his face or name. She hoped he was gone. But he probably wasn’t. He’d left behind a soft-pack of Marlboro Reds, a faded “Dear Hunter” ball cap and a thumb-worn paperback book. He was a reader. That impressed her.
She rubbed her teeth with a finger, blinked the sleep away and stood. In rooms like this one, she had slept in a hundred or more, there was almost no space to move around. Step out of bed on the right and your tits would be pressed against the closet door. Get out on the left and your hips were flat against the wall. In this case, the left side contained a window covered by white linen curtains. Well, they weren’t actually white, not anymore. If she had to associate a color with dusty age, cigarette smoke, bad sex and booze, then it would be the color of those curtains, more or less.
She pulled them aside and peered through old glass fogged by years of accumulated automobile exhaust carried on the wind from the nearby interstate. She could hear of the rumble of the big trucks but she couldn’t see them. Beyond the window lay a magical verge of thick, brilliant greenery. The colors were as vivid as old Fuji Film images. A bush had clawed its way up the rough red bricks of the hotel wall. It seemed to be trying desperately to open the window and get in, to say hello, to ask for a cup of coffee perhaps. Beyond the leaves she saw grass blades packed so densely together that she doubted she would sink if standing atop them.
Her face was pressed so tight to the window that her breath was fogging the glass, dimming the beautiful vision in a way that made her sad. She pulled back her chin and considered inviting the plant to share her company. He’d have so many tales to tell of loud one-night stands and drunken gardeners who had tried to mow him down. He would probably make a fine traveling companion if permitted to dip his roots in wet soil for a while each night.
The door rattled in its frame and opened on complaining hinges. She didn’t turn immediately. She was reluctant to face him. She was nude. He was probably ungainly, at best. She tended to pick the low-hanging fruit. Her ex-boyfriend, who dubbed himself a “spiritual psychologist”, explained that it had “something to do with her sense of self-esteem”. This probably explained why she wanted to hit him, always, all the time.
“Hey,” he said in husky but altogether pleasant voice, “Gotcha some coffee from the diner down the street. Figured you could use a wake up.”
“Yeah,” she answered blithely. This one had manners. Maybe…
“Nice ass,” he commented.
Maybe not.
“The tat you got on your lower back; s’posed to be the sun rising over the moon, right?” He chuckled.
Surprisingly bright. He was a reader and a thinker. Maybe…
“Goddamn, girl. You ever gonna turn around so I can see them tits?”
No. He was none of those things. He was just another body, another traveler on the long sad road she walked.
She turned…


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Please visit my website to discover more of my work. I enjoy vignettes, horror, science fiction and combining the three into interesting soups with unexpected ingredients.

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Author: R.A. Conine

Contributor: Gary Clifton

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Old Captain DuPree, fifteen years the commander of Dallas Homicide arrived early as always, had four cups of coffee, then waddled down the hall for his morning constitutional. He dropped deader than last Years Christmas spirit. They pried him out of the stall, funeralized the remains, and began looking for a replacement.
The Conga line of kiss-ups and related types nearly trampled each other in the fervor to crowd to the front to do their best work to land one of the most coveted jobs in the DPD. By the magic of the voodoo cop promotional process, the fools promoted Billie "Zero" Grifford to the job. Billie Zero was now Captain Zero.
Zero was a total jerk - the world was home to many. Look up the word in Webster's - Zero's photo would appear. His career was meteoric. Proper maintenance of his public relations and brown nose campaign and he was a future contender for the Chief's spot. Zero was already monitoring the Chief of Police's trips to the john, praying to the God of Sorry Flakes for the miracle of deja vu.
Zero decided as commander of homicide, he needed to lead a mission. We had squeezed up an arrest warrant for badass biker Cletus "Bag" Bonelli. Cletus had beat his ol' lady, Rosa "Barf Bucket" Garcia's brains into mush with a tire iron, then ran her through a tree shredder. Rosa was certainly very dead.
"Everone got vests?" Zero asked. But, hey, management didn't need no stinkin' vest. He'd hide and watch.
Bag was holed up in a junk yard office inside a concertina-wire topped fence in west Dallas. A pit bull, accustomed to eating at least one human daily, patrolled the perimeter.
Bag's name stemmed from his colostomy bag, courtesy of a cop's gut-shot. What we didn't know was a Louisiana prison guard had shot off his left foot. He navigated on a wooden replacement.
Maggs Washington maced the dogdung out of the pit-bull, literally, Red Harper cut the gate-chain, and in pitch blackness, we were on the door in seconds. But Bag had wandered to a corner to take a leak and heard us coming.
Big problem - the bag had another skel in that little camper with him. Bag broke for the fence. The other guy, a biker named "Gator" popped out and cut loose with a little .25 pistol. Harper .12 gauged Gator into that great rehab center in the sky, his head innards sprinkled over a three yard circle.
With the agility of a fleeing rat, Bag scurried over the fence and down the alley in a sort of side-straddle-hop. Maggs, who had run for Texas Tech and Harper, who often ran his mouth, pursued. Zero appeared from behind cover. In the name of fools everywhere, he was filming the chase with a video camera - a career booster sure as sundown.
Out of camera range in the dark, in less than a block, Maggs snagged a leg as Bag tried to top another fence. Harper, big as a barn and half as smart, lumbered up still clutching a nasty cigar in the corner of his mouth. He bear-grabbed the other leg and Bag came down in two pieces.
"Maggs, we tore this sucker in two," Harper held up the wooden foot in the dark.
"Prosthetic device, Harper," she studied the foot.
"Damn tootin' it's pathetic. Faulty construction."
Shortly, the trio appeared within Zero's camera-strobe, the Bag leaning on Maggs, Harper packing the foot. Zero would never have walked down the alley to meet the odd trio - too dark.
"Tore off my damned foot," Bag wailed.
"It's okay, Captain," Harper waved the prosthesis aloft. "It's a pathetic device."
"Great Scott," Zero sputtered. "My career. This can't be happening, Harper, you stupid son-of..."
The camera lights went dark. I flash-lighted Captain Zero's last known position. Our leader had fainted into the alley mud. Zero languished in the psycho ward, then with the shrink's recommendation he was assigned to park cars in the visitors lot. Zero had found a home. And oh, yeah, Bag got the always popular three cocktail needle.


- - -
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has over sixty short fiction pieces published or pending with on line sites. Clifton, an M.S. from Abilene Christian University has been shot at, shot, stabbed and sued. He is now retired.

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Eric Suhem

- -
“3rd floor souls, Hardware and Lawn Care!” announced the department store elevator operator, a round jovial man with twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin. Helen and her husband Don were in the elevator, carrying boxes of hats.

Looking at Don from under her floppy hat, Helen said, “I had a dream that I was in a lobby of 400 elevators, each set of elevator doors a different color. Every few seconds, I hear the ping of one of the elevators, and I run toward its open doors, which slam shut as soon as I reach them. Then another elevator pings, I run toward its doors, they slam shut, and so on. So I keep missing the doors, but in the dream I’m learning how to miss the doors in style. My spiritual advisor says that all this has to do with issues of abandonment. What do you think, Don?”

Don hadn’t heard her, as his mind was filled with visions of green grass, fertilizers, sprinklers, and various lawn care responsibilities. “It’s not sensible to have so many hats,” he observed, looking at Helen’s hat boxes.

He set the boxes down in the elevator, and stepped out onto the 3rd floor of the department store, suddenly finding himself in the middle of a large expanse of grass. A woman in a blue tunic rode across the lawn on a riding mower, waving to him. “Join me on the mower, Don!” she yelled cheerily, “Adventure awaits!”

“You missed a spot,” said Don, pointing to a patch of un-mowed grass, as the woman in the blue tunic rode the mower around in circles.

“Good observation, Don,” said the round jovial elevator operator with the mischievous grin, his twinkling eyes cutting through him. Helen looked on without much regret as Don boarded the riding mower, deserting her in the elevator as the doors closed.

On the next floor, a man in a yellow tunic entered the elevator and picked up one of Helen’s hat boxes. “Get your hands off of that,” ordered Helen promptly, slapping him with a fly swatter she had bought in the ‘House Wares’ section. The man in the yellow tunic wasn’t bothered so much by the fly swatter itself, but did not enjoy the swats of the hard plastic coating package in which the fly swatter was contained. Nevertheless, he continued to eye the hats with great interest.

The elevator stopped at each floor, but Helen did not disembark, as the level of her soul had not been reached. "You're soul's floor is the roof," said the elevator operator jovially, his twinkling eyes cutting through her. Upon reaching the roof, the elevator doors opened upon a sweeping, colorful sky. The man in the yellow tunic led Helen onto the top of the building. As she stared at an airplane in the sky, she flashed back to when she was 8 years old, waving to her parents on the runway as they boarded their flight, her mother in a floppy hat, her father wearing a fedora, hours before they would disappear from her life in a plane crash.

“Hey, we love your hats,” said the people on the roof, all in yellow tunics, admiring the contents of Helen’s hat boxes.

“You’re the first people who have appreciated my accumulation of hats,” she declared, gratefully. Earlier in the day, she had met with her spiritual advisor, who told her that she was buying too many hats.

In the rooftop community, Helen instantly became known, and thrived as ‘The Hat Lady’.


- - -
Eric Suhem lives in California and enjoys the qualities of his vegetable juicer.

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Author: Eric Suhem

Contributor: P Morgan

- -
2.

Everyone was sick and this got into the food. It was the first time I had been inside someplace I wasn’t allowed out of, and it had been my idea, but even then I felt it wasn’t, really, that I had been put upon to do this, like it was a ponying-up of back dues to the mental health establishment for a few years of putting up with me. I didn’t eat anything the whole week.

Watching televised rodeo with John, he explained how he wasn’t abusing Xanax or a danger to his kids, because he was a good dad. He could tell I was one, too. When his mom came to visit she told me to avoid contact with the law, because once you’re in the system, they’ve got you. Damn black-and-whites. This was when you could still smoke inside of some places, so she did.

John called me, once, when we were both out, and I never listened to his voicemail because it frightened me.

1.

I framed it experimentally, like I was an ethnographer, covert because myself. I left the ring in the glove box and took an advantageous seat at the bar, still laconic with only early Fridayers, older folks with real lives and money to spend on trips out with friends, none of which I had. I did, though, have a debit card that was functioning something like an unintentional credit card, debiting an emptiness into deeper, but totally abstract, emptiness, as if negative dollars meant something to someone like me and it was worth keeping track of. They should just close it, I thought, so fuck them if they don’t.

I brought my notebook, and an actual book with words (my notebook mostly held half-assed pictures only drawn to mask my constant monitoring of whichever space I was in). It gave me, I hoped, an air of sophisticated aloofness: lone drinker with the world on his mind, so full of creative sap that he needed to carry a notebook like a basin to catch the valuable excess of what he could internally manage, I hoped they would imagine. I had hypothesized that my inability to find a new lover - after Erica, silent now for a week - had to do with my wedding ring. So here I was, without it, darker concealer even on the base of my left ring finger to mask the paleness, just to be sure, testing whether or not I could theoretically score.

I was there because I hated my wife, because I hated my life.

0.

My son spoke only in riddles that seemed intentionally arch, not-quite two years old, just a few weeks after I had almost killed him, twice, unintentionally. I found myself, that morning, trying to reproduce the thought pattern of a toddler, construct a meaningful sentence that he could seriously answer. He had no idea what a pill was. Surprising myself, I hit on one.

Did you eat any candy today?

Yes. (Said with a carefree and so devastating gappy smile, all the more because of the still angry-looking suture across his left cheek.)

What...color was it? (Not yellow, not yellow, not yellow...)

Yellow.

And that’s why I was, an hour later, trying to coax a small boy who had seen quite enough of urgent care lately, thank you, into drinking more of the thick black charcoal mixture I had been handed at the ER along with some very suspicious looks. (300 mg, the Poison Control operator had said, surrealy calm, well, that’s quite a large amount for someone his size, so I would recommend taking him to a doctor, like she was suggesting I get the pasta. I was disappointed, as though there had ever been a chance that she might say something else.) His clothes were already ruined.

3.

There was no one else to pick me up. Who’s Erica, she asked when I got in. I found your notebook under the driver’s seat.

I made her up, I said, easily, because it was technically true. I put my seat belt on. Where’s the kid?

Don’t. What do you mean made her up.

They’re just stories, you know, imagined, I said. For diversion, I guess.

You imagine a girl named Erica, who does those things, as a diversion. She chewed this while she drove.

Don’t you want to know what it was like in there, I asked. And where’s the kid?

Diversion from what, she wanted to know.


- - -

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Author: P Morgan

Contributor: Leanne Gregg

- -
Audrey hugged her tuba case closer to her body in an effort to shield herself from the biting December wind. She squinted at the street--willing the bus to appear around the corner and pick her up at the stop. She wiggled her toes inside her tennis shoes, checking to see if they were still attached. They were.
Ben came to the bus stop every morning at precisely 7:27 a.m. in order to stand in the same vicinity as her for a glorious 8 minutes and 45 seconds. Once, three weeks ago she said, “It looks like rain.” All he could do was grunt in agreement.
Audrey spun towards the shelter and felt her tuba case make contact with a warm body. She heard a thud followed by a high-pitched yelp and a small explosion of index cards. Not again, she thought. Even though she loved her tuba, there were often times when she wished she played something more convenient.
Ben, momentarily stunned by the impact, blinked. Then he panicked because he realized that he dropped his index cards. He sprang into action like a wild but terrifyingly beautiful falcon, at least that was how he imagined himself—in reality he resembled more of a domesticated parakeet who had happened to have fallen off of his tiny plastic swing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. Hey, what’re on these things anyway?” she asked examining the card she was holding.
“Nothing!” Ben announced loudly, grabbing the card away from her.
“Nothing? Really?”
Ben paused for a moment and looked at the puff of curly, carrot colored hair, her large navy blue eyes, and her round wind burned cheeks--rosy from the cold. What’s the word? He thought wondered to himself. Cherubic.
Audrey looked at him, taking in his appearance. He was tall and somewhat gangly in his black, wool coat, dark jeans and clownishly large, black high-tops. He looks like a clarinet, she thought. She didn’t know how she felt about clarinets—she didn’t much care for woodwinds.
He cleared his throat, “Well, it looks like the bus is finally here. Do you need any help with your case?”
“I’ve always managed by myself, thanks.”
“Oh,” he said flatly.
They boarded the bus; Audrey went in first, pushing her tuba case through the narrow doors. Ben followed, slipping in just before the doors closed behind them. She plopped her tuba in a seat next to a window and sat down beside it on the aisle.
As Ben was passing by Audrey, she said, “Hey, sit over here,” and motioned to the seat directly across the aisle from her seat.
“Okay.” He sat down in the seat and searched for anything to say to her. The bus lurched forward and caused him to smash his forehead on the seat.
“Well here’s my stop!” she hoisted her tuba case out of the seat and shoved it out the doors, which closed behind her. The bus drove away in a cloud of diesel and anti-freeze. Ben stared through frosty window thinking at least he knew he would see her again tomorrow at precisely 7:27 a.m.
Audrey stood on the sidewalk for a moment, making sure that the bus was completely out of sight before she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out one of Ben’s index cards. The card said, “Hi, my name’s Ben, what is your name?” in bold letters, but underneath in small, faint letters it said, “I think you look like an angel. A tuba-playing angel.” Audrey thought that perhaps she could learn to like clarinets after all.


- - -
Leanne Gregg's most recent work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes and Used Furniture Review. She is currently a copy writer by day and the fiction editor at Literary Orphans by night.

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Author: Leanne Gregg

Contributor: Uzodinma Okehi

- -
The lanceolate rush of ruled lines, of sunsets, of inked suns setting in pencil, of minutes, hours and days, right to this point. The something of something, get it? The butyrate fuse. The eclectic substrate of this and that, of childhood, your little tragedies, and you’ve got nothing but mean-time consider it. The tension, as always is also music, a kind of bad poetry, while the drawing itself is still pure science, like numbers, hard to crunch . . .
And Sakura, if nothing else, I’ll take comics by titration drip, drip by drip, or that clack, clack of the wall-clock hands, in my ears and climbing like the roar of a hurricane. Sakura, what’s left but those comics I said I’d draw, those legends, and how legendary does it seem to imagine me here sitting in my long-john underwear, still drawing, but you’d know better than I do if I’ll ever make good on that promise. Not just the clock but the sound of my neighbors downstairs fucking, the tump, tump of the headboard, reminding me just how little things change. That headboard, the bare white walls doming in on me, the cold wind racing up against the bricks outside. What remains Sakura, is the same game of patience. Start with blue pencil, rule out the page, then, new sheet, break down the panels in ballpoint pen. Meanwhile, wars are being fought, empires are crumbling, people are out there falling in love and dying, dust to dust. Now back to the ruled board, rough out the figures. New sheet, work out the faces, the positions of fingers, details on draperies and guns, plan out the lighting—in fact expand this step to encompass life and death because of how long it takes, because of the agony in the countless sheets I draw all over then crumple up and toss to the floor. In fact Sakura, this is the only step, and my only night alive, night after night, and if you do ever think about me, this struggle is what I’d like you to remember . . .


- - -
Uzodinma’s favorite color is Aqua—no, Lapis. Or maybe Sky Blue. He still doesn’t own a cellphone...
(okehi@hotmail.com)

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Author: Uzodinma Okehi

Contributor: MARK SLADE

- -
Bobby saw the fiend peering out from behind the large magnolia tree. This happened on the playground at school. The fiend was tall, very thin with large, black bulging eyes and blood red lips. The fiend was staring at Bobby, digging its long black fingernails into the skin of the magnolia tree. Sap bled. The white gooey liquid ran down the fiend's spotty hand.

The night before the fiend had stood at the foot of Bobby's bed and watched him sleep. Bobby just covered his head and prayed the fiend wouldn't hurt him. It's safe to say Bobby didn't sleep much that night.

Earlier in the day, while standing in line for lunch, the fiend tripped Monica Brant. She fell hard on the lunch room floor, breaking her nose. Everyone standing in that line had to go the principle's office and explain what they saw. No one saw anything except for Bobby. He saw the fiend trip Monica and laugh a shrilly as Monica lay on the floor in a puddle of blood, wailing.

But that's not what Bobby told the principle.

He reiterated what the other children said.

Later, at the drug store, the fiend followed Bobby inside. Bobby made his way to the comic books for the latest issue of Detective comics. He looked around the corner and saw the fiend take four Hershey's candy bars and place them in the left pocket of his dingy jeans.

The fiend pointed at Bobby and laughed.

Bobby went to the counter to pay for his comic book, when the owner, Mr. Ranse, stopped him. He demanded Bobby empty his pockets in front of everyone in the drug store. Bobby placed a comb, chewing gum, a note from Linda Thomas (saying she had a crush on him), and ten dollars and fifty-two cents on the counter. Then, out of his left back pocket were four melted unopened bars of Hershey's chocolate.

Bobby hung his head as Mr. Ranse took the newest issue of Detective comics from him and escorted Bobby out of his store.

Bobby ran all the way home in tears. He ran upstairs past his mother and slammed his bedroom door. He flung himself on his bed and bawled non stop for an hour until he fell asleep.

His mother knocked on bobby's door. She asked if he was all right. He didn't answer.

She shrugged, went into the bathroom.

Looking into the mirror, Bobby's mother laughed shrilly, her large bulging black eyes danced with delight. Licking her blood red lips, she dragged her long black fingernails across the bathroom mirror.


- - -
I HAVE BEEN IN BURIAL DAY, BLOOD MOON RISING, THE RUSTY NAIL, AND WORDHAUS MAGAZINE.
I LIVE IN WILLIAMSBURG, VA WITH MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER.

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Author: Mark Slade

Contributor: C.J. Johnson

- -
Darren came home from work, anticipating, as he had all day, a cool, refreshing can of beer. Entering the kitchen, he whistled merrily as he opened the fridge.
There were 8 cans remaining from the 12 pack he'd bought the day earlier; he intended to finish them off tonight.
Scanning the few shelves inside the fridge, he stopped whistling and frowned.
Where the hell have my cans gone?
A note on the sideboard by the front door, left by his wife, informed him she had gone shopping and would be home roughly an hour after him.
So he couldn't ask her.
Where the hell had they gone?
He searched all the cupboards in the kitchen. He searched the large storage cupboard. He even looked in the freezer.
No cans.
He searched through the rooms of their one bedroom flat, one by one
No cans.
Lastly, he entered the bedroom.
He looked behind units and in drawers. He got down on one knee and looked under the bed.
No cans.
Pulling his wardrobe doors open, he sighed with joy and relief as he spotted his precious, and now warm, beer cans at the bottom of the wardrobe.
He carried them into the kitchen, frowning.
"Why'd the hell she put them in there?" he grumbled to himself.
An hour later, his wife arrived home with carrier bags full of shopping. He questioned her about his cans in the wardrobe the moment she entered the front door.
"So you found them okay then?" his wife said.
"I had to search high and low for ages. Why the hell did you put them in there?"
"Spot them easily when you opened the wardrobe doors, did you?"
"Yes," Darren replied haughtily. "I'm not blind."
His wife smiled at him. "Well you just remember that the next time you wake me up at quarter to six in the morning telling me you can't find your shirt for work when it's ironed and hanging right in front of your face."


- - -
My horror novel entitled Female of the Species is available to download now from Barbarian Books. Check out my Author page on Facebook for information on this and further novels.

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Author: C.J. Johnson

Contributor: Will Lawrence

- -
He was reminded of a moment in the fifth grade when, during lunch, while lonely and eating by himself, two girls took a seat across from him and bluntly questioned: “Why are you so ugly?”

Many of his current insecurities could be traced back to this instance, and over time he came to accept that he was not attractive; not a cover model or a sex symbol; not “eye candy.” Over time, he came to settle on the definition of himself as being a “face for radio, and voice for blogging.”

His natural response to those girls, so many, many years ago, remained a distant cavernous echo in his thoughts: “Why are you?”


- - -

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Author: Will Lawrence

Contributor: Marian Brooks

- -
Laura would rather sit through Chain Saw Massacre 3 D than spend an evening with Ted’s parents.

They’re creepy. His mother, Gertrude, seeks her reflection everywhere, even in puddles after a rainfall, totally unaware that she might be standing in a slow current of shit. She fairly oils her way across the floor as she approaches. Laura can imagine her mother-in-law with a silver cigarette holder between her fingers if only she smoked.

Ted’s Dad, Phillip, is a giant of a man at 6’6” with a voice to match. No one ever argues with Phillip. When he frowns, his eyebrows alone could sweep you up and into the dumpster behind the garden. To his credit, he is a world champion flosser. He has to bend his way through doorways. If only he didn’t bend once in a while.

Now they have come to spend the weekend with Ted and Laura and their teen-aged boys, Justin and Lewis. Laura disappeared into the kitchen as soon as she could, stirring plenty of rage into the soup. She calculated the number of hours until their departure – fifty-seven frigging hours. Of course, some of the time would be spent sleeping. Subtract sixteen hours and you have forty-one.

They last visited in May for Justin’s eleventh birthday. Gertrude complained that there weren’t nearly enough balloons and that the cake was a little stale. They gave Justin a golf umbrella. Justin does not play golf. Phillip slept through the whole affair.

The afternoon was spent catching up with who had died and whose children were, or should be, checking into rehab. The Wilson’s daughter was pregnant by that long-haired musician, Doug and poor Uncle Charlie, who once moved like a greyhound, needed a new hip.

Dinner and clean up would consume two hours leaving thirty-nine and so on and so on. Lincoln was playing at a local movie theater. It was over two hours long. “We’re getting somewhere,” Laura thought. Both of the kids wanted to see Skyfall and Ted, Silver Linings Play Book. Gertrude was on her way to a headache and so was Laura. At least they had that in common. They compromised and went to see The Life of Pi.

By the time they woke up the next morning, there were at least twenty four hours to go. Ted made his special blueberry pancakes. Gertrude was proud of him although she thought the coffee was too strong and the orange juice, too acidic. She asked her daughter-in-law what kind of fabric softener she used. “The sheets were like sandpaper,” she said. Laura snapped like a towel on the line in a high wind. She threw her utensils into the dishwasher without even separating them and marched out of the room.

Fortunately, Ted and Laura lived a mile away from one of the largest malls in America. Much time and money could be spent there. Phillip offered to stay home with the dogs. Besides he was convinced that there was a code embedded in the daily crossword puzzle and that he was going to discover it. Everyone else piled into the SUV. The silence was deafening. The boys headed straight for Model’s Sporting Goods to purchase Eagles hats. They put them on backwards and inside out and stood in line for over an hour at the Apple Store. They congregated at Friday’s and were about to head home. Gertrude insisted that she needed to pick up a rain coat at Nordstrom’s and an unmentionable item at Victoria’s Secret. She went in alone while Ted, Laura and the boys waited outside, mouths open.

Shortly after they arrived home, Ted’s parents announced that they were departing way ahead of schedule. All were surprised but not disappointed.

Ted, formerly a gymnast, hadn’t done a cartwheel for ten years. When his parents left, he performed two of them perfectly across the living room floor.


- - -
Recently retired, Marian Brooks has just begun to write some short fiction. Her work has appeared in Thick Jam, Curly Red Stories, One Million Stories, Short Humour, and others. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.

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Author: Marian Brooks

Contributor: Mike Putnam

- -
We watched from our balcony as the hundreds of helicopters hovering over the lake suddenly began moving south. It took only minutes for them to be out of sight, along with the massive dome carried underneath. They were headed for what once had been Gary, Indiana, but in less than a year would be renamed New Chicago, Illinois.

Shelly had our floor plan brought up on the tablet and was decorating it using an application she had downloaded. At one point she had exclaimed, “Ohmigod you can walk around.”

I took a sip from the sweating bottle next to me, unable to believe something seemingly made of tough glass could withstand the effects of radiation and an indirect nuke impact. At the same time, it filtered air naturally through its walls. Science, I concluded.

“Wanna see our new apartment?”

“Won't I see the real one in six months?”

She looked up for the first time since the helicopters had disappeared. “Try again. Want to see our new apartment?”

“I would love to.”

She handed me the tablet and went to lean against the railing where she watched the lake as the sun continued its descent, hidden somewhere behind us. “Just tap around to walk, hold down and swivel to turn.”

“I appreciate that you've kept it all in the shopping cart.”

“Well it is a team decision.”

“Indeed it is, and you started out with an empty apartment?”

“I even picked the knocker on the door. Totally customizable.”

“Killer shower curtain, I can't believe you found it.”

“They had seven hundred and fifty to choose from, it was bound to be one of them.”

“I approve, bedroom looks really nic- wait. What? They let you pick out a sex room?”

“That was a quarter of the price tag. By the way, everything this company sells is American made: leathers, steel, plastics, everything.”

“Of course it is.”

“They've built their business on it, really popular with the military families.”

“Best factory job you could find, I'd say. Thank you, my love, that was a wonderful tour.”


- - -
Mike Putnam is an American writer currently living in Cleveland, Ohio. He has previously been published in Linguistic Erosion and Daily Love and considers himself a curious spirit.

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Author: Mike Putnam

Contributor: Michael W. Clark, Ph.D

- -
The plastic bag reminded him of something. Something in his past. The past wasn’t too far away considering his short life. But it was when he was three or four. When he was small and spherical of body. At least, that’s the way he remembered it. He used to play this game. He was a late walker too, so he spent a lot of time on the floor, a lot of the time on the hard, dusty wood floor. His mom wasn’t too interested in household chores so the floor was dusty, very dusty. “Dust Bunnies” one time his father called them. One of the times his father was home and actually played with him. One time that he remembered. So the game was called Dust Bunny. Dust bunnies were his only playmates, mostly. So he would imagine himself as a Dusty Bunny, blowing in the faint breeze. Even a foot step had the Dusty Bunnies scampering away in all directions. “Look mother! I am a Dusty Bunny!” He would shout up from the floor where he was all curled up in a ball, just the way a Dust Bunny should be; no legs, not arms, and no head. “I’m a Dust Bunny! Clean me up!” He would giggle. For some reason Dust Bunny simply made his mother angry. Not angry, mad. “I’ll clean you up!” She would shout, get her broom and then spank him with it. The other Dust Bunnies were not supportive of him at all. They all ran for their lives in all direction from the menace of the broom. He now thinks, when the world goes bad on him, “Well, you can’t count on a dust bunny.” Simply to remind himself of the way the world really is. Why the plastic bag that he gently lowered the severed hand into, reminded him of “Dust Bunny,” he really didn’t understand. Still, he reminded himself by saying out loud, “Never rely on a Dust Bunny.”


- - -
I am a biologist and writer with seven short stories published. Most recently stories have been in Lost Souls, Surprising Stories, Trembles, and will be in the 2013 Morpheus Tales.

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Author: Michael W. Clark Ph.D

Contributor: Sean Crose

- -
After dropping Cory off at Logan airport for the long flight back to Europe, Ben, Lance and I began our trek back to Springfield. It was great taking a long drive through the summer night. The Mass Pike wasn't clogged up and we laughed and smoked cigarettes as we cruised through the state. By the time we stopped at a Burger King off the highway somewhere outside of Worcester I knew it would be a night I wouldn't soon forget.
Not that anything special had happened – at least not at that point. It was simply the rush of being young, the rush of being out on a minor adventure that seemed like a major adventure; laughing, smoking and swallowing life in large gulp-fulls. It's great being young like that, when life seems endless, cigarettes seem harmless and everything has a feeling of newness and mystery about it.
Of course, being who we were, we missed the exit outside of Springfield and ended up riding clear up to Pittsfield. Ben, who was driving, thought he knew a way to get us back by taking the back roads down through Westfield.
On and on we rode. On and on we talked. On and on we laughed. It was a great night. Life seemed endless. The cigarettes we smoked seemed harmless. Everything had a feeling of newness and mystery about it.
After a while, as we drove through what I assumed was Westfield, we became aware of how late it was. We had just gotten through talking about Ben's ex, Trish, who lived in town, when we realized the night would eventually come to a close, the journey would eventually come to an end and life would move on.
“Unless,” Lance suggested slyly, “we keep on driving.”
At first we thought he was crazy, but, as we continued to float through the neighborhoods and deserted roads of Western Massachusetts, Ben and I began to see the sense of his words. Life was endless. Cigarettes were harmless. Everything would always have a feeling of newness and mystery about it.
“Should we?” Ben eventually asked.
After a moment Lance and I agreed we should.
Ben took a turn, where, exactly, I don't know, and pressed hard on the gas. Off we rode; off, off, off into the night. It would be years before I finally returned.
The others are still out there somewhere.


- - -
My name's Sean Crose. Besides Linguistic Erosion, my work has appeared in such publications as Breakwater, 6 Tales Magazine, Fiction 365, and Crack the Spine. I live in Connecticut with my wife Jen, and Cody, the world's greatest cat.

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Author: Sean Crose

Contributor: Gary Clifton

- -
Look up "no good scumbag" in Webster's and John Ralph Dupree's photo would appear. He laid around his aunt Mildred's house in south San Antonio, swilling sweet apple wine and sleeping most of the day. The neighbor's Basset Hound barked long and often, disturbing John Ralph's slumber. Not the sharpest of minds, he bragged around the neighborhood he was "gonna shoot the dog and blow hell out of the neighbor's house." He did both - dog and neighbor ended up deader than good manners.
The cops sent out Chris Alvarez, eight years in Homicide and Polly Klevis, in the murder squad two months. Alvarez was big, tough, and thought himself to be quite an amateur comedian. Polly, naturally anxious to prove herself in a male dominated business, had been a quarter-miler at Baylor and could outrun anybody in San Antonio.
Witnesses repeated dimwit John Ralph's threats and the two cops had a warrant for his arrest in three hours. Aunt Mildred said he'd fled to his father's place In Louisiana. The next morning, Alvarez and Polly de-planed in Baton Rouge and were humming east along Interstate 12 in a rented Dodge.
"John Ralph's ol' Daddy is a country preacher with seventeen kids still at home, most not potty trained," the local sheriff declared.
They found the place, north of Lake Pontchartrain propped haphazardly on a third acre of ground grudgingly given up a foot or so by the surrounding swamp with the aid of a bulldozer and many big rocks. Alvarez asked Polly to scout the rear while he spoke with Daddy.
Polly's scream drifted for miles across the soggy bayou. She came on the Baylor run around the corner, eyes wide as silver dollars. Alvarez, pistol drawn, charged to the rescue. "It's the Loch Ness Monster!" Polly screamed before she skidded headlong into a mud-sink puddle.
Alvarez found Big Willie, neck-chained to a magnolia tree at swamp's edge. He was big and tough, too. Willie was surprisingly calm. He sat in placid splendor, munching one of Polly's shoes. "Drop it fella," Alvarez ordered.
"Burp," Big Willie replied, wistfully eyeing the second shoe, just out of chain-reach. Brown Bears are like that.
John Ralph did his bit for justice by dashing from a battered shed up by the house. "Polly!" Alvarez pointed. Minus shoes, muddy as the tar boy, she had John Ralph in a hundred paces. Alvarez lumbered up, cuffed the sobbing, pathetic little screw-up, surrounded by a regiment of smelly kids.
When they checked John Ralph into the Baton Rouge Parrish Jail for overnight holding, the officers on duty inspected Polly's muddy, bedraggled state and single shoe. She managed to hide partially behind Alvarez.
"My demented sister," Alvarez seized the stage. "They sent me down to grab John Ralph here, but I knew she was hiding around here somewhere. Give her shoes and she'll bolt sure as hell." The jailers, journeymen in a silent trade, nodded sympathetically. John Ralph went to the slammer wailing like a scalded dog.
Motel shopping, Alvarez drove Polly down Government Street. A red light stopped them beside a Baton Rouge squad-car, blue lights flashing. The uniformed officer stood, shaking a finger at slender young man. The scruffy kid sported a stringy mustache, with penitentiary tattoos on both forearms.
Suddenly, the kid broke and ran. Polly, already mad as hell, bailed out in full chase mode. Astounded, Alvarez followed in the Dodge. The officer, more astounded, followed Alvarez. Polly was gaining.
At the brightly lit Capitol Inn, the fugitive veered through the lobby, danced across the dining room, knocked over three tables, then plunged over a railing into the indoor pool. Polly followed. When Alvarez and the uniformed officer arrived, she had the man in a standard choke hold. "I got him, Officer," she said upward.
The cop inspected Alvarez's credentials. "I just told this mope if he wasn't off my beat in sixty seconds, I'd run him in," he studied the scene. "But what the hell, he's still here. Kid, you're under arrest." The officer handcuffed the crestfallen punk and winked professional courtesy to Alvarez. "We'll find a charge," his smile was good ol' boy subtle.
The Capitol Inn desk clerk whose name tag ID'd him as Norbert, had been in the john and missed the chase. He stood behind the counter, a paragon of professional motel-clerk-ism. Norbert leaned over to inspect Polly's dilapidated condition. "Hit by a bus?"
"My sister. She's a little off," Alvarez said soberly. "Taking her to the Institution tomorrow. Give her shoes and she'll run sure as Sunday."
Norbert's face was grim understanding. "We have insanity in the family too, Sir. It's too bad you can't just put them to sleep."
A policeman burst in, out of breath. "Where's the lady who just whupped the guy in the swimming pool?" he blurted.
"Rook, it's the jailhouse for you. Guy musta died," Alvarez grinned again.
"No, no," the cop, out of breath, continued. "That clown was wanted for eighteen rapes. Ma'am you're gonna get a medal."
"I don't understand." said Norbert.
Polly drew her pistol. "Alvarez, you overgrown chunk of not funny monkey shit, I'm gonna shoot off your 'nads, if you have any. That oughta get a laugh."
"Oh my," Norbert exclaimed.
"Me, too, Norbert," Alvarez echoed.


- - -
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop has short fiction picecs published or pending with over sixty online sites. Now retired, he has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University

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Author: Gary Clifton

Contributor: Brandi Gaspard

- -
We were both dealing with a lot of things that summer.

There were the physical things, like:

1) how your missing left hand made you hide in long sleeves, even though they stuck to your skin so heavily in this southern heat.
This wasn’t too much of an issue, though, because we spent most of our time sleeping, or watching your collection of tapes.
The blinds were always closed.

2) how my own hand lacked any sense of tact, even with the best intentions in mind.
The first time we shared sleep, I could tell that you were uncomfortable by the way you forced your breathing to be still, and quiet, and so I traced my fingers down your arm to make you feel better. But it was late, and dark, and I moved too close to what we didn’t want to acknowledge as gone, and I felt your chest sink. So I asked if we should switch sides.
 I would sleep closest to the wall that summer.

3) how after that night, you always walked right by my left side.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask what happened to make you feel that way. Or what happened that left you without a hand in the first place.
All I knew was what I could see—your left side always strived for the shadows.

4) how we both got to the point where, if we could drag ourselves out of bed, neither of us would leave without sunglasses.
Yours were a veil to avoid accidental eye contact with others. They saved you from becoming a public display of biological abnormality, and they saved others from the sympathy they might feel obliged to give if the long sleeves and slouched posture weren’t enough to distract from the absent.
Mine were there to uphold the idea that there was something worth obscuring behind those dark lenses, when really, all I could say about myself is that I couldn’t bear the sun.

5) how we had to find ways to keep this overbearing sun and the city’s decaying buildings out of view from our apartment windows.
The unavoidable daylight illuminated the city’s failures and their reflections still creeped through the cracks, no matter how hard we pulled on the cords of the blinds.
Downtown kept decayed buildings as keepsakes of what could have been, but never was.
These rotting mementos and trash-lined streets were flaunted by the city to give the illusion of big city living at a discounted price.
Sometimes, the city would sense that people were catching on to this construction, so they’d make improvements to keep the disillusion at bay.
Last year, they paved the streets with new, antiquated cobblestone, but they tried too hard, and so the roads became too rough to pass.
They installed giant signs with flashing letters that signal: it will not be easy.
We did what we could to hide from this glare of orange, along with the glare of the sun and the surrounding buildings, with layered sheets nailed above the window frames and a cool climate we could keep through adjustments of the thermostat.
And then there were things that couldn’t be cured with dark shades or cloths or the cold, such as:

1) how the city’s weight smothered us in a way much like gravity, always there, but only noticed in rare moments of consciousness, like when we would walk to the corner store to pick up cigarettes and sweet tea and the only other people we saw were the nine-to-five suits rushing to return from their lunch break and the vagabonds resting in the central plaza.

2) how we didn’t want to be conscious, to be reminded that we had nowhere else to go.
So we mostly spent our days inside of those blanket-pinned windows, filling ourselves with smoke and sleep to blur the movement of time and to blot out the city’s black hole ambiance.
There wasn’t much said in between exhales and yawns.

3) how we grew tired of nothing, and on those days we desired something, we’d wait until the sun lowered to leave our shrouded living behind.
It was at night when downtown seemed most alive.
Even less bodies wandered the streets in the absence of sunlight, but with the city’s upheld promise of hollow metropolis reveries, every building that remained lifeless by day was revived by the grace of glowing neon at the onset of darkness.
Their skeletal infrastructures were outlined in cool-tinted glows of blues and greens.
The warmer colors were reserved for the bridge, the only entrance and exit to the urban corrosion.
The florescence read: THE DARING NEW CITY.
We would walk to the center of the bridge and lie beneath the sign and stare until we could see the neon saying with eyes shut.
These nighttime walks to the bridge were the only time you’d let me stay at your left side. In the afterglow of this expired city, we didn’t need sheets keep the light out. Or dark shades to shield from the sun. Or long sleeves to cover what was missing. Or smoke to distort our dwindling time.

4) How some things are better left unsaid.


- - -

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Author: Brandi Gaspard

Contributor: David Elliott

- -
Jacqueline could remember the moment of her birth. . .

Unlike every other member of the human race, she could remember being torn away from the womb, moving from darkness into blinding light; a recollection as vivid as it was horrific. She could recall her eyes adjusting to the new environment, seeing the woman bathed in blood, and having the immediate insight, despite being only a few minutes old, that she had suffered, that she had died giving her life, that she was her mother.

Other people, to Jacqueline’s surprise, seemed to have the luxury of permanent amnesia when it came to birth; a heavy veil drawn across their subconscious, shrouding the memories in darkness, preserving their sanity, perhaps, for the somewhat less traumatic life event of death. But not Jacqueline. Her memories were as sharp as the tools in her Father’s surgical kit; those fascinating tools that preserved life, but also brought death; tools that had kept hearts beating within the breasts of royalty, circulating blue blood throughout the regal veins, but were somehow unable to save her mother. Her poor, unfortunate, beautiful mother. . .

Sleep was no longer a part of Jacqueline’s life. Sleep brought dreams, and the dreams were disturbing. It was better to walk, better to wander through the dimly lit streets and try to outpace the memories, try not to remember the event she’d never be able to forget. Despite the crime, despite the sights, sounds, and smells she’d encounter during these hours, it was always better than the alternative. Nothing could be as terrifying as sleep. It was a thing of the past, a childish habit she’d had to overcome. She was constantly nauseous, hallucinating with alarming regularity, but that was nothing. It was a small price to pay, to keep the dreams away. Without the dreams, she would keep her sanity. Without the sleep, Jacqueline’s grip on reality would hold. If she kept on walking, everything would be fine.

She could even cope with the other women abroad at that time, impure women, sinful women, women who weren’t deserving of the gift of life, who had squandered that gift, made a mockery of it. But her mother had died. She’d died, while whores continued to live. Her beautiful mother, her body a mass of mutilations; a mother she’d never know, lying perfectly still, body frozen in a rigor of agony; her flesh cut away, her organs defiled, her belly ripped open so that Jacqueline might live. She was an angel, far above any of these earth bound demons.

And, as she walked she would hear her mother’s voice. Mummy would speak to her, call her by name. Not Jacqueline, of course. Mummy would call her the other name, the name she should have had, an appropriate name, according to her father, for the sex she should have been.

‘Jack.’ Mummy would whisper in her ear. ‘I love you, Jack.’

Yes, if she kept on walking everything would be fine. And, in its own way, Whitechapel could be quite beautiful at night.


- - -
David Elliott is a writer and musician, living in Cheshire, UK. His short fiction has appeared in Twisted Tongue, MicroHorror, Flashes in the Dark, Whispers of Wickedness, and Delivered.

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Author: David Elliott

Contributor: Martin Goulding

- -
Google Drone View promised to end all earth bound mysteries. It was way passed Google Street View; this technology mapped and recorded every point it passed. The drones with Nano-cameras and nanotechnology quickly covered every square inch of the planet. There were a few restricted areas such as The White House and the Queen of England’s bathroom but other than that it was open slather.

Initially strong privacy concerns were raised, then the voices of science and progress at any price, saw the great opportunity presented and championed Google Drone View, worldwide.

Already underwater mysteries have been debunked with the tiny Google Drone-Marines—no Atlantis, no Lemuria, as expected; just rocky formations that only at first glance seemed to support the possibility of man’s hand.
On land, all forests, caves and deserts went onto Google Drone Maps for all to see. A viewer could go to the deepest recess of the Amazon in nanoseconds.

The Silicon Valley Google whiz kids came up with more ideas for the drones while getting their daily massages and shoulder rubs. Every inch of the sky was quickly mapped and guess what? No UFOs, not one was ever detected. The only silver cigar shaped objects in the sky were other drones.

A metaphysical and philosophical arm of Google was created called Google God Reach. The Google faux-hipsters in their creative time debated how if they could just get the right team, specifically a blend of quantum physicists and metaphysical minds, they may be able to send astral drones into other dimensions. The funny guys at Google even began wearing T-shirts with God we’re after YOU with a small white bearded guy cowering underneath.

Sexual Privacy issues were addressed by stripping all “bedroom scenes” from the feed. However, a group called Julian Assange for President hacked the live feed and posted thousands and thousands of juicy bedroom scenes on YouTube creating quite a stir.

Another bunch of hackers put up a website called The World’s Funniest, Fattest, Most Retarded and Ugliest People and they released compiled video footage taken from Google Drone View; it reported 38 billion hits on their first day of broadcasting, these and many other spin offs led to it being widely accepted.

Not everyone was happy or compliant about Google Drones; I belong to a world wide body of neo-Luddites called “No Google Drone View”. We wear T-shirts with Google we’re after YOU. below which is the image of cigar shaped drone being blown away with a shotgun.

We have seek and destroy missions, one of our members built a drone detector from 1950 Ham Radio parts and this technology, which incredibly, still uses valves, has spread like wildfire. If you saw the 80s Alien series of movies, you may remember that neat little Alien detector. It started with one “beep”, and then progressed to increasingly frequent beeps when enemy were detected. Same with this one, it’s a little clunkier and heavier, it does take our strongest neo-Luddite to carry it. But accurate it is.

The drones are 23 centimeters long and 3.78 centimeters in circumference. After many successful search and destroy missions Google started making armor plated models and began using neo-Luddite detectors. They have all known members in a data base and used iris scanning software. As if that was not the easiest strategy to overcome! We wear air-ace style goggles still available from army disposal stores. Hop Harrrigan, one of our leading neo-Luddites, pioneered the two pronged attack: First, after detection we netted the drone, then held it down, diamond drill bit penetration, and filled it with water. End of drone.

The future is not so bright, our members are being persecuted, remember Google’s universal message they vowed never to break—Do No Harm. Well that is all well in the past. It’s getting closer to all out warfare, Google started it and our neo-Luddite brethren will finish it.


- - -
Martin Goulding is an Australian writer who enjoys creating odd, strange and unexpected stories.

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Author: Martin Goulding

Contributor: Marc A. Donis

- -
Og moved slowly along his morning commute. He was lost in thought.

"Good morning, Og!" cried Ug, who had spotted him coming along the path.

"Morning," muttered Og as they joined paths.

"Sleep OK? You seem tired."

"Nah, I was up all night. Couldn't get a wink."

"I know a guy who's got this root. It might help you. You should really see him."

"You mean Oog? That guy's a quack. No, thanks."

"Have it your way," shrugged Ug. The two walked together quietly for a few minutes.

"You know, I was just thinking..." started Og.

"Not again!" sighed Ug.

"Just listen. You know how you need a woman and a man to make a baby?"

"Yeah... I heard some of the guys talking about that the other day. It's like they can't do it without our help."

"Right! Well, I was just thinking... maybe it's the same for the beasts."

"Really? OK, so what?"

"Well, I was just thinking, maybe, if you got a man beast and a woman beast, and put them together for a while, then you could have a lot of baby beasts."

"That's a fine idea," said Ug, "but finding them isn't really the hard part. It's all the chasing."

"Right... Well, what if we had a sort of... thing... to keep them in a smaller area, so we don't have to chase them so much?"

"OK, I'll bite. What sort of 'thing' did you have in mind."

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it before. It would be like a lot of trees lined up in a row, but in a big circle. Let's call it a fence."

Ug furrowed his brow. "That's a funny word for it."

"Anyway, so we put the beasts inside the fence and let them make baby beasts. Then, we eat them!"

"Huh. This all sounds like a lot of work." Ug was somewhat skeptical of this idea.

"You're right. We would need help." The conversation fell silent for a few minutes while the two considered the problem.

"I've got it!" cried Og. "We share the meat!"

"With the others who help make your... funce thing! Interesting..." Ug was starting to see the point.

"It's called a fence, and yes! Oh but wait... there is no meat. There are just baby beasts, and also the man beast and the woman beast, but we can't eat them. We need them to make the baby beasts."

"OK, so we share the promise of future meat with the ones who help build the fence," thought Ug.

Og knew that Ug was on to something. He started to become agitated. "Yes! The promise of future meat! We will give them small rocks instead, and call it... money!"

"That's a weird word. I don't like it," scowled Ug.

"Too bad. It's my word."

"But... what happens if some people get more of the nummy than others? Won't they be jealous and make trouble?"

"It's pronounced money, and yes, I suppose you're right. OK, so we'll need a safe place for people to keep it. I'll call it a bank."

Ug rolled his eyes and sat down. He knew that, once Og was on a roll, there was no point in trying to stop him. He settled in for a long ride.

"Banks can let other people borrow the money so that they can make their own fences and beasts and maybe even other things. For this service, banks can charge... interest! This interest will need to be computed. Maybe somebody can invent a machine that will do that. And lots of other machines, to do all sorts of things, too!"

"A what?!" interrupted Ug.

"I don't know, I just made it up. Work with me, here."

"Fine..." sighed Ug.

"People will want to own a piece of the beast farm. Maybe they could use their money to buy little pieces of it. I'll call that equity. Of course, there will be risk involved. So we'll need something else... I'll call this a derivative. And we'll need all sorts of things like binary options, exchange-traded derivative contracts, credit default swaps, and mortgage backed securities to make it all go."

"This is all getting quite complicated. Are you sure you know what you're talking about?"

"Sure... It's fine. It's just math. People will love this. You'll see."

"Well, I admit, I like it a lot better than your last idea about the tiny invisible bugs that make us sick."

"... and naked shorts, and synthetic collateralized debt obligations, and -- who the hell are you?!"

Og stopped in amazement as he beheld the small man before him who was wearing a white garment made of some sort of leather.

"Look, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation," said the little man. "I think you two are getting a bit ahead of yourselves."

He raised a smallish object which he pointed in their direction.

"Hey! I saw a thing like that in my dream last night. I called it a gu --"

But before Og could finish his sentence, he had forgotten what he was going to say. In fact, he had forgotten almost everything.

"Me... Og," said Og.

"Me Ug," said Ug.

"Good day, gentlemen," said the man. Og and Ug watched as he walked into a very strange sort of flying cave, and was gone.


- - -
Marc is a Franco-Floridian IT contractor who has been living and working in Luxembourg for much too long. He enjoys writing things like short fiction, lines of code for banking software, and even the occasional email. He often wonders from which planet his two perfect children came, who clearly don't belong to this very imperfect one.

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Author: Marc A. Donis

Contributor: Amaranta DeBrefny

- -

I have seen unspeakable things in my life. Darkness, depravity, injustice—the list goes on. But not today; today is about the light, about fulfilling a dream, and maybe about getting some of my own back. Well, not so much the last part. The straw of my Mai Tai is a tiny thing, and I push it aside as I toss the little umbrella onto the table. Pulling my sunglasses down and leaning back in my sun chair, I’m committed to simply living today.

            At least that was the plan. A shadow blocks out the heat of the tropical island sun, and knowing that a certain six-foot, bronzed someone is about to quash my plans, I sigh and slowly open my eyes.

            “And here I was thinking you, Melanie Justice, never went on vacation. You know, crime never sleeps and all that.”

            Even if I hadn’t opened my eyes, his voice would have given him away. Andy Lí stands before me larger than life. His tousled hair holds little grains of sand, and, as he gives me a once-over, drips water down his face as if he’s just been for a dip in the ocean. Sunkissed and carefree, he looks good.

“Nice to see you too.” If he’s going to ruin my plans and mysteriously show up on the island, I feel a little sarcasm is the least I can offer.

            “Aw, don’t be like that, Mel. Just think, we can spend every day together.” Andy winks conspiratorially.

            Sitting up, I wrap my towel around myself. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was after...oh, let’s see...a vacation? As in time away from the likes of...”

            “Me?” The hurt is evident in his dark eyes.

            I always put my foot in it around Andy. He’s been a PI as long as I have and we’ve managed to run in the same crowds for years—a few cops here, some journalists there. Neither one of us is much of a social player or has a family to go to. Come to think of it, he’s about as socially pathetic as I am. I think that’s why I’ve always liked him.

            “No. Just work. I don’t want to think about work. And why are you here, anyway?” My voice is snarkier than I’d intended, but it’s too late to backtrack.

            “Same as you. I just needed some time away from it all.” Andy offers a small smile. He runs his hands through his hair and turns his face away. “So I guess I’ll see you around.” He’s off before I can call him back to apologize. Not that I would. My work’s taught me never to make myself vulnerable. Sorry isn’t really in my vocabulary. I watch him walk away and wonder when we’re going to end this non-thing between us.

***

A little after nine I close the file I’ve been going through and remind myself I’m here to have fun. All work and no play makes Melanie a cranky woman. At least according to Andy. He mentioned this resort to me months ago, so I shouldn’t be surprised he’s turned up here. Especially after what we’d been through last month. Henderson, my client, was the misogynistic type who couldn’t fully trust a woman. He’d hired Andy for the same case, and when it went bad—and I mean really bad—Andy had paid dearly, just as I had. Time, I was learning, was the only healer.

            A sudden rap at my door raises my hackles. Laughing it off, I rise from the bed. “Andy, can’t you take a hint?”

            The cool silver of the doorhandle is smooth, distracting, against my palm, and as I open the door, the smile falls from my face.

            “Told you you’d see me again.”

            Henderson’s gloved hands form a sinister backdrop for the glinting metal peeking out of a concealed holster. Rattling off a silent remonstrance of I knew I shouldn’t have come here, I search around for anything to ward off my impending doom. Nothing. The room, with its cheerful floral accents and vases of exotic tropical flowers, provides nothing. I know I could jump for the phone. But he’d be too quick. Our eyes meet.

            “You don’t have to do this.” To my ears my voice sounds little more than a whimper. Something inside me snaps—I am not vulnerable, I think. I’m Melanie Justice. I am strong. I will go down fighting.

And then, taking a breath, I lunge at Henderson.

            The beat of canned island music pours through the hotel windows. The corridor is empty except for Henderson and me as we struggle. I could call for help, but I know everyone is out watching the last vestiges of the orange-hued sunset. They’ll lie back with a cool drink in hand, maybe sway to the beat of the music. And I’ll be here. Someone will find me, alone in the corridor. It’ll be a pro job. No one will ever know what happened...except for Andy. Wrenching Henderson’s grip from me, I shake my head sadly. I don’t want Andy to be the one to find me this way.

            “Playing hard to get, Justice?” Henderson’s rank breath washes over my face. He laughs, and sensing a split second of vulnerability, I take my shot. Monopolising a few choice self-defence moves, he weakens and stumbles back. He’s on his back, and before he can rise, I reach forward and grab the stun gun from his holster.

            It’s now or never.

            Six hundred thousand volts, and Henderson’s down. He convulses violently and then, finally, splays out on the carpeted floor.

            “Nice work.”

The voice is from behind me. I turn. “Andy! You could’ve helped me, you know!”

            He takes the stun gun from my shaking hands. “You, Mel, can take care of yourself. I always knew it. Now you’ve proved it.”

            “I guess I can.”

            Andy smirks. “Just not too often, I hope.”

            “Never again,” I reply. “As of tonight, I quit!”


- - -

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Author: Amaranta DeBrefny

Contributor: Eric Suhem

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Alma sat in the kitchen at the rickety Formica table, wearing a faded pink bathrobe, flicking ashes from her cigarette into a cracked cup of cold coffee, the crack running through a scenic mountain panorama on the cup. The clock said 5:38 a.m. and the crossword was half done as she stared at the tattered curtains. In a couple of hours, she and Mel would go to the coffee shop, as they did every morning. The coffee shop had a large lit cup of coffee situated above its roof, though cracked and fading bulbs gave it an odd, decaying appearance. In the torn plastic booths, she and Mel would make their breakfast orders: a poached egg, coffee, and toast for Alma; pancakes, bacon and coffee for Mel.

Alma and Mel lived in an apartment on the 2nd floor of the Palm Vista Village on a slightly seedy, wilted-palm tree street in Los Angeles. Alma griped about the neighborhood, but Mel would just smile, saying “One day we’ll go on that vacation you want!” before heading off to work at one of the El Segundo aircraft factories. Only four more years to retirement.

On a hot, sweltering Tuesday morning, Mel had a hunch. He entered the bank as soon as it opened, requesting a withdrawal of his life’s savings. After a considerable delay of paperwork, Mel left the bank with the money. He arrived at their apartment, where Alma was vacuuming the worn, faded carpeting while watching television. “C’mon honey, we’re going to the track!” yelled Mel, changing into his lucky Hawaiian shirt. Alma looked up from her vacuum, annoyed. “I got a hunch,” said Mel, giving her that light wink of the eye that she loved. He showed her the travel pamphlet he’d been reading.

They got into their battered Toyota Camry and drove out to Hollywood Park. Alma looked askance at the burlap bag Mel clutched as they walked to the ticket window. “Number 7 to win in the 5th race,” said Mel, pouring all of their money out of the burlap bag onto the scratched steel counter. The man at the window squinted briefly and gave Mel his ticket.

A creaking, rusting hulk built in the late 1950’s. The last either of them remembered was lounging on the main deck, each drinking a ‘yellow canary’, the specialty of the ship’s bar. The horse they had bet on days ago, Number 7 in the 5th race, had won, and they’d collected the winnings quickly. They’d celebrated with a couple of chili dogs at a food stand, Mel staining his Hawaiian shirt. Mel and Alma had followed the directions on the vacation pamphlet, and boarded the majestic boat in San Pedro, ready for the “vacation of a lifetime”.

Mel thought he remembered a couple of dark figures approaching him on the deck and holding a chloroform-soaked cloth to his face, but he wasn’t sure. He and Alma both awoke on the ice floe, the ship nowhere in sight. As the large chunk of ice approached land, Alma and Mel saw dozens of television screens, some affixed to the sides of buildings, some lodged in hillsides, some floating in the water near the shore. All of the television screens displayed large eyeballs staring back at Mel and Alma. The ice floe drifted to the shore. A man in a dark sweater and goggles was digging in the sand when he saw the ice approaching, he threw up his hands and yelled “Hallelujah!” He ran toward Mel and Alma as the floe slid onto the sand. “Our leaders have arrived!”

“Where are we?” asked Alma, dazed and staring at an eyeball on the television screen at the end of the beach. As Mel and Alma looked further at the hills beyond the beach, they saw numerous television screens lodged into the dirt, each screen displaying an eyeball. Mel bit his lip, thinking about the vacation they could have had, described in that other pamphlet. Alma stared into the eyeball, entranced.


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Eric Suhem lives in California and has spent a lot of time in El Segundo.

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Author: Eric Suhem