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Warehouse Workings
By Charles. K. Carpenter I nearly spill my morning coffee when I notice the big, black headlines on the front page of the newspaper. “BODIES FOUND!” it screams, and my eyes shoot to the accompanying photograph of the warehouse where I used to work. I can’t believe this. Reading farther doesn’t help me much either. [...]
4Feb2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedWatchfires
by Matthew Cherry He peeled back the blinds and thought about all the movies and TV shows he’d ever seen in which someone peeled back the blinds only to be spotted by the bad guys and shot thirty-eight times from the deeply-tinted window of a Lincoln Towncar. The street outside spoke in whispers and [...]
1Feb2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedUnwound
By Matthew Cherry The beer was good, although it was cold. Mr. D knew they both preferred it warm: hot, in fact. It was Guinness, and though D’s personal experiences with the Irish, especially during the 20th century, had not been pleasant, he had to admit that they produced a fine beer. “How much [...]
1Feb2012 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedMasked
By Matthew Cherry Oliver stood in the field. He stretched out his hand and brushed his palm against the heads of the wild hay stalks. It was greener and thicker than any hay had a right to be, and it sprang from a clean churn of black spring mud freckled with hayseed and hoofstamp and [...]
1Feb2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedDeath by Water
By Douglas W. Bowers Mike couldn’t believe how warm the Florida water felt on his toes. The rare times he had been in the ocean were on the Western side of the country. He could get used to the chill of the Pacific, but the water rolling onto the Jacksonville’s McNichols Beach did not [...]
31Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedSELLING OUT
By Douglas W. Bowers The loose gravel crunched beneath the BMW’s rubber. Elizabeth sat in her car long after she cut the engine, wanting to cry more than anything. Before her, framed by the windshield, stood the two-story farmhouse where she grew up. Her childhood was painted white with green shingles that probably needed [...]
30Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedDead
By Leya Kayas There were windows in the flat that looked out onto the street. Women were in the street, a signal of the changing world. They did not cover their hair, and spoke loudly. Sometimes he listened to their simple inflections, their calling each other habibi as they laughed. He thought about Zahra, and [...]
27Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Megalith
By J. Patrick Carr I first encountered the megalith as a young man, lost and wandering deep in the Greenwood. I found it standing tall in the center of an open glade. Its black granite was smoothed by countless years of weathering and it had no markings upon it save for a perfect circle on [...]
24Jan2012 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedPeculiar Sacrifices
By M. K. A. Marble Mist shrouded the forest, blown in by the cold winds of November. Crows called to one another through the sounds of rain dripping from branches to the dead leaves that lay in shades of brown, maroon, tan and burnt orange on the ground. The gray clouds in the sky seemed [...]
23Jan2012 | admin | 2 comments | ContinuedDesert Flower
By Marc Colten In his teens Jack Cohen had felt incredibly superior to the grease stained kids who dropped out of Andrew Jackson High to go to the local Vo-Tech. Vo-Tech’s were considered the lowest of the low, even lower than the “special schools” because at least those kids were retarded. The kids who went [...]
19Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedAlternate
By Aaron Fitzgerald I remember a light shining in my eyes. I felt weak and I couldn’t recall my name. I heard a voice echoing in my head. It sounded like what you hear when standing in a large cavern. I was slowly regaining consciousness. As my eyesight became clearer I could make out a [...]
18Jan2012 | admin | 4 comments | ContinuedConfidante
By Michael Barber The guy at Shamrock Personnel rifled through his index cards and picked one out – a possible four-leaf clover in a cluster of maybes – and rattled off some of his notes: “Let’s see now . . . Four Seasons Travel, Madeline Madison, owner, looking for a CPA immediately, had to fire [...]
16Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedPsycho Drama
By EKG I suppose it is odd for a eighteen year old to adopt a fourteen year old. However, I was a mature young adult. I had a place of my own, which I paid for by being a mature young child. I was equipped to raise him. It wasn’t legal adoption per se. He [...]
16Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedLow Ground
By Matthew Cherry A bright bead of fire lanced into the noon sky. Neither of them saw it; Miller was chasing sleep with his cover tilted low over his eyes and Winters was face-down in a George R.R. Martin paperback. When the sound came, low barrel thunder, Winters looked up and saw the chalky contrail [...]
16Jan2012 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedTaxidermy
By Sarah Scharnweber Jocelyn’s eyes begged for Andrew to stay as she whispered, “Please, just one more night. Just stay tonight and hold me; be with me.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please.” Her head swung from side to side and droplets tumbled off of her cheeks. He rolled his eyes. “What the [...]
13Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedRed Hour
By Jeremy Wright He flicked Genghis Kahn on the nose. He gently massaged Cleopatra’s breast. He even traveled across the red plains of Mars without a protective suit. Each night Harold Westcott did the same boring routine. The night watch duty at the museum was one of the dullest occupations he had ever subjected himself [...]
12Jan2012 | admin | 10 comments | ContinuedClosing Time
By J.M. Jennings Eric Jenner was beginning to nod when the tires crunched on the gravelly side of the interstate. He jumped awake and swerved back into his place, thankful that no one was around to see him. Or hit him. He had tried turning on the air conditioning to full blast, and that had [...]
12Jan2012 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Rain
By Walter Kwiatkowski Darryl Wheeler stood in the doorway staring at the pellets of rain that pounded against the pub window. His reflection looked sadly back at him and for a moment he thought his twin in the mirror was shaking its head at him in pity. I’ve been clean for six years. No heroin. [...]
12Jan2012 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Funeral and the Football Game
By Darren C. Sullivan James J. Fontaine’s funeral brought paid respects from family, friends and acquaintances that passed before the casket revering with tenderness. Long hollow halls, ancient benches, and portraits of priests hung in silence echoing their devotion and years of prayer. The fickle sun teased those attending with bright hues of yellow through [...]
6Apr2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedMother Made Him Do It
By Darren C. Sullivan Mother’s Day was never the token celebration of blessed mothers in our house. It was met with the shrill nuances of my deplorable mother, so it never held the same sense of duty and respect that might be found in other, more normal homes. As a grown man, I never thought [...]
6Apr2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThree Nuts and a Cracker
by Alice Baburek Over the years life was more than good to her. Young, thin, successful. A convenient marriage, to suit her needs, her desires, and most of all her best interests. She climbed to the top in no time—no time at all. It didn’t matter how she did it. How many people she used, [...]
2Apr2011 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedAndrew Magenti
by Allen Kopp For as long as I live I won’t forget the night the young master was born. It was during a night of the worst thunderstorms I ever witnessed in all my life. All the fury of the heavens was unleashed upon us. The rain, thunder, lightning and wind tore at the old [...]
31Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Water – Grave Retribution
by R.L. King “This can’t be happening to me, who is going to look after my mother?” “Fuck your mother. If you don’t shut up, I’ll set you on fire right now.” “If you’re just trying to scare me, you can stop now. I know you’re not really going to kill me.” She said, slumping [...]
27Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedMiles To Go Before I Sleep
by Yousef Algahtani Exhaustion crept through him as night began to fall, or better yet, day fell and night began its rise. His horse trotted along at a slow pace, though steady and making time, leaving tracks with every step in the perfect blanket of snow. “Not much further now, old boy.” The man whispered [...]
25Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedLast Rites
by Marc Colten Cathy Epstein could not resist relocating some of the floral offerings. Since some people had so many, while others seemed to have been forgotten, it didn’t seem wrong to take a few flowers from one to leave for someone else, at least those she could reach. It had never bothered Cathy that [...]
24Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedGlistening Tricks
by Matthew Raup We had met somewhat precariously. Had I not known what she was before I met her, things might have turned out differently. The book I had read in the very back of the library when I was fifteen turned me onto a dimension of reality that most never even have a passing [...]
22Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedLet’s Make A Deal
by Matthew Raup 10:45 A.M. “Looks like rain today,” I said to Sue, the just-beyond-middle-aged woman at customer service. She looked around blankly as I strolled away. I could have turned and reiterated, but I knew she was way too burnt out to care. She was great. But her mind wandered like a ten-year old’s. [...]
21Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedSamuel and the Woodpecker
By Matthew Raup It was an orange-moon night. The ominous orb of mythical cheese hovered above Samuel’s head, urging him on through the forest. The forest glowed with pumpkin light. Samuel was looking for something. But he did not know what that something was. He thought about his life back on the island and wondered [...]
18Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Call of the Wind
By Keith Deininger Jake lived in the industrial part of town and hated it. Most buildings around the train tracks were rundown and unused, their walls dirty and crumbling. It was like a fucking ghost town. Even the houses in the neighborhoods behind the old warehouses – those massive and windowless behemoths – were empty [...]
15Mar2011 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedCastle Heldeur
by Michael Futch “The locals call this place Burcht Heldeur,” Greenberg said. He broke the silence amongst the four soldiers, who walked through the fields outside of Eindhoven, Holland. “It was built in 1452 by -” “I have to tell you, Greenberg, I don’t give a rat’s ass.” Campbell looked over his shoulder at Greenberg [...]
11Mar2011 | admin | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Tell-Tale Soul
by R.L. King “This is how it’s going to be now.” The man’s ghost said. It sat off to the side, in the dense fog, where the flying dirt would not disappear through his body. “You know that right?” After everything that happened in the last four days, he did. Now, being haunted by the [...]
6Mar2011 | admin | 1 comment | ContinuedBogeymen
by Keith Deininger It started with the book, that damn book. It’d felt unnatural – greasy. But it was just a book, wasn’t it? Now, the dark terrified her; and those quiet moments alone. It happened at night, while she lay in bed, quivering, sweating, too petrified to dare expose herself from beneath the covers; [...]
4Mar2011 | admin | 0 comments | ContinuedDeath Hates His Job
By Wodke Hawkinson G hated his job. It wasn’t just a strong dislike; it was actual loathing. He thought about it as he pulled on his blue jeans, gray t-shirt, and bent to fasten his black boots. With a feeling like weariness, which was surely impossible for him, he shrugged into his black hoodie and [...]
4Mar2011 | admin | 1 comment | Continued