The song cut out as the radio started blaring a test of the emergency broadcast system beginning with its usual discordant WEEEEEEEEHHHHHH. Mack cut it off and left it. They were almost to the parking lot of the trailhead, anyway. Next to him, in the passenger seat, Lois shifted. Out of the corner of hisContinue reading “Pre-Apocalypse”
Tag Archives: short fiction
What Goes Around
April 3rd, 2037 His phone didn’t wake him up until it vibrated itself right off his nightstand. Still, he only turned over, his eyes glued shut to protect himself from morning. He groped blindly, his fingers running through the thick, cheap carpet. Seth hated that carpet. It held smells the way the dying held memories.Continue reading “What Goes Around”
The Punchbox: A Body of Thieves
Vinnie nodded to a short, thin man wearing thick diamond and gold rings on his slim fingers as he passed through the front of the party car to the next. There were two bathrooms in the hall, just before the connecting doors, and Vinnie glanced behind him to make sure no one noticed he took neither. There was no badge reader or guard here, and Vinnie was about to say something about the door being locked. But with a simple touch of the handle the door slid open easily. Vinnie was in the connecting pass-through, and then he was in the next car.
Slow Burn
Ella turns around and sees Dean on the other side of the party, drinking a martini and talking to someone. He’s as handsome as ever, his brown hair brushed back and the physique of his arms trying to burst through his shirtsleeves and those eyes. Even from across the room she can see the wayContinue reading “Slow Burn”
To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before: Pacific City
Peggy was having a very nice dream where she was on a beach and that one actor whose name she could never remember but she never forgot his face, he was shirtless and he kept bringing her fresh glasses of Mai Tai, and it kept feeling like it might change to a sexy dream any second but even if it didn’t the Mai Tais were killer. And then her fucking phone started ringing.
Henry, Thea
In the Before Times (something he always called it in his head but never out loud, at least not since that one time he said it and Doc Wendy looked like she’d take his head off) Henry had never been an early riser. His parents, his bosses, his professors, his coaches, they had all tried all sorts of crazy things to get him somewhere on time before ten o’clock. Alarms that were loud enough to tear a hole in his eardrum. Alarms that required he solve a math problem or a puzzle before they shut up. Cold buckets of water. Nothing ever worked for long. Henry just loved his sleep.
Bullshit
“Do you know what my first thought was, entering that trailer?” Rebekah asked. She took a quick sip of her beer and held up her hand. “I mean, after the screaming and confusion. My first real thought, looking at the scene.” Asche shrugged and leaned back in his chair. He expected some kind of platitude,Continue reading “Bullshit”
To Prove The Human Spirit
President Goodman, a good man, indeed, although easily steered into bad decisions, had a few minutes before the eggheads from Global Health Counsel came in with their report, so he was staring out the window behind his desk and tossing one of his kids’ fabric toys back and forth between his hands. It was aContinue reading “To Prove The Human Spirit”
The Moth
A moth walks into a podiatrist’s office. The podiatrist sits her down and asks, “So, what’s the trouble?” And the moth says, “Trouble, doc? Trouble. I’ve got so much trouble I don’t even know where to begin. I used to have a job I loved, but I quit to take care of my older brotherContinue reading “The Moth”
Moon Over Prairie Fire, Part 4
Gus only got two seconds to be confused. A loud snap ricocheted around the room, causing everybody to jump. Gus the worst of all. The sound was that of his humerus bone snapping back into place. A second pair of sounds quickly followed as the two bones in his forearm found their proper place, but no one could hear it over the sound of Gus screaming.
