The Biddies Above Broken Hearts

On the corner of Astoria and Sunday on the ridge above Broken Hearts were four Victorian homes. In happier times this was referred to in the town as the Biddies’ Corner, known for the four old women who had lived there and spent much of their lives together in one house or another, playing bunko and drinking gin. Not a one of them had survived, although the word had been Mrs. Rockby had tossed herself down the cellar stairs before the disease could get her.

Dinner at Rosa’s

Sometimes jobs fall right into your god damned lap. Paulie and Tosh were sitting at a booth in Rosa’s, a twenty-four hour diner directly off the highway in a town that had grown up only to serve it. The highway, not Rosa’s. In the same large parking lot as Rosa’s there was a Trucker’s HavenContinue reading “Dinner at Rosa’s”

Invocation

In a small clearing of trees not far from the Route 85 Rest Stop #14, three men and a woman stood staring at each other. Rocky Lopes and Verity Fields stood on one side. Ozzie Gomez and Perseus Onri on the other. Between them was a hastily assembled shrine, a heavy leather book with theContinue reading “Invocation”

The Gate

The Guardian There was no questioning if Milo was okay to run. It didn’t matter. If he wasn’t, he’d have to find a way anyway. That thing knew where they were. It was coming. They had to find the gate first. He took Laurent’s hand and pulled. Waited for some piece of his body toContinue reading “The Gate”

The Guardian

Their laughter faded as one of the sounds coming through the trees caught their attention. The crystal had taken them deep into the forest. They had been surrounded by animal sounds the entire way. Birds’ wings flapping above. Critters crashing through the underbrush below. At first even the sound of a chipmunk chittering at themContinue reading “The Guardian”

Girls Weekend

The farther they got from the carnival the softer the sounds became. The high pitched bells and whistles from the games and the screams from the rides and the off-key jangling of the local band on the stage faded and blended together until it was all just a wash of distant buzzing. The sounds thatContinue reading “Girls Weekend”

Broken Hearts

The little town of Broken Hearts in the mountains of Colorado looked very pretty. All of the lights were off, of course, and there were no cars parked along the side of Main Street. But the street and the sidewalks had been shoveled and salted. The trees that lined the street had been trimmed. Most of the windows of the shops and cafes and the bank weren’t just intact, they were clean and decorated for Christmas. The few windows that had been broken had been neatly replaced with large sheets of plywood. It looked like a charming, functional hamlet, and the man walking down the middle of Main didn’t know no one lived there at all.

Just Wedding Things

Simon had never been a fan of the fame part of acting. He’d said as much in many, many interviews. Not that it had really been an issue in the early part of his career, when he was mostly getting hired to do low budget indie or lower budget sci-fi movies. The occasional times he’dContinue reading “Just Wedding Things”

Yola

The place where they fell was nothing but corn and stars, the two trading places rapidly in Yola’s vision as they tumbled through the thick stalks. Her arms were wrapped around Calvin, so tight she could feel the tension in every muscle. Her feathered wings were wrapped around both of them, and with every bounceContinue reading “Yola”