Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, General Fiction

Spraypaint on Granite by Thomas Shea

literallystories2014

I had just sprayed some swastikas on my father’s shiny new headstone, and was two letters into a nice double-underlined “BURN IN HELL, NAZI” when I saw her.

Her flowing white dress fairly glowed in the full moon’s light. Her skin and hair were so dark, the way she walked so light and graceful, that my first thought was “ghost”.  But disembodied spirits don’t usually carry duffel bags, or pause their spectral wanderings to shift the straps awkwardly.  Having more to fear from the living than the dead, I swung behind dad’s elaborate (now slightly moreso) stone, and hid.

Continue reading “Spraypaint on Granite by Thomas Shea” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Horror

   Colours by Amanda L. Wright

literallystories2014

Oil running amber along a thin white line. In another time, in a different kind of world it would have its own strange grace. But here the amber turns to a sickly yellow green that rubs out the world.

Continue reading ”   Colours by Amanda L. Wright” →

All Stories, General Fiction, Horror, Short Fiction

One Prisoner Too Many by Tom Sheehan

literallystories2014

 The sound came once more. He stiffened. It was closer. His whole body knew it was closer. It was not just in the hearing. It approached. It made inroads. It said so. The metal toe. The kick. The slash. Ping Too smiling through his teeth. Oh, would Ping have a thirst for amontillado! Oh, were he himself the finest of stone masons, setting Ping Too up for the full sentence; to make an end of my labor, to force the last stone into place; to set the best of mortar, forever? 

Caught between the professor and the captain!

Continue reading “One Prisoner Too Many by Tom Sheehan” →

All Stories, Fantasy, Horror, Short Fiction

The Witch by Dallas Yates

literallystories2014

I burned a witch to death last night. She was a standard specimen: long nose, black hair, broomstick, pointy hat. I looked for a cat but couldn’t find one, which is not unusual. In my experience, few witches travel with their cats. Ditto for cauldrons, wands, crystal balls, and any other magical items you can think of: Witches travel light.

Continue reading “The Witch by Dallas Yates” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Mean, Median, Mode by Dominic Dayta

literallystories2014

It was the topic of discussion, the day he took me to sit in his Elementary Statistics class. He had on his signature look: slim-fit polos with elbow-length sleeves, jeans, and sneakers. He looked closer to a student than a lecturer. In his class, the boys yawned at the sky out the windows while the girls regarded him with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks, asking question after question, swooning at his careful answers. Everything about him was measured: how he smiled, how he modulated his voice, how he angled himself at the chalkboard. Whenever he went to the teacher’s table to check his notes, he would hold his hair at the forehead while he looked down. From the back of the room I watched him man his class like a blockbuster performance.

Continue reading “Mean, Median, Mode by Dominic Dayta” →

All Stories, General Fiction

Fancy Goodnight by Frederick K Foote

literallystories2014

At the dinner table, Fancy Goodnight, my seventeen-year-old granddaughter, drops a bombshell, spills the beans, or lays an egg depending on your perspective.

“Hey, you guys, guess what?”

Lavender Green Goodnight, Fancy’s twelve-year-old sister, responds. “You’re pregnant with twins, and you don’t know who the father is. It—”

Topaz Goodnight their fifteen-year-old sister interrupts, “It could be any of twelve homeless, drug-addicted, ex-cons that—”

Mavis Goodnight, the girl’s forty-year-old mother attempts to put the conversation back on track, “Enough, don’t joke about that. Fancy, what do you want to tell us?”

Continue reading “Fancy Goodnight by Frederick K Foote” →

All Stories, Fantasy, Horror

Wishbone by Jennie Boyes

literallystories2014

The castle ruin was the only shelter Famine could see for miles, a shadow cast on withered land, on mud, bracken and brittle heather. And on bones. Beyond was the sea, and snow clouds on the horizon. The gatehouse, its great rounded towers broken and jagged at the tops, stood defiant in the desolation, like an old, wounded knight after a battle. Wind, sea-salt, and even War had not defeated it, and as Famine traced the silhouette against the sky, he could have believed the castle would withstand time itself, if such a thing were possible.

Continue reading “Wishbone by Jennie Boyes” →

Short Fiction

The Sense of Something More by Matthew Hobbs

literallystories2014

The silver bullet train slips like mercury through nacreous tunnels; it spikes through brown hills; it plunges deep under the poisoned Thames. The bullet train slides across skyways high in the warm air, a beam of refracted sunlight among the glinting mirrored windows of office buildings shaped like so many onyx, bronze or purple vegetables. Silent, the bullet train glides with great economy at impressive speeds: there is no friction from magnetic rails.

Continue reading “The Sense of Something More by Matthew Hobbs” →