Category: All Stories

All Stories, Horror

Mourning Becomes Her by Frederick K. Foote

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The local bus huffs and heaves its way into Way Stop, West Virginia. It halts with a shudder and a sigh in the mid-morning sun.

I collect my duffle bag and straighten my fatigue uniform jacket. On Main Street, there’s an honest to goodness general store, a diner, Bob’s Gas Station, a few empty store fronts and two small white churches almost directly across the street from each other. The June morning is moving toward hot. I move toward the diner for coffee and directions.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Out of Place by Adam Kluger

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It was a snowy Saturday and I was headed to King Carol Record store on the Upper East Side to check out what new albums were in. Zig-Zag Records was nearby so I could swing by there as well.

It was the 1980’s and I was totally into music like the Talking Heads, Duran Duran and Devo and all the other bands that were becoming popular on a new channel called MTV.

It was late afternoon and I don’t remember if I was baked but I’d say the odds of that were 50-50.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Mouse, Party of One by Nikki Boss

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Every day I get to work and there’s dead guys all over the floor. I hate those fuckers, with their naked pink tails and stupid broken necks. Most days I don’t even want to come in. Dead guys, everywhere.

The kitchen I work at is in a busy corner of the city. It’s dirty but I don’t mind any, mostly because I’m a dirty boy myself. A dirty bird.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

All About the Truth by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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“Please! Please!!”

“I’ll get the pliers.”

“You really are the type of individual who goes home of a night and masturbates over the bodies in your basement, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“… Please, don’t hurt me!”

“Shut your hole!!”

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All Stories, Horror

A Deal With the Devil by Christa Carmen

literallystories2014

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As an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College, Clementine Hamilton had majored in psychology. For the department research requirement, she had pursued her studies in abnormal psychology, so she was aware there was no formal diagnosis for what she was. There were elements of obsessive-compulsive disorder in that her need for constant stimulation was recurrent and persistent, and the impulsivity aspect of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder characterized past behaviors. If she had been forced to ascribe a name to it, it would have been something like ‘stimulus deprivation disorder,’ and the symptoms that had manifested themselves over the years were readily measurable.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Hungry Since She Left by Elena Croitoru

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Stuttering lights crossed the night sky as the drones floated above the spidery criss-cross of network cables, just a few inches above my head. I kept thinking about the cameras pointed at my house, wondering if I would get to see the recording of that moment when my life changed. I followed the movement of the hovering four-armed machines until my eyes stung.

3 AM. Time to eat. I went back inside my house and ate a dozen cold chicken nuggets from a box lying on the counter. My appointment with the filing officer was at 7 AM. I couldn’t sleep, even after dinner.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Soldier of Fortune by Sharon Frame Gay

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She boarded the bus in a good-bye city, roots shallow as a water lily, a few coins to rub together, sites set back on simpler times.

Past the maze of town, the buildings stretched out and faded away, giving in to twilight, a few weary stars freckling the top of her dirty window. People settled into the dimness, part of a kindred clan, hurtling towards whatever dreams waited to disembark.

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All Stories, Horror, Humour

The Noble Shelley and Her Fat Belly by H.T. Garton

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Ade stared at the ceiling and sighed. In a dim corner at the very edge of his field of vision, a spider was spinning its web. He shuddered. Shelley’s cleaning skills meant that too often he had inadvertently thrust his hand into barely visible cobwebs — nasty, sticky nests of what felt like old man’s hair. He hated spiders: the way they ran out of nowhere at speed, changed direction randomly without warning and fell out of unexpected places where they had no business being – bath towels, dressing gowns, slippers.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Hunt by Frederick K. Foote

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I low gear the Mazda pickup down the dirt road to the floodplain. The headlights help me find my way as the sun peaks over the horizon. I park by a small pond with stunted trees and knee-high shrubbery.

I grin at Mac, my big Airedale, rub his neck; he shakes his head, eager for the hunt. I grab the thermos of coffee. Mac and I move to the back of the truck. I open the top of the camper shell. Shaft and Dart, the brindle and the white greyhounds, greet me with muzzles and tongues and an eager trembling.

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