Category: Crime/Mystery/Thriller

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Andytown by David Louden

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Tonight, a strong man died in Belfast.

We had been on the site for three days.  Day one, up went the big tent.  The rigging, lights, safety nets and everything else that goes into putting on ‘the show’.  Day two, the dress rehearsal and an opportunity for those of us who needed it, to get clean.  A chance for those of us who needed it, to score.  Day three was opening night.  We were set up on the outskirts of Andersonstown.  Out of the way, on a plot of land that had been raised to the ground under the promise of social philanthropy only for the plans to cool and the memories to fade.  Now it’s little more than uneven concrete and free parking.  That’s how Mal got it for the week for so cheap.  It should have been a risk this far out, but people are the same everywhere.  You put enough curiosities in one place and they’ll come out of wherever they’re held up to look at them.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Horror

After Lloyd by Christopher J. Ananias

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Disturbing content – see tags at the bottom of the page.

Gil doesn’t talk, just sits there drawing demons. Mr. Ny clapped his erasers together and called Gil to the blackboard for one of his impossible Geometry theorems. Gil snatched up the chalk, like a pissed-off Picasso, and made quick hard chalk-chalk marks, and it was solved. The last bell rang and the mad dash.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Slither by Ed N. White

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This is a crime scene. I shouldn’t be here; I’m not a cop anymore. So, I ducked under the yellow tape strung across the two trellis supports and picked the lock. Dusting residue coated surfaces in suspect locations; someone had cut two patches from the cheap gray rug. A ceiling fan with a squeaky bearing rotated slowly, which helped me breathe because the smell of death hung like diesel exhaust.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Fantasy

Baby Blues by Jack Powers

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Cass had been on the Cold Case Time Travel squad eight years when I replaced her partner, Hoss. We’d done things differently in Present-Day Homicide so I shut up and listened. Cass was a pro, by the book mostly–she could even fix the damn machine! And since no other towns could afford the traveler fees, we’d be in ’60s Harlem one day and ’30s Greenwich the next. I’m guessing they brought me in for the Harlem cases. Brothers don’t tend to open up to two pale folks from the future. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know we were from the future, but occasionally our Era Lingo implants malfunctioned.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Horrible Relocation by Marco & Liam Etheridge

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A cross-country move is a big change, I get that, but no way I deserve this nightmare I’ve landed in. The relocation wasn’t even my idea. Doctor’s orders, right? The doc said I needed a drier climate and less stress. And the move did lower my stress level, at least initially. Putting three thousand miles between me and the cops, that’s a hidden bonus. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the good doctor.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Charlotte by Jeremy Akel

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Birdie was the strongest, bravest, most determined girl in her neighborhood. Everyone knew it; her big sister Charlotte said so. Birdie loved her home. She loved the way the honeysuckle perfumed the sidewalk outside her apartment. She loved the plant’s delicate flowers, the tiny explosions of pink and red. She even loved the cooler months, when flowers lose their bloom and fall, and paint the ground in Technicolor. Most of all she loved her sister. Charlotte was so beautiful. Her hair curled and zig-zagged, and her eyes reminded Birdie of Momma’s homemade caramel.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Personal Growth by Ben Fitton

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The hole was definitely growing. 

Jonty could tell, having just woken from a nap, face tingling with grass imprints and a half-crushed flailing ladybird stuck on his eyelashes, to find the hole bigger and nearer.

Jonty was seen as a shabby, acceptable kind of aristo who loitered in gardens on dewy mornings, drunk or whimsical, misquoting Homer and asking for a crustless sandwich while he sat, as squat as a stone rounded by a forgiving sea, marvelling at the stains on his tie. 

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

A Sharp Knife for Cutting Limes

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I probably wouldn’t be in Mexico if there hadn’t been a knife on the counter at the Bad Dog Bar last Tuesday. I been going to the Bad Dog for two years, since I been working the graveyard shift at Drake Manufacturing. If you ever spent eight hours attaching table tops to the leg frames, you know why that kind of work goes better if you got a couple beers in you. One of the evening bartenders at Bad Dog is Hitch. He was working last Tuesday with Sheila, who waits tables. She ain’t much of a waitress, to put it gentle. She gets orders wrong ever night, even in a place like Bad Dog where most everbody orders the same cheap beer. Sheila’s popular, though, with them low-cut blouses. Most of the Bad Dog customers are guys don’t care what they’re drinking as long as they’re looking down a woman’s blouse. That’s one reason my brother liked Bad Dog right away. Plus he didn’t have to walk far after work. Then he got me to going. And I gotta say about Sheila and them low-cut blouses, when you look down that valley, you know there’s a better world waiting when you get there.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Chalatenango, 1983 by J. Paul Ross

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Warning: Extreme content – see tags.

Running.

Gasping.

Retching, the son of Olayo Mejia charges toward his village amid the stench of burning wood and searing flesh. The odor is heavy and it is moist and it fills the valley beneath him in a haze of squalid yellows and heavy browns. It covers the fog-laced treetops and mingles across the terraced fields and, as gunfire again bursts over the Salvadoran hills, its reek grows sharper with every footfall and every wild swing of his arms. Its taste lingers in his mouth, its fumes choke his lungs and he wants so much to pause and catch his breath. He wants to fall to his knees and weep in terror but he knows he cannot, for the helicopters are prowling above him, the smoke is billowing high into the morning air and his home is very far away.

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