Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

West 86th Street Time Machine by Patrick M. Butler

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Two days ago there were still those who went about saying that Peter was a false Tsar, perhaps the Anti-Christ himself.  But then, just as the hour of three was being struck, two long, thin clouds joined in the form of a cross above our village.  It was a Friday according to the new reckoning.  Marina, the serf girl, was the first to see it.  She fell to her knees and crossed herself, then ran to tell the priest, my father.  If he was drunk, as usual, he was nevertheless quick to realize how he could use this “sign”.  Were the rumblings of those who opposed the Tsar to go unchecked, the soldiers would soon be set upon our village to leave behind the smoldering remains of peasant huts and bodies swaying from scaffolds.  So I was ordered to toll the bell which summons the peasants to the village square where my father put them on their knees in witness to this miracle.  Such a voice he had!

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All Stories, General Fiction

Tempest by Frederick K Foote

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It is horrendous out here! like God’s troubling the waters. I’m by my lonesome in my eight-foot Jon boat with my ancient, three-horsepower motor. I don’t have time to worry before the storm’s crushing me. I have handled rough water on this lake before with the same setup. At worst I would just pull ashore anywhere I could and seek shelter until the storm passed. But not this time. The storm erupts so suddenly, the clouds overwhelm the sky so quickly and pervasively that my visibility drops from twenty miles to about three hundred feet – like God switched off the lights.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Fries and Coffee by John Brantingham

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I found Ginny at the diner with her face square against the linoleum of the table. I thought she might be crying to herself, and I thought that tears were maybe a good thing. The waitress, Joyce by her name tag, asked, “Is she yours?”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Phantom Pain by T D Calvin

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My appointment is at twenty past eight.  I stand waiting outside the surgery at half seven – when the receptionist opens the main door she fires me the same kind of look she would to a drunk or an addict but I pay no attention.  In the waiting room I flick through an abandoned copy of the Observer and enjoy the sensation of being the only person here, the only person Doctor Matheson is preparing to see.  I like to book the earliest appointment she has on any given day – I like the thought of being first on her list of priorities.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Trip Home by Steve Sibra

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This Story is Dedicated to the Memory of Buster Dunlap

***

It was the summer of 1974, after I got out of high school. We were getting the machinery ready for harvest, and my dad was always in a hurry when it came to the process.  Get the grain cut as soon as it was ripe, get it in the bin or hauled to town, out of the field, out of harm’s way before the wind or hail, wiped out an entire year’s work.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Crossing the Jordan (A Novel Excerpt) By James Hanna

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Author’s Note

Gertie McDowell, a naïve young girl from Turkey Roost, Kentucky, is serving five years in the Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia. This came about because Gertie inadvertently distributed powdered meth throughout several states. Believing herself to be a dress designer, she was in fact delivering dresses that a drug dealer had laced with meth. Gertie remains optimistic and harbors a crush on Agent Jackson, the personable DEA agent who arrested her.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Superheroes in the Real World by Frederick K Foote

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Every other year my children, Martin, Malcolm, and Harriet, and my seven or however many there may be grandchildren, vacation at our family home outside of Palmyra, Virginia in Fluvanna County.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

The Absolution by Leila Allison

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“Is it fair?”

 Those were the last words Eddie said to the man he had thought I was before he drifted back into the only honest sleep of his final days. A smiling sleep caused by my youngest daughter, who did one of the finest  things I have ever seen a human being do.

Eddie died yesterday, and his parents have asked me to speak at his “Celebration of Life” this Sunday. I have plenty of harmless Eddie anecdotes to warm hearts and kill ten minutes with. It may be cynical of me to say it, but even though the most timid human being tends to live an R-rated life, few celebrations of such are anything less than family friendly.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Tommy Lee Jones Rounds Up Mexican Immigrants Using Excellent Spanish by Fernando Meisenhalter         

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She wants to tie me up, but I’m scared, so I don’t let her.

So she gets on top, cowgirl style, bites me on the shoulder.

“OWWW!” I yell.

“I want to hear you scream,” she says.

“Just don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, be a man.”

She rides me hard, with vigor, rubbing herself until she comes.

Then she dismounts, walks away, goes to the bathroom, won’t say a word, just like a guy.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Mystery Gable of Knobby’s Nook by Tom Sheehan

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Knobby Newton stood in admiration as he saw the last nail driven in his new hotel, which he had named Knobby’s Nook and the sign over the front entrance had been put up the night before, in darkness, so that he could surprise the folks of Carson Divide, Wyoming. The sign read “Nestle Here at Knobby’s Nook” and painted pillows adorned each end of the sign. Newton loved that special touch. The last nail was put in place with a single hammer hit by Newton’s pal, Dom Petra, who had conceived and built the hotel for Knobby with twin dormers, a sight not seen locally where most roofs were flat or pitched clean to the edges for handling winter snow. The window in the first gable was not fitted with any glass, but was boarded up from the first, whereas the second gable window was a window, with a two-piece double hung window looking out over the main road passing through Carson Divide that featured ornate signs; the livery (Harry Peter’s House of Horses), the Bank of Wyoming (with spilled cash and currency as a footing), Moose Callow’s General Store and Confectioner, funeral director Calvin Monterey’s Home of Blessing and Final Departure, and the corner building at the head of the road bore its own unique sign that carried nothing but an open pair of scissors and a comb, both implements at the ready and especially drawn with vibrant strokes and colors.

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