All Stories, Horror

Unfinished Business by Rose Banks

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I didn’t think I would remember you.

I thought when the world changed I would change with it. And on the outside, at least, I did. Here I am, after all, in my Balenciaga coat and Jimmy Choos, striding along past ranks of fresh-built luxury apartments. Queen of the World. Only I made a mistake, top of my long, lifetime list, because inside I stayed the same. I remember how things were before. I remember every day of your life I was part of.

Bethany Frances Tate. My daughter.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Strutting Hog by James Hanna

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The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.

                                                                           -Bob Dylan

You are alive to the moment—nothing more. And the moment is not alive to you. The shrunken path you walk, the fogbanks swirling around you, the overgrown forest that slows your stride offer neither cheer nor condolence. Rather they make you feel perishable, as though you have stumbled here in your sleep.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Counting Leaves by Tim Frank

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“I want you to go out into the street today, Lionel, and stand there, for maybe an hour or so, then come back and tell me what you’ve seen. I want you to be real descriptive, make it all come alive. Don’t let me down because I’m really getting fed up sitting here, not even able to see a leaf on a tree. You’ve got your problems, but you still have your sight so please treasure it and share it with me.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Scratch by Tom Sheehan

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In the whole of Riverside Cemetery this was the one stone that had slipped its mooring, leaned not forward into the new millennium, but backward, into the one passed by mere years ago, as if saying it was tired of all the holding on. In one instant the scribed name was home with me: Dumont Pulsifier, an old pal from my neighborhood, but everybody, including his mother and his dead father while he was here, had called him “Scratch.”

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Literally Reruns, Short Fiction

Literally Reruns – The Bracelet by David Henson

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Leila has gone back quite a way with this one and singled out a long time friend of the site. David Henson has stuck with us for a long time and it’s great to see his work getting another moment in the sun. This is what she said:

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Latest News, Short Fiction, Writing

Week 302 – Showaddywaddy, Yes Jesus Loves Me And Everyone Needs Some Bowakawa Pousse, Pousse.

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Well here we are at Week 302.

I find it interesting not just the state of mind that someone is in when they write but actually when they write.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Band of Barnyarders by Leila Allison

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22 August. According to my Writer’s Calendar it was Dorothy Parker’s birthday. Mrs. Parker was famous for her wit, light verse, stories, book and theatre reviews, A Star is Born, dogs, as well as alcoholism, suicide attempts, failed romances and a hodge-podge of emotional problems of varying severity. She was the sort of human who was aware that she was human and desperately wished to surrender and join the other side.  Although she already knew that such a thing was tantamount to squaring the circle, it didn’t keep her from trying.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Summer Nightsweats by Shane O’Neill

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Three months have passed since the death of my wife. It has been a long summer, hot and unbearable. My only solace is knowing that it will be my last. I sweat incessantly. Others thrive in the sickly heat. Oh, that the rain would rinse the smiles from their faces. I keep my ghastly body hidden from the outside. Sometimes I cough. Recently more and more. But I rarely dwell on this. Hacking out a thick wad I get on with my business of living and dying. It is all I know.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Cheap Tricks by Alex Sinclair – Warning Adult Content

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“Thanks love,” the red-faced punter wheezed, tossing over a tenner, as Charity Proudfoot wiped away the spunk he had dispensed on her lip with the back of a frayed coat sleeve.

She didn’t reciprocate with a banal pleasantry of her own, as per usual, she just took the dishonest twenty and climbed out the motor, which is how she knew a monster of a rattle was on the way if she didn’t hurry up and get her shit together. Normally you couldn’t shut her up.

Charity the chatterbox had been her school moniker, or as her mam preferred, a right mouthy little pain in the arse.

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