All Stories, General Fiction

Beast of Burden by Tanushree Mukherjee

literallystories2014

It was narrow, stuffed chock-a-block with all manner of drug-related paraphernalia. It was a ‘smoke and gift shop’ in name, but sold everything from oil burners to sexual performance-enhancing pills. At some point, there had been a debate on whether the store was allowed to stock condoms. But I was only half listening by that time. My first impression, when I had walked in on seeing the ‘now hiring’ sign, was that it was too brightly lit. The illumination was plain white light of the kind that seems to render everything naked. Everything from the owner’s greed to make money off people’s weaknesses to the stark depths people sank to, to fuel their addictions.

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All Stories, Horror

To Martin’s Farm by Travis Flatt

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Hell is a frozen lake.

Crashing from the far end of the house. It’s my wife, Anna, dragging the boy inside from the garage. She’s plucked him up from school on her rush home from work. They’re shouting at each other, arguing, both near tears it sounds like. I reach over and slap the bedroom door shut. On the bedside table, my phone screeches the alert siren again. Any minute now, my wife will appear at the door and tell me to get up.  The siren alert wouldn’t let me sleep, so while she was gone, I hopped up and packed–or, hit, that is, the things I need to keep here, be sure she doesn’t take: a kitchen knife and an extension cord. Anna flings open the bedroom door;  the knob spikes sharply against the wall. “Lee, get up. We have to get ready.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Final Meeting by Ian Forth

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He wasn’t looking forward to the meeting with her, which had been arranged for four o’clock. When in her presence, he felt he was under a malign spell. He would look at his feet or the ceiling, anywhere except at her face. When she was talking, the muscles in his face contorted into a sneer, over which he had no control. His replies became monosyllabic; his voice flat.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Lakota Betty by Tom Sheehan

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It had been about 20 years since the ignominious raid on the Indian village at River Hill had taken place. The army captain, Gregory Merton, who led the raid, and all his officers, and supposedly all but one of the enlisted ranks, had been killed in later actions. The sole known enlisted rank not dead was a retired sergeant, Martin O’Keeffe, who told the discharging officer on the day he left the army that there was one other witness to the raid, and he hoped she was still living.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Clean up in the Meat Dept. by J. Bradley Minnick

literallystories2014

I see her in the supermarket. She wears an oversized pink sweat shirt displaying two big cloth cut-out letters that signify sorority. She is maybe 30, beautiful, and not alone.

Her cart rattles against the unevenness of the shiny supermarket floor. A large man, her boyfriend I imagine, dressed in unmatched wrinkles, stands facing backwards wearing a backward baseball cap on the front of the cart she pushes. I watch as he cleans off various shelves with his broad arm while he uses the heels of his untied sneakers at intervals to slow the cart. “Woody” is written across his massive gray sweat shirt.

“Woody,” I murmur to myself. 

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All Stories, Sunday whoever

Sunday Whoever

literallystories2014

Another chance to satisfy the nosey parker in most of us. This week we have a cheeky look at a writer who has been with us since 2015 and has two pages of diverse and excellent stories. He is a delight to work with and without further ado I give you Mr Frederick K Foote:

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Editor Picks, General Fiction, Latest News, Short Fiction

458: Personality Issues; Beautiful Losers and Winners

ireneallison12

Personality

Hypocrisy and altruism stop at roughly the same point in a person. Although finally copping to your own rottenness and experiencing exhaustion at the highest level of do-goodishness you are capable of are not the same thing, both terminate close enough to the center of a person to form a picture.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Sorting Apples by Ann Marie Potter

literallystories2014

“One of his girls, the youngest I think, got killed by that thing a few years back. Got her scarf caught and strangled.” Like many of her father’s words, poorly formed and slick with alcohol, these came with a belch.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Horror

Simian Revenge by Marco Etheridge

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Cling mama fur. Green tree. Blue sky. Rain, mud, vine, climb. Chase, run, catch, tickle, roll-roll-roll. Run, catch, tickle, Hoot! Hoot! Eat warm fruit. Sleep high, night breeze. Morning sun. Hot sun. Little bugs, itchy. Fingers in fur. Bad bugs. Find, bite.

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