Tag: crime fiction

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Hunting Ground by Gary Earl Ross

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Dr. Dylan Harrington removes the tubed mask from the nose and mouth of Kieu Nguyen—or Katie, as she calls herself on social media pages he’s visited. After shutting off the delivery machine, he gazes at her for several heartbeats. Her blue eyebrow stud matches the stone in each earlobe. Short black hair, upturned nose, bow-shaped mouth, unblemished skin with just enough color to make her exotic. She looks delicious without the thick black glasses now on the counter, atop her Animal Farm paperback. The faint slant of her closed eyes testifies to her mixed parentage. At last the uninsured high schooler reclines in his chair, under general anesthesia. She will stir in ninety minutes, jaw throbbing, wisdom teeth gone, a stitch or two in place, and dental cotton packed around four extraction sites. But before she wakes…

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Cause and Effect by Diane M Dickson

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The sound was awful and those who lived on the ground floor knew right away that something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t the clang and clatter made when kids chucked stuff over the concrete balconies, and it wasn’t the soft thud like the time the nutter on the tenth floor threw all her clothes over in a bin bag. This was a heavy ‘thunk’.

Josie sitting in the gloom at her place on the corner thought it sounded like the You Tube video of someone smashing their head into a watermelon. In fact, this was a sort of reverse truth and a darned good analogy according to the police.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Ballad of Simon Bolter by David Ford

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The only thing fake about me is my name. Everything else, from the leather of my riding coat, to the bullets in my revolver, to most importantly, the intentions in my heart, are very real. To the world, I will soon be known as Simon Bolter, but to one currently unsuspecting soul, I will even sooner be known as “the man who robbed me.”

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All Stories, Horror

The Levite by R. R. Setari

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The first came in at nine thirty. A bag lady. Large plastic shoppers and canvas sacks hung from her shoulders. Even more burst through the metal frame of the grocery cart she left in the lobby. Hair wrapped in a kerchief, body wrapped in at least three coats, she handed a newspaper wrapped package to Officer Hill. He promptly vomited. Those of us who had been making coffee or taking calls now gathered around to absorb the horror. Lt. Mahoney let out a low whistle before snarking,“Somebody pissed somebody off.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

One of the Good Ones by Tom Matthews

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Joe replayed kissing Katy in his mind as he exited the train station. From the soft, tentative touch as their lips met for the first time, to the breathless parting as they released themselves from their fervent embrace. The smell of her perfume lingered on him. His heart pounded. Although only a second date, he felt certain he was on to something special. The long stroll home was what he needed to end the perfect evening.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Camel by Jay Tanji

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The cerulean waters of the Mediterranean splashed against the rocks below my table at the bar. I’d secured a seat on the cliff’s edge under the bamboo canopy of Ca’s Patró March, a seaside bar overlooking the popular inlet of Cala Deia. It was still early in the spring and the cove wasn’t yet filled with the typical sunbathers, swimmers, and cliff jumpers of the summer months. The bar was relatively empty with the exception of a German couple discussing the insurance package on their villa over two cañas grandes and a table of three profane teenagers sipping on Coca-Cola. I skimmed over the copy of the Majorca Bulletin strewn out in front of me, reading the garbage my fellow journalists had written for the week.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Cure by Corey Olds

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“Four horsemen on a broke-dick mule!” exclaimed Dr. A.P. Cary, as he pressed off the Orget.

He couldn’t believe what he had seen. His sister Beverly—had she been there—would have said, “Y’all going out the world ass backward.” And they were. The denizens of Sand City had lost their natural-born minds. The shit was ridiculous. Teenagers, twelve-year-olds, lucky-to-be-twenties blicking each other as if homicide were going out of style. What they failed to understand was that they were blicking at the wrong MFs. When the bluecoats routinely blazed holes in sons, fathers, daughters, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts, the self-proclaimed savages didn’t do anything. Rarely did they risk their life to take a devil to hell. All those Sand City villains misunderstood who the opps really were.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Smoke from the Chimney by Tom Sheehan

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Diagonally, out my back window, pal Buzz Chadsy’s house sits like a white peppermint on the side lane, one house between us. In winter’s Christmas snow, it celebrates life and color, at Easter the calm is newly evident, at night a single bulb lights the living edifice. Many late evenings, it is the last sign of life as I trod to bed, to a deep sleep, or a night full of dreams on the run.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

For Love of a Three-Legged Horse by Marco Etheridge

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The interrogation room is like any other. This one happens to be inside the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville. A steel table occupies the middle of the room, legs bolted to the floor. Two chairs face each other across the scarred tabletop. The chairs are secured to the floor as well, for good reason and from accumulated bitter experience.

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