Tag: crime

All Stories, General Fiction

Victorian Anthropology by Martyn Clayton

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Having spent the previous day stripping layers of old paint off the shop front the last thing she wanted to do today was begin on the interior. But needs must. Her body complained as she dragged it out of bed, Al still snoring contentedly beside her. He was a lazy bastard but to be fair to the boy he’d worked hard the previous day. He’d climbed ladders and brewed up and carried stuff and taken increasingly fraught instructions as she slowly reached the end of her tether. He moved an arm and an eye shot open then closed again, his head being buried further down into the pillow.

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All Stories, Horror

Crimson Memory By Marie McCloskey

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typewriterHer legs began to go numb as they tingled from her weight. She was on her knees again, scrubbing. Always scrubbing. The chill of the linoleum floor made goosebumps run over her thighs under her pants.

This home didn’t belong to her. She wouldn’t enjoy the benefits of her labors. Mrs. McCormick, or Mrs. Glenn, or Mrs. Whomever Ella worked for that day would come home after she left. All part of the job, you show up, clean, and leave.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

Plumbeck the Fiddler by Tom Sheehan

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Watching every move about the campfire, studying each face lit up by the flickering flames, the fiddler Sam Plumbeck idly held onto his instrument, waiting for the proper moment. Time, he could feel, was pressing down on him; it had different parts that moved in different ways. The stars all the way to the horizon dip were many and miraculous, the horses silent for the most part even though a coyote cry filtered in now and then, and the darkness beyond wrapped them like a giant robe spread under those stars. He had ridden in, apparently aimlessly to all the trail hands, and joined up with them on their way back to their ranch, the promise of music being hailed by all the hands who had delivered the herd, were through with the drive. He alone, out of all these trail hands who had hit the jackpot, knew what was coming down on them. Nothing is supposed to be perfect or fair; at least this side of heaven, or the mass of a blue sky, or the dash of sunlight on a rainy day. And he, just a picker of strings, with not a coin of the gold in the lot having his name on it, could only wait it all out, hoping for the best and only seeing the worst coming up.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Daniel’s Day by Anthony Wobbe

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Daniel was covered in tattoos and facial piercings; to me he looked clownish, like a painted up fishing lure.  He sat in my office, fidgety and nervous, waiting for the lunch meeting to be over; someone told him I was the person with the authority to approve his lease.  When I got there the receptionist whispered that he’d waited the entire two hours.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Connecting the Dots by Patrick Henry

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typewriterI came of age in a time of no heroes.  Or, rather, in a time when, because seemingly everyone was a hero, no one was.  At least that was how Mariska explained it to me.  She said that we Americans were so desperate to be saved from terrors both real and imagined that we’d pin a medal on just about anything that moved.

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All Stories, Historical

Swords Hanging on the Walls by Richard Mark Glover

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“My father, Franz Josef Schennach, was a gendarme, Hauptmann, in Tirol.  After the Nazi took over, he had to prove that he was Arian. He could not prove this,” Anna Stenson said. She looked across the room from her chair.

“Brown eyes go to Africa…  They taunted me. At school. Only the blue eyes would stay in Europe, if Hitler won. I was hoping he would not,” she said adjusting the hem of her skirt.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Author (Part 2 – extended version) By Frederick K Foote

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Link to The Author – (Part 1)

The next morning I arrive at Judge Fong’s office at 7:30 am as ordered. I’m suffering a headache hangover. I’m mildly irritated to see the Judge’s Clerk beaming with excitement. “What’s up Bob? You look remarkably bright this morning.”
Robert “Bob” Mitchell gives me a classic shit-eating grin. “Tecumseh, your ass is grass. The Judge’s mad as hell at you for letting your client get killed. What the hell was that all about? That’s all everybody’s talking about is the Mayhew mess. The word is he was practicing voodoo–”

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook by dm gillis

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Day #16

The Little Rules of Engagement Handbook—Rule #1: Once you have arrived at your assigned location, hunker down and wait for ancillary instructions from your Assignment Coach.

4 a.m.

The crows quarrel over dead rat scraps in the gutter.

CNN, I haven’t turned it off for two weeks. Images of desert proxy-wars, percolate through the cable; ISIS driving US Iraq-abandoned Humvees and armoured vehicles; teenage recruits firing AK-47s into the Mosul sky; American Republican Party candidates debating penis size.

The assignment is to instigate a shakeup, by diverting the ginger haired sociopath’s motorcade down the street below my window. I have his picture taped to the wall, a smug man orbiting himself. He’s been granted Secret Service protection. That may complicate things. There’ll probably be revolution if I accomplish my assignment. A master class in failed democracy, for all those who care to attend.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Author Part 2 by Frederick K. Foote

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Click here to read Author (Part 1)

The next morning I arrive at Judge Fong’s office at 7:30 am as ordered. I’m suffering a headache hangover. I’m mildly irritated to see the Judge’s Clerk beaming with excitement. “What’s up Bob? You look remarkably bright this morning.”

Robert “Bob” Mitchell gives me a classic shit-eating grin. “Tecumseh, your ass is grass. The Judge’s mad as hell at you for letting your client get killed. What the hell was that all about? That’s all everybody’s talking about is the Mayhew mess. The word is he was practicing voodoo–”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Killing Frost by Sharon Frame Gay

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James Frost leaned back in the recliner, adjusting his body into the soft confines of the old chair. It was leather, shiny with age, comfortable as a slipper. It was the only piece of furniture he had brought with him from home when he moved into Garden Court last year. Hell, at ninety-two it was time that he treat himself to a little comfort. He was tired of cooking, tired of housework, tired of watching his late wife’s garden wilt and deteriorate into patches of dirt, only memories remaining of the gladioli, daisies, and Lily of The Valley that Millie loved.

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