All Stories, General Fiction

Code Blue by Tom Sheehan

 

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That morning, a May Saturday, when Fernando “Fred” Norstrand first put on the police uniform, solid blue deep as a line of defense, bright buttons shining gold-like running down the front straight as ideas cemented in his mind, his wife stood in the bathroom doorway in open admiration of the new spectacle. He had only recently taken off a Navy uniform, discharged from service because of injury. They loved each other that morning with a new and silent abandon, their baby son still asleep, the day already lopsided in their favor, and the man of the house about to start a new job. He had been appointed as a special policeman of the town, assigned to the lone local theater to keep the kids in line, Saturday being the toughest start of all;  popcorn, noise, kids away from parental control, let loose from their homes, very different from the few homes he’d visited during Pacific duty and the home he had grown up in.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Sunrise at Nugaras By Irene Allison

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Ellie awakens from a bad dream.  While the gentle pre-dawn shadows fill her bedroom and strive toward a sense of pastel, she attempts to examine the details of her nightmare, but has only partial success.  The only thing Ellie can recall for certain is being  lost inside a terrible fog composed of tedious sounds and loneliness; a fog in which just being had been the worst thing possible.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Decisions on the Ipswich River by Tom Sheehan

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I was fishing off the bridge over the Ipswich River, a few hundred yards from the Topsfield Fairgrounds. This was a day nothing was supposed to happen, but you know what they say about that stuff… it usually does, like Mike Murphy’s Law or Charlie Poulin’s Law or whatever they call it. Yet enough had occurred already in the last twenty-four hours and the odds were in my favor, or so they said.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Romance

Chasing Josie’s Ghost by Domenic diCiacca

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There’s a wrinkle of land in Stone County, an isolated pocket valley so remote you can hardly find the sky. My wife Sarah and I were happy there. A nearly feral cat lived there too, a scruffy calico that hung around to avoid coyotes. Sarah called her Josie. That cat was neurotic, delusional, paranoid and pathologically afraid of me though I never gave her cause. For three years all I ever saw was a flash of motion or the tip of her tail disappearing around a corner. The exception was anytime my wife ventured outside. Josie would glare death at me and sidle by on stiff legs, back arched and tail fluffed, to get to Sarah’s lap. I didn’t resent it. Sarah could talk tadpoles from a puddle, chant clouds from the sky, charm ticks from a mule’s hide. She surely charmed that cat, and the cat was good for Sarah. I’d leave them to practice their healing magics on each other and go find something useful to do.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Inauguration Day by J. Edward Kruft

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“I love it when they say, ‘no offense but,’ and then they say something totally offensive,” said Lindy. “And by ‘love’ I mean hate,” she added unnecessarily, Barry thought. Not that he was paying much attention to his cousin’s nattering, his mind intent on the farce going on in the basement rumpus room.

Lindy passed the joint to Barry. “I’m hungry,” she whined. “Should we go down and snatch some food?” Barry held his breath as he stared at her, and then blew smoke into the whirling vent above the toilet.

“I’m not going back down there. You go, if you want.”

“Come on,” she said, nipping at his elbow. “It’s your party.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

The Water’s Edge by Nik Eveleigh

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My eyes open and my head is thick. Not as thick as my hair must feel now that the twin sisters of sand and salt have done their work, but thick all the same. Tiny grains shift against my scalp in the breeze but I’m too full of slumber to worry overmuch. I lie back against the sand. Close my eyes.

The beach is quiet now. The laughter and shouting, the frenetic madness of noon has dissipated like the heat of the day. I can see the sun dipping over the water if I raise my head a little. Golden puddles melting into the horizon. For a moment the world is aflame and then twilight succumbs to night.

Rest.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Eddie by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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Isn’t this place just perfect?”

Jan was talking to herself as she wandered around her new home. He hadn’t moved from the lounge.

No! It isn’t. It’s fucking yours! Your house! Your money bought the fucking house! Yours!! Everything is yours!! It will always be yours! God!! I FUCKING HATE THIS!!!

His thought induced tantrum died down. He took a breath and thought of puppies. Eddie liked puppies.

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All Stories, Fantasy, Humour

A Shaggy Crow Story by Nik Eveleigh

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Here begins the third (official) tale of the accumulated adventures of Stormcrow.

I guarantee* that by reading Any Crow In A Storm first you will find this episode 19.73%** funnier. Episode 2 was rubbish. Just ask the Literally Stories editors. Go on, I dare you***

* not an actual guarantee.

** not an actual accurate number.

*** an actual dare.

Either way, in this episode we find our halfling-hating legend so full of his own splendour that he can’t even be bothered to turn up until the last couple of paragraphs…

“Will he be long d’ya reckon?”

“How the bloody hell should I know?” The large-headed swarthy guard rolled his eyes and snorted only to have the effect ruined by a migrant rope of snot who, in excitement and glee at having found a hitherto unknown trap door, smacked straight into the guard’s epiglottis. Mucusy dreams of the bright lights of throat town were shattered in the hawk and spit moments that followed, and as he lay dying, drying, against the stump of an ancient oak the plucky little gobbet found solace in the fact that he had, at the very least, had a go.

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All Stories, Historical

The Generation We Lost by Nik Eveleigh

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All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small
All things wise and wonderful
The Lord God…

*

“I was told I should report here. What do you need me to do?”

“Shovels are over there, buckets are behind you. Dig or help carry it away.”

*

Each little flower that opens
Each little bird that sings…

*

“I’m sorry Mrs Jones but you’ll have to move back. They’re going as fast as they can.”

“I just need to know if Tommy is OK. He is OK isn’t he? He said he was feeling sick this morning but you know what they are like on last day of school…”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

All About the Truth by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

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“Please! Please!!”

“I’ll get the pliers.”

“You really are the type of individual who goes home of a night and masturbates over the bodies in your basement, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“… Please, don’t hurt me!”

“Shut your hole!!”

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