All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Van Damned by Todd Mercer

I’m not saying society is unstable here, but Kidnapping is the third-leading sector of employment. When I flew in, I was shocked by the ubiquity of it, and the apparent randomness of who is selected. So different from back home. Six months later I’ve adapted and am making mind-blowing amounts of money driving a Kidnap Van on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I could ask for more assignments, but the quality of the work-life balance is so important. Two days a week pays all my bills and then some.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Braelin Cordelis by Tom Sheehan

It did not come with electricity or a smash of static on the air, but it was there. Braelin Cordelis, five minutes into the darkness of a new day, a streetlight’s glow falling through his window like a subtle visitor, was caught on the edge of his chair. Knowledge flowed to him, information of a most sublime order, privacy, intimacy, all in one slow sweep of the air; his grandson was just now, just this minute, into this world, his only grandson. He could feel him, that child coming, making way his debut into the universe, and his name would be Shag. And for this life he and Shag would be in a mysterious and incomprehensible state of connection. This, in the streetlight’s glow, in the start of a new day though dawn not yet afoot, he was told.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Shadow Chaser by Culley Holderfield


 

 

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Aleppo, Syria (AP) — Prior to joining the Tawheed Brigade in opposition to the Syrian government, Anwar Addat was a computer technician who never gave much thought to politics or religion.  That was before a barrel bomb delivered by a government helicopter ignited a fire that killed his wife and two children.  These days he goes nowhere without his AK-47 and body armor, and looks every bit the insurgent warrior he has reluctantly become.

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