Tag: literally stories

All Stories, Horror

To Martin’s Farm by Travis Flatt

literallystories2014

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

literallystories2014

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

literallystories2014

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

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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, Horror

Simian Revenge by Marco Etheridge

literallystories2014

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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All Stories, General Fiction

The Elephant in the Room by Barbara O’Byrne

literallystories2014

Across from her, Mabel was spooning her poached eggs while Emily rambled through a litany of complaints. Today it was the eggs, over-cooked, the night nurse tapping on her door at night, “You can’t hear her, can you, Frances? So annoying.” Frances nodded. Anything else would invite more exchanges with Emily, who laced every conversation with a side order of disdain. A smoke. She needed a smoke. Where was Jerome?

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All Stories, Historical

Two African Lessons by Michael Bloor

literallystories2014

All through the eighteenth century, Britain had profited from the slave trade more than any other nation. Finally, in 1807, an Act of Parliament was passed prohibiting the slave trade. The act also established a squadron of navy ships to patrol the West African coast and intercept slave traders of all nations, not just British traders. Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron intercepted an estimated 1,600 ships and freed an estimated 150,000 slaves.

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