Tag: murder

All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Absolutely, Positively, Have to Be There Overnight by Todd Mercer

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Commotion from a rumble strip woke me up when the car I was in drifted from the road. The Kid Who Thinks He’s Grown was driving. We both snapped to alertness, there outside Carbondale. It was after 4 a.m., and we had a dawn appointment in Branson, Missouri.

I tried to steal another hour’s sleep, since the Kid always tells me he’s got things under control. But after working all day and now driving through the night, he must’ve needed to talk to stay with it. He asked, “Why are we even out here handling this?” He truly didn’t know, but he never needed a special reason to do his job well. He always seemed glad to be included.

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Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Short Fiction

A Courier with Morals by D. S. Stewart

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Rasmus Dreyer eyes the edge of the macadam, screening the underbrush, the rows of apple trees, the delectable fruit that deer like to forage. It’s from the roadsides where the deer come, darting from the shadows in a shattering second, frozen by fear, leaping through the windshield onto the lap of the driver. The high beam shovels away the darkness, the road spanning over rolling hills, upstate, its post-carded portraits of redwood farmhouses, and white picket fences. Only Pleiades and Saturn provide company and those colliding black holes scientists are constantly clamoring about, making him feel small, insignificant.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Wee Florrie by Ian Ibbetson.

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The interview room was sweltering. Flies gathered around the one small window high up on the street-side wall. The Scottish summer heat didn’t seem to bother the old woman in the other chair. Archie’s first thought was how cool she looked. The tweed jacket remained on despite the heat and the pearls sat perfectly against the olive green twinset. Every tight white curl had been marshalled precisely into position. His own shirt had begun sticking to his back an hour ago.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Fourteenth Victim by Mark Grace

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Twelve bodies in the last month with the same MO. Each victim had blunt force trauma to the back of the head, indicating a surprise attack. Once stunned, the brutal attack continued. The autopsies showed multiple broken bones, ruptured organs, and, in one case, a heart attack. The bruising on the skin indicated that the same weapon used to hit the head was also used to beat the victims to death. The murder weapon was still unknown after twelve murders. Hoofprints were all over each crime scene, which indicates the killer knows how to handle a horse. In a farming community like this one, that offers almost no help.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Taking the Plunge by M.A.B. Lee

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It wasn’t on my mind to kill him, just shut his mouth for a bit. A body needs peace and quiet sometimes. The plunger was right there handy and I picked it up and stuck it over his mouth. It stuck real good, too, I didn’t expect that. Carlton turned red as a beet and before he could pull it off, he keeled over dead. If people knew how dangerous these things were they wouldn’t sell them just anywhere.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

The Stringer by Christopher Ananias

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Extreme Adult Content – refer to the tabs at the bottom of the story

A small dark-haired boy was walking in the fog like a phantom. Lenny Coins thought about his father. How could his father do such a thing—things? But the balloons. What about those?

At the bus stop, Tom waited for Lenny and offered him a Marlboro cigarette. Like he did every morning.

“I’m only eleven. I don’t smoke, Tom.” This was in the eighties when the Marlboro Man rode the range, instead of a hospital bed. Smoking was cool, and serial killers were coming on strong. 

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Thousand Vultures by Christopher Ananias

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The sun is sunny—not thoroughly unpleasant—but not a sun for picnics with Mary Lou down on the Potomac. Mary Lou is dead and buried by some Godless creek in Kansas. Her cross will rot away. A weak hastily made thing of silver birch branches and binder twine. In a year, a month, a week? She will have no marker unless I can find it again. Find her under the creeks torrents of land-grabbing muddy currents and sulking floods. Find her under the black silt and plants rotting white and stinking. Carp flopping on her grave. Then the water washes over again- recedes- and pulls the entire bank and her into it. Best to leave the past in the past.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Death to the Dean by Linda P. Rose

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Muriel McGregor had her champions, but they were far outnumbered by her enemies. Both agreed that the university president had made a mistake when he selected Muriel to be dean of the Humanities College. The tenured faculty were noisy or ominously quiet when discussing Muriel. The untenured professors were discreet. They hugged their fears and were vaguely positive.

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All Stories, Historical, Horror

Ends by Matthew Roy Davey

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The cart creaks, pitches and yaws. A whip cracks up ahead. Four women sit on the floorboards, grey uniforms muddied. Sitting is not an act of mercy, they cannot stand without falling, their hands bound behind their backs. Ruth glances at the other women, but they are all within themselves, eyes unfocused. They have spent many hours together: on duty, in the mess, in the barracks, have shared laughter, secrets, tears. Now they are bloodied, bruised.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Broken Piece of Me by Doyin Ajayi

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Adult Content

For Ann

That sound, sharp.

It slices through the air like a whip. It jolts me awake. I haven’t gotten used to it. The harmattan wind blows through the open windows. I rub my shoulders and try to warm my body up.  The huge searchlight in the yard casts a shadow of the cashew tree on the walls. The branches spook me. They’re wraiths reaching for me, their pointed tips looking like spears aimed at me, reaching for my soul. A woman’s scream. Sergeant Wasiu’s gun cocks again. He’s the chief of the guards – a cruel man with gallows humour. The creeping feeling rises up in me again. The night’s quietness is eerie. The woman’s screams are louder now, they’re bloodcurdling.

The gun roars. Her screams stop abruptly.

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