A cross-country move is a big change, I get that, but no way I deserve this nightmare I’ve landed in. The relocation wasn’t even my idea. Doctor’s orders, right? The doc said I needed a drier climate and less stress. And the move did lower my stress level, at least initially. Putting three thousand miles between me and the cops, that’s a hidden bonus. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the good doctor.
Continue reading “The Horrible Relocation by Marco & Liam Etheridge”
The hole was definitely growing.
Jonty could tell, having just woken from a nap, face tingling with grass imprints and a half-crushed flailing ladybird stuck on his eyelashes, to find the hole bigger and nearer.
Jonty was seen as a shabby, acceptable kind of aristo who loitered in gardens on dewy mornings, drunk or whimsical, misquoting Homer and asking for a crustless sandwich while he sat, as squat as a stone rounded by a forgiving sea, marvelling at the stains on his tie.
Continue reading “Personal Growth by Ben Fitton”
As a kid, he was the one who found nickels, dimes, and quarters on the sidewalk, got two candy bars to fall into the well of the vending machine when he had only paid for one, and succeeded where so many others had failed in bashing open the piñata. Two or three times, when he wasn’t ready for a test, the teacher wouldn’t show up. Test cancelled. Stuff like that. His whole life.
Continue reading “Why Is Jake Always So Lucky? by Paul Crehan”
The congregation came to him in the merest tendrils of the dawn’s earliest and sickest light, the sky’s face the same faded blue of an overdose.
They came to him like faces in a fever dream, seeking answers as they always did. The preacher didn’t have them. He was looking for answers of his own. He was dope-sick after all, the slow crawl of heroin fidgeting in his collapsing veins as it made its retreat, making the marrow of his bones ache. His body was already begging for more liquid forgiveness, and there was the other issue that he needed to attend to, the issue that made his need all the more desperate, the issue that had marooned the preacher in the sleepless raft of his stiff bed with nothing but his anxious thoughts to sustain him.
Continue reading “Spite by Alex Sinclair”
First thing is this: You didn’t catch me. You aren’t smart enough to catch me. I gave up. I confessed. That’s it. Make sure you get it right.
Second thing is this: I have regret. I mean it. I really feel bad about killing those people. Except that first guy, but that’s different, because he deserved it. But the other six? Okay, yeah, maybe some more than others, but I have regret.
You want me to run through them? Fine. Take notes, because I’m not doing this twice.
Continue reading “The Confession of the Mayo Killer by Thurman Hart”
As one of the new faculty members at a small Midwestern college, I used to get the short straw when it came to various off-campus activities, such as ‘community outreach’. Basically, that involved a long drive out to some godforsaken rural township in the middle of nowhere to give a talk on local history to a bunch of bored Shriners. Who never asked questions, never showed any more interest than ‘that’s another event ticked off the calendar’ and who wouldn’t even stump up for dinner afterwards. Which meant hunting down a diner somewhere for a slice of pie as a reward to myself, partnered with a stay-awake coffee and refill.
Continue reading “Gentlemens’ Agreement by Steven French”
Adult content – see tags at the bottom of the story
I don’t believe in God; and I’ll tell you why. I don’t believe that good exists. There’s just evil and the absence of evil. It’s like your air conditioner doesn’t actually blow cold on you. It simply absorbs the heat and expels it elsewhere.
Continue reading “The Absence of Good by Thurman Hart”
The service station was different. While it was busy, it was quiet: a gentle hum of conversation and the odd rattle of cutlery and crockery. Everything was calm. There was no panic, no urgency, no pain.
Continue reading “Hartshead Moor Services – Westbound by Matthew Roy Davey”
Every bone in her body warned Ellie Snyder to turn Bertha Miller away at the door; still, she took the haggard woman in and brewed the tea, fragrant as a Balsam fir in December. Clay Miller’d already saddled her with five kids, and one more might just put Bertha in her grave. Only problem with saving the wretch was Bertha’s need to make confession—it was religion that’d trip her up. The woman was a walking apology, a sinner perpetually pleading for redemption. Ellie hoped to hell she’d confess to somebody other than her damn husband.
Continue reading “Tansy by Nancy Smith Harris”
I am bleeding out on Corbin Harrow’s million-dollar, Moroccan, cream-colored rug because he raped a child in 1983. The blood rushing out of the hole just above my right hip-bone runs down my leg and pools at the rug’s edge. The spirit of my mother suddenly possesses me then, and I turn my head to Corbin, frozen only feet from me—still holding the fire poker he’s just pulled out of my side—to tell him that if he acts now, he can still get the stain out. After all, it’s only on one corner.
Continue reading “Corbin Harrows Moroccan Rug by Reese Alexander”
