It was early Thursday afternoon on Halloween. The sound of an email alert on the other side of his studio apartment made Wally Ray Tucker sit up beside the pale redhead drifting off in his bed. Their extended nooner had given them enough time for a double play, but there would be no hat trick. A lifelong friend who recently added with benefits to their relationship, CC had to get back to her office in Rockville. He nudged her, slid out of bed, and went to his desktop computer. As she washed and dressed in the bathroom, he checked his email and printed out an attachment. Then he read it. And felt his throat constrict.
Continue reading “One Known Drop by Gary Earl Ross”Tag: terrorism
Ghosting By Tom Koperwas
Eddy Cutmore grinned as he placed the large black briefcase containing the bioweapon next to the channel of water flowing into the city’s underground reservoir. Depressing the green button on the side of the briefcase, he linked it with the other bioweapons he’d hidden close to the city’s vital ventilation and water sources. All that was left was to activate the trigger and release the plethora of pathogens. He leaned forward and put his finger on the switch.
Continue reading “Ghosting By Tom Koperwas”An Evening at Sonia’s by Martin Rosenstock
Howard Adams turned off the engine and gazed at the anthracite column of the high-rise. He counted the floors up to the ninth. The lamp by Sonia’s futon shone through the gauze curtains, a penumbra of warm yellow. Adams checked his watch. The haris, a young guy with a scruffy beard, might still be sitting behind the lobby desk. He would lift his head with a studiously blank expression when Adams walked past. The haris’s eyes would then follow the unbeliever to the elevator, well aware of the sins being committed in his building. The prayer bump on the haris’s forehead always caused a cramp in Adams’s solar plexus. Did the guy worry her at all? Sonia had flattened her mouth in that amused way of hers, half-closed her eyes, shaken her head—“I tip him well.”
Continue reading “An Evening at Sonia’s by Martin Rosenstock”Tea Man by Patty Somlo
We meet every morning in the coffee shop next door to the hotel. There’s Zia, with his three shots of espresso and who knows how many packets of sugar. Ali takes his coffee with plenty of cream. Aqmed orders one of those fancy drinks with an Italian name I wouldn’t dare try to pronounce. Every day something different. “What is it today?” Zia always asks Aqmed, as if there’s something a bit too girlish about Aqmed, a man who doesn’t drink his coffee black and strong. Then, of course, there is me. Omar. I am a tea man.
