All Stories, General Fiction

Just Plain Hard Work of Ages, Work of Comets by Tom Sheehan

The tip of the shovel had talked to him with a dull thud, not just through his ears, but totally. It came into his hands and up the stiffness of his arms, through the quick riot of nerves on red alert, through all passageways of recognition. It was wood! At its tip was wood, a cavernous wood, a chesty wood, an enclosing wood. Promise poised itself, much like awards’ night and names to be named. Light leaped at his back, behind his head. Down through the awesome sky of darkness he could feel a star draining, down through thirty-five years of a hole.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Fear by Simon Bell

“Standing in the necromantic pit, in the depths of the crypt of his tower the Dark Lord could feel the Wyrd Work of the King. He could sense the deceitful and untrustworthy akashic forces leaving him and coming under the King’s command – inexpertly at first but with growing confidence the young monarch wove the patterns.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Brisling’s Code by Tom Sheehan

“Brisling!” yelled his boss Marquis, “if you don’t get out of the way, I’ll kick your ass for good.” And Marquis, darker but plump himself, wearing an atrocious suit with orange lines in it, smiled that puffy-cheeked grin he’d always use, like it was punctuation itself. I’m the boss and you’re the slob, it said. It was nothing less than a tongue speaking right at Brisling’s ear. Even commas and periods were in place, the exclamation points by the fingers. If there were question marks, he’d know them. He bet he could quote him verbatim, all the ways the boss man moved. All of it was catalogued, scored, filed away in his mind.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Fool on the Hill by Dave Gregory

I work for the federal government.

Federal.

Government.

I don’t know what that means.

Yes I do. It means pushing this broom from one end of the hall to the other ─ this end to that end ─ when it’s dark outside. Like now. I don’t like the dark, but these humming lights always work. If they don’t, I must report them to my boss. Mr. Shapiro.

Report them.

Does that make me a reporter? No one likes reporters.

Jackals. Hounds.

I hope the humming lights never burn out.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Running Errands by Nathan Willis

We saw it coming the whole time. Chase was a nice enough guy; he just wasn’t cut out for this line of work. We watched him fail over and over, everyday. For a while we tried to help but there were just too many mistakes and most of them were pretty big. It would have been a full time job minimizing the damage he caused. When he had to answer to Fisher in the morning meetings he’d stammer out fragments of explanations he hoped one of us would jump in and finish. None of us ever did. We couldn’t. We were as blown away by his mistakes as everyone else. All we could do was look at our shoes and hope he wouldn’t cry again. That only happened a few times but that was enough for all of us.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Sixth Floor by Adam Kluger

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Author’s image for The Sixth Floor

“Welcome to your new home down on the sixth floor, Mr. Smith…it may just look like a cubicle farm… but it’s really so much more”

“Call me Ted, please…otherwise you’ll make me feel older than I already am.”

“You got it Mr. Smith…I mean Ted…any questions?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of a million…but none right now.”

“Isn’t that always the case.”

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All Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction

The Adamant Carbonisation Of Henry Spiller by Nik Eveleigh

typewriter

37G Henry Spiler.

Henry Spiller had long stopped caring about the missing letter on the nameplate demarcating the faceless geography of his workspace. Terry O’Callahan over in 19F had got his fixed up after his wife dropped by for lunch and nagged him about it for three straight days.

Maybe Terry used up the last L anyway

Henry had bigger things on his mind. Deadlines had to be met. In seventeen years he’d never missed a single one but this would be tight. The faint chirp from his terminal could only mean things were about to get tighter.

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