The searing heat drove them inside to rest. Scavenging could wait until nightfall.
“Gran,” Caleb said, “tell me a story.”
She licked her dry lips, remembering other Octobers. “Leaves turned bright colors and fell from trees. We raked huge piles and jumped in.”
Caleb frowned. “Leaves? Trees? What are those?”
Joanne R. Fritz lives in West Chester, PA. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in various magazines. She blogs at My Brain on Books.
The young girl looked broken beyond her cracked cheekbone and bloodied, blackened eye. She’d been so pretty, so innocent, Marianne remembered, when her boy, Jake, had brought the girl to Sunday dinner last week.
As she dabbed a washcloth against the clotting blood, she knew she’d failed as a mother.
Melissa is a writer, teacher, and dog-lover living in the Middle of Nowhere, Michigan.
The time viewer was built on the theory that positrons were electrons traveling backward in time. I could view the future of Lunar City.
Then I viewed an hour forward and the screen flashed white, then—
nothing.
Nothing.
So now I sit thinking, what can I do? What would you?
Teel James Glenn is the multiple award-winning author of the bestselling Exceptionals series, the Maxi/Moxie series, the Dr. Shadows series, the Renfairies series, and others. Visit him at theurbanswashbuckler.com.
In his basement, Hubert began the disembowelment.
His knife skillfully pierced the flesh with a surgeon’s deftness. Innards strewn across the floor, Hubert then turned his attention to the face.
Afterwards, with a sated grin, he admired his handiwork.
He inserted the jack-o’-lantern candle, ready to lure the next child.
Alison loves a good scare and has a dark sense of humor.
She was a beloved skilled teacher. Her classroom was ruled with a quiet discipline that eluded many.
Then one day she came in with a new haircut, and everyone saw that there was no secret or exceptional teaching skill; she really did have eyes in the back of her head.
Jackie Kingon has published two articles in The New York Times, a feature piece about her experiences teaching in an inner city school in the south Bronx, titled A Year in the Trenches, and Beautiful Music, about an autistic musician. Her futuristic comic mystery, Chocolate Chocolate Moons, is called “delightful” by Kirkus Review and “a humorous romp sure to please” by Midwest Book Review. She has finished the sequel, Sherlock Mars.
Walt was afraid of heights.
Velma climbed onto the roof to adjust the antenna during the football game.
Walt heard a small bird flutter against the window. He turned up the volume.
Outside, the ladder lay on the ground. Velma clung to the ledge, her shoe rapping against the glass.
Jyll Thomas has been published on PasteMagazine.com, Bibliographile.com, Intown Atlanta, and Atlanta Magazine. She regularly submits stories to the-five-hundred.com, a monthly 500 word story writing challenge. This is her first time submitting to 50 Word Stories.
i feel better now they give me pills and not hook me to the clicky box.
Im going to a differnt place so i must be getting better.
almost evryone looks happy around me. i will miss them.
even the mean nite nurse sed hes glad im going to hosspess.
Kevin Ivan Smith is helping move a laboratory by day and recovering from it by night.
In November, he bought a new coat. It was Cyber Monday, a great deal.
In May, it was a new pair of swim trunks shipped straight to his house.
The man’s obsession with online shopping was unaffected by the fact the weather rarely changed in the inside of his flat.
Jane Danforth is a high school senior who would rather be writing fiction than college essays.
The story of the week for October 5 to 9 is…
Cold Callers by Carol Browne
Wordplay and murder; what a combo.
Lisa kept sweet Kyle confined to her heart, refusing to allow a breath without her approval.
Kyle believed himself lucky. She was, after all, smart, beautiful, wealthy; so he did “good time.”
The seventh time Lisa bloodied him in a fit of unprovoked rage, Kyle decided his sentence was up.
Hillary Nichols is proving more and more every day that it’s never too late, for anything.